Published: Oct 25, 2007 - 07:32 am
Story Found By: chriswinfield 1677 Days ago
Category: SEO
6 Comments
6 Comments
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Comments
SEOs Working For Commission = Affiliate Marketing.Im not sure any other commission deal would make sense.
I would never work for commission for SEO. Ive had people offer jobs and tie compensation in with commission. Im like - if you want that, Ill do everything on my own - why work for some base pay and the rest by commission for SEO? SEO is marketing - not sales. Anyone that throws that at me I would kindly turn down.Also - SEO is doing the actual work, not the results. If I do all of the work of on-page optimization, all of the copywriting, the coding, link-building - all of that - and be paid on commission, then what risk did the client have? Absurd.I would, however, consider a deal where I do SEO, and ongoing work is tied into active management of the campaigns and tied in with % of revenue.Face it - SEOs are the ones with the knowledge. Clients pay for the knowledge. If clients knew what to do, they wouldnt need to hire anyone, right?
We ran a poll at Online Marketing Blog on this recently and of the 35 that responded, 66% said no to SEO pay for performance, 17% said yes and 17% said "Partial" with an explanation.There are too many variables out of the control of the SEO in such situations, but if reporting and content controls can be put in place to mutual satisfaction, it could be doable. Ive yet to come to that kind of agreement though.
People who want to pay SEOs on a commission basis only tend to have very slow check-writing hands. :)People who pay for good SEO get a return that outweighs any ROI via any other method. Any business person looking to make that arrangement more complicated either doesnt understand the process, or doesnt want to pay for it.2c.
This is what I do, and I can say that it is far more profitable (and less stressful) than charging per hour. The trick is that the SEO needs to choose the customers/affiliate deals (not the opposite). Create your own niche site, promote it and "recommend" you customers via an affiliate links. If the sites dont convert, switch your links to ones that do.
I think a % of revenue could work in the cases where clients have a SEO opportunity that is not a direct priority for them. The consultant could run all aspects of that campaign and give the client a cut. But for stuff that is core to the clients business I prefer getting paid up front for my time and effort.