How to Evaluate an Online Marketing Service
If you’ve got a budget for website promotion, I know about a hundred companies that want your business. Be it PPC, banner ads, link placements, paid blogging, search engine optimization, or any of a dozen other industry buzz words, they all have different strategies for driving traffic. With so many choices, it can be hard to know which ones are valuable. Answer the following questions, however, and you’ll have a good idea whether a service deserves your money.
How is the price of the service determined?
There are many different cost metrics thrown around in online marketing: CPC, CPA, CPM, flat rate, etc. Ultimately, the only important metric is how much the service costs versus how much value it delivers (i.e., ROI). However, different cost metrics elicit different quality concerns. With CPA, you have to be more cautious about the quality of conversions, with CPC, the conversion rate, and with CPM, the clickthrough rate. Always be on guard that the provider might be illegitimately inflating your costs.
How likely is the traffic to convert?
The question here is whether the visitors’ demographics and intent match your site’s conversion goal. What is the age range of the visitors? What are their interests? If you’re selling something, how much disposable income do they have and where are they at in the buying cycle? This will require testing to verify, but you can often get a good idea of traffic quality by asking where that traffic is coming from before it reaches your site.
How much volume can the service drive?
It’s possible for a channel to deliver a great ROI, but only at a low volume. If a channel doesn’t produce enough traffic and/or conversions, it may not be worth the trouble to manage in the first place.
How well does the service scale?
Business needs have an tendency to change. The best online marketing services can scale in cost and volume to meet those needs. Often, scalability is the key to retaining a service over the long term.
Does the service use affiliates?
Depending on the nature of your conversions and the cost metric involved, affiliates may be useful. For example, when e-commerce transactions are required, affiliates are generally safe. However, if your conversions are, say, form submissions, fraud becomes a chief concern. In situations like this, affiliate-based services are best used cautiously or avoided all together.
Is the traffic incentivized in any way?
As with affiliates, incentivized traffic may or may not be useful depending on the nature of your conversion and the cost metric involved. Generally speaking, though, you want visitors who are interested in your offer, not visitors who just clicked through to get a flat screen TV.
Does the service offer online utilities?
Speaking from experience, nothing is more frustrating than managing a service that doesn’t offer online reporting and management utilities. Services that lack online utilities are suspect, either because they aren’t willing to give you transparency and control, or because they lack the technical savvy to create them.
Does the service include a campaign manager?
Although management and reporting utilities are the ideal, when large-scale adjustments need to be made, a dedicated human being can help reduce your management overhead. Obviously, you should prefer campaign managers that are good at achieving your goals.
How easily can the service be terminated?
When it comes to online marketing services, a contract is almost always involved. Depending on your faith in the service, you’ll want to be sure that the contract can be terminated to minimize losses if the ROI turns sour.
NumberNeal Responds to Digg Bans: Insights in Community-Based Website Strategy
Earlier this month, popular social news site Digg banned a number of its users, citing script abuse. This sparked an outcry from the Digg community, including the following video letter from power Digg Neal “NumberNeal” Rodriguez (the same Neal to whom I recently offered some SEO career advice):
I only started using Digg recently, so my opinion of the ban is nowhere near as well-qualified as Neal’s. However, I’d like to walk through several of his key points and see what can be learned about running a successful community-based website.
“Your user, period, comes first.”
Neal asserts that Digg is penalizing user scripts in order to boost its impression count and advertising revenue. This, combined with Digg’s failure to provide its users with an efficient alternative to scripts, constitutes an unacceptable conflict of interest in Neal’s mind. As he puts it, “You’re not caring for your user by banning your user.”
My Take: Community-based websites live or die on their user base. There’s no debating whether Digg has the right to enforce its Terms of Use. However, it’s worth questioning whether those terms should evolve to accommodate changing user needs. At the very least, Digg should offer its users a better explanation of why such strict enforcement is in everyone’s best interests. Really, any explanation would have been better than, “…we believe that the larger Digg community is adversely impacted by people who choose to violate the TOU.” By failing to address the issue in a user-centric manner, Digg is only fueling negative user perceptions.
“Know your market.”
Neal points out that marketers and new media enthusiasts are the primary audience on Digg. By penalizing networking and self-promotion, he argues, Digg is alienating its most active promoters. He goes on to propose that Digg, “embrace marketers,” by offering users the tools and information needed to succeed on its platform. He even goes so far as to suggest that Digg pay its most active users instead of banning them.
