You admit it. Figuring out the intricacies of how your business shows up in search results is hard. Your business is your business, and your business is not the business of search engines. You’ve come to terms with this, and you understand that you need to write a check to someone who is in the business of search engines. You focus on your business. They focus on getting you as much business as possible from the search engines.

But there’s a problem. It’s 2010. The above scenario might have worked a decade ago. It doesn’t anymore. Businesses must take an active role. It takes more than writing checks to be properly represented in search engines. It takes, as you might have guessed, a partnership.

Not having a partnership with the experts you’ve hired leads to problems. Sometimes, it just means you’re wasting money. Sometimes it ends up costing you money. But in all cases, it means you’re not doing as well as you could.

So do you even need to partner with experts? If you don’t have people on your staff dedicated to keeping abreast of the fast-changing search industry, then absolutely. How do you know if you have the right experts, either internal or external? Ask yourself these 5 questions about the experts you currently have:

• Do you get regular, easy-to-understand performance evaluations from them?
• Do they call you more than you call them?
• Do they want to know when your team creates new content?
• Do they talk in terms other than ranking, keywords and/or search traffic?
• Have they revised any of their prior recommendations in the last six months?

If any of those were answered with a “no,” that may indicate problems. Granted, the problems could be simply a communication issue. Perhaps the draconian contract your respective attorneys agreed upon is too rigid. You can fix that with a couple of phone calls.

But you can’t fix a bad relationship with an expert more interested in cashing your checks than meeting your business goals. Search is fluid. Search changes fast. If you’re paying an expert to help you optimize your presence in the space, you need to make sure you have the right expert.

{ 0 comments }