My Take: To me, this may be an illustration of the difference between an actual audience and an intended one. Digg’s desire seems to be a broader appeal. In fact, it’s quite likely that its attractiveness to marketers is the unintended side effect of its success. Whether this is a smart move or not, it seems clear that Digg is trying to recapture its intended user base by doing exactly alienating marketers just as Neal says its doing. I do agree with Neal, though; marketers go where the traffic is. Digg would be better off in the long run by embracing them in the same healthy way that Google does.
“Digg is not the only platform out there.”
Neal presents statistics to demonstrate the effect of Digg’s actions. Unique visitors on Digg appear to be going down, while unique visitors on other social media websites appear to be going up.
My Take: As above, I doubt this is an unexpected consequence. If Digg is out to alienate marketers and make the site more attractive to casual users, they may be willing to take a calculated hit to their popularity to see it happen. Whether they’re killing the goose that laid the golden egg or patiently giving it a chance to lay again is up for debate. Only time will tell if such heavy-handed tactics add value or spell the downfall of the site.
Bridging the Digital Divide to Combat Poverty
What can a person do to elevate him or herself from poverty? What can the rest of us do to help the less fortunate and combat poverty on the local, national, and even global levels?
Everyone has a different opinion. Certainly, there are many good answers to this question, and you’ll probably hear a lot of them today. That’s because today is Blog Action Day, a day the blogosphere has singled out to discuss an important topic. This year it’s poverty. Since I’m not one to miss out on a good meme, here is my niche-appropriate take on the matter.
The one thing that separates the haves from the have-nots is most often education, not necessarily in the sense of school but in the sense of knowledge acquisition. After all, we’ve all heard of successful individuals who never so much as graduated from high school. Those with access to knowledge can develop and thrive, as individuals and as communities.
Before the modern age, knowledge was a limited resource, available only through books and teachers. Providing knowledge to the less fortunate, then, required considerable resources. That is no longer true. Compared to the significant expense of books and teachers, the cost of providing internet access is almost negligible. For developing countries, the primary expense lies in establishing the electrical and telecommunications infrastructure. Beyond that, decent computers can now be produced en masse and on the cheap.
We have the ability to give the poor access to the greatest information system the world has ever known. Imagine a world without a digital divide, where every person, regardless of their economic background or location in the world, could tap into the same global wealth of knowledge. Everyone could communicate, share, collaborate, and contribute to that knowledge equally. It would be the promise of the internet realized, knowledge leveraged for the good of all.
Granted, I’m biased in this opinion; the internet is my bread and butter. And I’m not deluded enough to think that global internet access would solve the problem of poverty on its own. Especially in developing countries, it wouldn’t be enough. Many people would have to be instructed in basic skills like reading and writing first, and access to information wouldn’t directly solve problems like hunger and healthcare.
Still, I believe it would be a great start. Knowledge is the first step to solving any problem. It’s not about elevating the poor; it’s about empowering them to elevate themselves. To paraphrase the old proverb, give a man information and he learns for a day. Teach a man to use the internet and he learns for a lifetime.
SEO Career Advice for Power Digger Neal Rodriguez
A few weeks ago, my good friend Simon Owens introduced me via email to noted Power Digger Neal Rodriguez. As it turned out, Neal was interested in a career in SEO, and I was more than happy to weigh in with the following advice.
Don’t just be an SEO specialist; be an online marketer.
SEO is a somewhat ambiguous term in the industry, but it’s being regarded more and more as a combination of skills that are independent from SEM (Search Engine Marketing). I’ve got a similar mix of skills that span both categories, and I’ve found the term “online marketer” serves me much better.
Demonstrate past successes with hard numbers.
An important thing to remember is that the focus of any online marketer should always be the bottom line… For example, you achieved page one rankings for ImperialJets.com on competitive terms. That’s all well and good, but how much additional business/revenue did that produce? Remember, we live in a world where black hat SEO companies run rampant and give the industry a bad name by focusing on rankings. It’s often not enough to prove that you’re good at SEO, but that SEO is a valuable marketing tactic. ROI (Return On Investment) should be your bread and butter.
Promote your portfolio.
Whatever your professional skills, in the web industry, it’s becoming more and more useful to have a online portfolio of some kind. It serves the dual purpose of showing off your expertise and demonstrating your ability to create and promote a website on your own. Once you’ve got one, polish it until it shines, then link to it…
Develop a solid understanding of both on- and off-site optimization.
You’re obviously interested in SEO, and your viral marketing and social networking skills are definitely impressive. However, what do you know about on-site optimization? How much do you know about things like keyword research, copywriting, visibility analysis, site architecture, XML sitemaps, link building, etc.? The best results are often achieved by those with both on-site and off-site optimization ability, so if these aren’t things you know much about, they’re skills worth shoring up to further your career potential.
Develop your expertise with web programming.
…do you have any web design or development expertise? (…) In the SEO company where I got my start in the industry, there were about eight analysts who did the heavy lifting in terms of actual optimization (as opposed to copywriters and client managers). All eight of us were also experienced web developers. Granted, many of us got our start as developers and segued into SEO later, but development skills are nonetheless very valuable to the practice.
(Update 11/7/2008: A recent poll on Search Engine Roundtable confirms that programming is second only to marketing as the degree of choice for SEO professionals.)
Broaden your skill set.
Over the years, I have found that my greatest career advances came as the result of a broad skill set. In most jobs, I pull multiple duty as a copywriter, web developer, PPC manager, blogger, and SEO specialist. If you’re serious about a career in online marketing, I’d strongly recommend developing your expertise in related skill sets. Seek out breadth and embrace opportunities to learn something new. It’s worked very well for me.
Pay attention to offline opportunities.
Strangely, during my last few job searches, I managed to land a job out of the newspaper rather than online listings, so I strongly recommend that traditional listing services play a role in your job search. Also, and I know this may sound like the student instructing the professor, but networking does wonders. I have a planned job change in the next few weeks, all thanks to a friendly connection. Given that you found me through Simon, you’re obviously already doing this, so keep up the good work.
Know the demographic of your prospective employer.
…any business can benefit from online marketing, but I find only mid- to large-size businesses have the resources and interest to have their own in-house specialist. Smaller companies have a tendency to outsource such a specialized role.
A Note about Neal Rodriguez
I haven’t known Neal very long, but my advice to prospective employers is this: Power Diggers don’t come along ever day, so don’t wait; he won’t be on the market long. The fact that he wrote a guest post for Marketing Pilgrim should give you a hint that he knows what he’s doing. If you’re interested, you can email him at notifyneal at gmail.com.
Explaining Blogs to the Uninformed
When I first mentioned the word “blog” to my wife back in 2005, she swore I’d made it up. It wasn’t until she started hearing it in mainstream media that she conceded blogs were real. (To this day, she still harbors suspicions that the whole thing might be some massive conspiracy I cooked up to fool her. Shhh, just play along… 
)
Much like social media optimization, it can be difficult to convey the value of blogging to the uninformed. I’ve had to convince a few technophobes clinging to old media traditional media enthusiasts in my career, and I’ve found the following points useful for getting them up-to-date.
A blog is a publishing platform. Much like a newspaper or magazine, a blog is a form of composition that is written, distributed, and consumed. The only real difference is the electronic medium, which drastically reduces the production overhead and allows even independent publishers to achieve a global reach.
Not all blogs are personal. One of the first objections you often hear is how blogs are nothing more than personal drivel masquerading as valuable content. This is certainly true of some blogs, but it couldn’t be further from the truth with others. Many blogs are written by well-respected experts on useful niche topics (e.g., Ward on the Web). In fact, the most popular blogs now have more readership and authority than many traditional print publications.
A blog is a conversational tool. Interactivity is what distinguishes new media from traditional media. By default, blog posts allow readers to comment and discuss the topic at hand. This can be useful for developing rapport with customers, colleagues, clients, or whomever else might be reading your blog.
Blogs are great for SEO. Done correctly, a blog adds relevant content, expands a site’s long-tail keyword profile, generates inbound links, and demonstrates that a site is regularly updated, all of which help to improve its overall search engine rankings.
Blogging isn’t as easy as it seems. While anyone can start a blog, few people have the creativity, diligence, and savvy needed to make a blog truly successful. If you don’t have what it takes (and if you’re not sure, assume you don’t), take the time to educate yourself and do it right from the start.
Float vs Position in Layout: My Gripe with Andy Clarke
In his book, Transcending CSS: The Fine Art of Web Design
That CSS should be the predominant source for layout and other style information is undeniable; I agree with Clarke wholeheartedly. Where I think he errs is his abandonment of floats for absolute positioning. While acknowledging that floats are, “almost a de facto standard method for creating column layouts using CSS,” he argues that they are too fragile. He’s right, of course; floats can unintentionally clear when they’re not supposed to because they happen to be one pixel too wide. “Whereas float-dependent layouts can easily fall apart at the slightest nudge,” Clarke asserts, “positioned layouts can support supersized images or gigantic text without failing.”
Up to the point I read that, I was convinced. However, Clarke’s example later in the book demonstrates a failing in his logic. In his “Cookr!” design, he uses a technique called Inman position clearing to place a footer beneath the primary content. For those unfamiliar with it, the important thing to note is that Inman position clearing uses JavaScript to clear the footer.
I’m not debating the effectiveness of Inman position clearing; I’ve honestly never used it. For all I know, it could be compatible in every browser on the market and widely accepted as standard by the design community at large. My gripe is that we’re trying to promote the division of content, design, and interaction. Clarke’s method separates content from design, only to go back and mix design with interaction. It’s self-defeating. A simple “clear:both” would accomplish the same task in a float-based layout. No JavaScript, just CSS, the way layout code should be.
This dependency alone makes me question the original argument. Float-based layouts are prone to falling apart when their content exceeds width limitations, while position-based layouts are not. Furthermore, float-based layouts must conform to a source order resembling the layout order, while position-based layouts have no such requirement.
It’s clearly a trade-off. If we stick to floats for layout, we must be cautious to restrict content width accordingly. This requires added diligence, but, given the proliferation of float-based layouts on the internet, I think people have readily accepted the challenge. Besides, if we have “supersized images or gigantic text” on our pages, the fact that they are breaking our design only adds insult to injury; we’re going to want to correct the problem whether the design fails gracefully or not.
Likewise, is there much harm in requiring the order of content and layout to be the same? I’d argue that, nine times out of ten, the order of layout is the most logical order anyway, so there’s rarely a need for content order to be any different. Point in fact, Clarke’s example does just that, and would have worked just fine as a float-based layout (arguably better, in fact, because it wouldn’t have to use JavaScript for layout purposes).
I’m not trying to be pretentious; I know I’m not half the designer Clarke is. However, much as I’ve learned from his book
WYSIWYR: What You See is What You Regret
Once upon a time much earlier in my career, a coworker observed me composing code in a basic text editor and described the approach as, “Spartan.” I argued that my argument was cleaner, leaner, and all together better. My coworker argued that WYSIWYG code was more convenient and efficient.
In the time since, I’ve progressed in my choice of web editors; nowadays, I usually stick to Adobe Dreamweaver to get the job done. Despite Dreamweaver’s code-generating capabilities, however, I generally stick to code view and never allow it to do more than fill in some end tags. With all the modern amenities at my disposal, I still practice Spartan coding.
Why? Because I recognize that the convenience of WYSIWYG comes at a high price. Don’t believe me? Consider a few of the following points and see if you feel the same about your beloved WYSIWYG editors afterward.
- WYSIWYG editors makes you lazy. Web professionals may not be athletes, but that doesn’t mean we don’t need to practice to stay on top of our game. Coding by hand might seem more difficult, but, much like PHP’s white screen of death, it helps keep you sharp. With WYSIWYG, you’re actually wasting time and effort to increase your expertise with a program rather than the code that’s your livelihood.
- WYSIWYG code is bloated. Try to export a Word document as a web page some time and see what the code looks like. It’s ripe with repetitive font tags and arbitrary classes that add unnecessary size to the document. Don’t think size is important in the age of high-speed internet? Tell that to visitor using a cell phone.
- WYSIWYG code is hard to maintain. As far as the browser and the user are concerned, things like indentation and tag casing aren’t a big deal. However, it’s hardly a courteous way to code. Somebody will have to come along and maintain your code at some point in the future. Hand-crafted code will make the job easier; auto-generated code will make it harder.
- WYSIWYG code isn’t up to design standards. Nowadays, using tables for layout is a cardinal sin, but that’s exactly what you’ll get when you use the Adobe Photoshop slice tool. The bottom line is, if you want to produce rich, standards-compliant code, WYSIWYG is not the way to do it.
- WYSIWYG code isn’t necessarily more efficient. As Andy Clark points out in his book, Transcending CSS: The Fine Art of Web Design
Aside: Working in Moderation
Work to live; don’t live to work.
- Steve Povlish
Don’t get me wrong; I value a job well done as much as the next person. In fact, I feel unfulfilled at the end of the day if I don’t do something meaningful at work. I don’t have to get everything done, but as long as I accomplish something of value, I have the satisfaction of knowing I’ve earned my pay.
Work is tricky, though. It has a way of intruding on the rest of your life, of inflating its importance to the exclusion of all else. I’ve seen people who give in to the temptation, and it’s not pretty. I’ve known fellow web professionals who worked nights, weekends, holidays, and vacations. I’ve known others who slept under their desks. Tragically, the “Give 110%” mentality more often results in 50 or 60 hours a week, rather than the 44 you’d get by actually doing the math.
This phenomenon is often called “workaholism,” and I can think of no better name for it. Much like alcohol, work can become an indulgence that causes us to neglect relationships, responsibilities, and even our health, things that should rightfully be more important to us. We justify our addiction, saying things like, “Sure, I had to cancel a date with my wife, but the merger went smoothly,” or, “I may not have had time to exercise today, but at least I got the reports out on time,” even when, deep inside, we know how wrong it is.
Obviously, work is a necessity, but it can become an addiction if you’re not careful. If you’re at risk of developing an unhealthy addiction to work, here are a few tips to help you keep it in its place.
- Focus on value. Your effectiveness as a professional has less to do with the number of hours you put in and more to do with how much value you create for your employer. In the end, if you’re generating more than you’re costing, you’re a good investment. Focus on that, feel good about your contribution, and stand firm when lines need to be drawn.
- Prioritize your life. Nobody dreams of being a successful professional and nothing else. We all have roles that are just as important to us, if not more so. Do you want to be a good parent? A good spouse? An active member of your community? Think hard about the other roles that are important to you, then figure out what you need to do to excel at them and prioritize those actions.
- Leave work at work. You’re paid for your time at work; time off is time you should spend on the rest of your life. This means unplugging; no calls, no emails, no homework. In fact, don’t even let work enter your mind. You’ll be happier, and you’ll quickly realize that most “emergencies” can safely wait until you’re back in the office.
- Avoid Blackberries. This goes with “Leave work at work,” but it’s worth mentioning on its own. The Blackberry seems to be the worst offender, but really, you should avoid anything that chains you to work when you’re not there (remote desktop access is another good example). Avoid these things like the plague; if you already have them, get rid of them. Nothing is more intrusive to the rest of your life than taking your work with you wherever you go.
- Take breaks. Human beings were never meant to sit at desks for hours on end. It’s bad for your health on many levels. Take the time to get up and move around. Let your eyes, fingers, and brain rest for a few minutes. I like to call my wife while walking a lap or two around the building. This way, I get fresh air and sunshine, a little bit of exercise, and some emotional release, all at once.
- Just say no. There may come times when other people are forcing unhealthy levels of work on you. It’s up to you to have the integrity and commitment to say no. Obviously, different situations may warrant different responses. Remember, though; a yes today often becomes the expectation of a yes tomorrow.
- Take control of your finances. Many people let work dominate their lives for fear of lost income. Remove that fear. Take control of your personal finances. Stop living paycheck to paycheck. Save up an emergency fund. Develop side income. Pay down your debt. When you know you’d be fine for some time if you lost your job, the fear of losing it ceases to have a stranglehold over your checkbook.
Ironically, those who moderate the impact of work on their lives aren’t only happier, they’re often more productive and successful than their overworked peers. That’s right; if you keep work in its place, you’ll probably get more done than the person who’s actually trying to get more done. Less isn’t just more; it’s a lot more.
A Value-Based Approach to Website Strategy
If you examine a website closely enough, you can almost always identify some form of commercial interest behind it. This is often overt, as in e-commerce websites or content sites with advertising. Sometimes, however, the commercial interest is more subtle. Ward on the Web, for instance, is a professional blog devoid of advertising. Because its purpose is to promote my professional standing, however, there is commercial interest in the usefulness and authority of my message. My strategy here is to show off what I know in the hopes that it will help me achieve greater career growth.
The first thing to realize is that a website is a tool for creating value. My very first post on Ward on the Web spoke about defining your site’s purpose, with the objective of building a website to achieve that purpose as well as possible. Does your website generate revenue? Does it attract attention? Does it build a reputation? Does it gather information?
Whatever your website does, it’s important to realize that the ultimate goal is always a resource that’s valuable to you. Money has obvious commercial value, but so does a large audience or a stellar reputation. It may be more difficult to tack on a dollar amount, but there’s no denying that even non-monetary resources have potential monetary value.
Viewed in this context, decisions about website strategy tend to become simpler. Say, for instance, that you’re writing a blog and toying with the idea of adding advertising. You’re afraid that this will turn off your visitors, reducing the size and responsiveness of your audience.
Remember, though, that your website is a tool for creating value. In this case, you’re examining the prospect of trading one type of value (audience size and engagement) for another (advertising revenue). Obviously, how much of one you’ll end up trading for the other is a complex question, but the basic proposition is simple. Do you stand to derive more value with advertising or without?
Even small website strategy decisions are best when advised by a value-based approach. For example, say you’re testing a landing page on a lead generation website. You want to know which of two calls to action are more effective. Generally, you’d do a simple split test (or multivariate analysis if you have other variables in mind). Let’s say your testing reveals that the first call to action converts 10% of visitors and the second converts 12%. Which do you use?
Of course you choose the second. But why? Because it makes your website a more effective lead generation tool. Because it adds more value. Thanks to analysis, this example is cut and dry; you simply take the greater of two values.
The important thing to realize, however, is that all website strategy decisions are value-based comparisons. Which provides more value, option A or option B? If you can answer this question with confidence, your choice should be obvious every time.
How to Spot an SEO Snake Oil Salesman
If you advertize online, you’ll eventually be contacted by SEO companies. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing; as an SEO expert myself, I know how much value there is in ranking well. However, for every legitimate SEO company out there, you’ll probably hear from half a dozen SEO snake oil salesmen. These people give the industry a bad name by offering services that are valueless at best and damaging at worst. Thankfully, they’re often easy to spot if you know what to look for. Learn these five key indicators and you won’t be fooled next time an SEO snake oil salesman comes calling.
- Black Hat Tactics
I’ll go ahead and start with the obvious. If your potential SEO advocates the use of methods like manipulative cloaking, link farming, keyword stuffing, shady redirects, doorway pages, and the like, just say no. Not only are such tactics becoming less effective by the day, but they have the potential to do permanent damage to your site’s rankings. Black hat SEOs care only about the short-term success of your website, not the long-term consequences of their manipulation. Even if your focus is only on the short term, do you really feel comfortable trusting your website to someone who doesn’t have its best interests at heart? - Guaranteed Rankings
Nobody, and I mean nobody, can guarantee rankings. Period. If your potential SEO provider claims to have some secret method or special relationship that allows them to do so, you should walk away. They’re lying, and you probably don’t want to be in business with someone like that. Even if their ranking guarantee is based solely on confidence in their abilities, however, you should still be suspicious, because they’re either guaranteeing rankings for worthless keywords or they’re taking a major risk by making promises that they may not be able to keep. - Rankings Focus
Guarantees aside, even good SEO providers will talk about rankings. The difference is that good SEOs regard rankings as a means to help you achieve your business goals. SEO snake oil salesmen, however, want to wow you with ranking for ranking’s sake. In the end, it doesn’t matter how highly or for how many keywords your site ranks; like any other marketing channel, all that matters is your bottom line. How much does the service cost you? How much business does it produce? What’s the return on investment? Remember, rankings are worthless outside the context of your business objectives. - Secrecy
There are no secrets to SEO. The methods for achieving high rankings are well-documented. Mind you, that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily simple enough to undertake without an expert. It just means that you should be suspicious of experts who sell SEO like it’s indecipherable voodoo known only to an elite few, or those who claim to have some proprietary method that sets them apart from everyone else in the industry. Any reasonably intelligent person can understand SEO, and you should have no qualms asking for details about what your SEO provider plans to do for your site. If they’re unwilling to explain, you should be unwilling to do business with them. (Update 10/9/08: Check out this comic on SEOmoz for a great illustration of this point.) - Exclusive On-Site or Off-Site Optimization
Good SEOs recognize that rankings are achieved through a combination of on-site and off-site optimization. If someone tries to sell you rankings based solely on visibility analysis, keyword research, content development, and meta tag optimization, you should be suspicious. The same applies if someone tries to sell you rankings based solely on links. You don’t get real results through one or the other; you need both.