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Is Your Website A Candidate for Performance-Based Search Engine Marketing?

Performance-Based Search Engine Marketing means someone is willing to invest in you

With performance-based search engine marketing, you are no longer buying a service, you’re buying results - and the search marketing firm must be given the tools to succeed. Given that, a thorough website review will be undertaken and a competent prediction of results made from that review.

The Site Must Be In Reasonable Shape for Most "Commission-Based" Search Engine Marketers to Take It On
Not all websites will work under a pay-for-performance model. The site itself must have enough authority, attractiveness and conversion capabilities to be successful. This means submitting to a fairly extensive review process (at no charge to the client) including:
  • A website review including the site’s age, page depth, search engine indexing (including pages not indexed and an audit of how many and which pages from the site are in the main vs. supplementary indexes status), a structural review to see if there are any problems with the site that may prevent it from being indexed and ranked (such as search engine crawler access, excessive internal linking, redirects, broken links among others), back link profile, obvious penalties (as reported in Google Webmasters tools), traffic patterns (including average visitors per page), conversion history/capability, and a search for virus/malware
  • A competitive analysis including current ranking study for you and your competitors, a "link difficulty" report analyzing the level of traffic vs. competition for likely keyword targets
  • Business overview including years in business, markets served, current and past focus, product/service mix, staff backgrounds and some quantification of size (i.e. number of employees is fine if sales can’t be shared)
  • A return on investment analysis of the products being sold which can factor in competitive pricing, average sale, sales volume, projected gross profit level, and average sales conversion rates

No matter who pays for the content creation, it has to be profitable. The above scenario compares an ongoing pay per click traffic acquisition approach to single placement content marketing (Basically, fee-based paying per article). Clearly, paying once for the content and having it return over time is the higher ROI scenario. But even in that case, the value (revenue, profit, etc.) from each customer has to be high enough to justify the acquisition cost.



This May Sound Like A Lot of Work, But It’s Probably In Your Best Interest To Do It

A common complaint about seeing a doctor is that he or she doesn’t spend enough time with the patient, and doesn’t ask enough questions. We all want a thorough investigation if something like our health, or our money, is on the line. Participating in a feasibility analysis for performance-based search engine marketing may sound involved, but don’t you want to know where you stand? And not from a group that you are paying no matter the outcome, but rather someone who is seriously considering investing their own time and money? Sure, the answer may be, “Sorry, we can’t help you right now.” But that answer will have a host of reasons why, which is a great list for improvement on your part.

The key is that all of this in-depth analysis, which typically would cost thousands if you hired it done, is free.
Yes, We Factor Risk Into Our Compensation
Just like everyone who invests their resources, we also use the above factors to determine our compensation. This is not a one-sided process either. Both sides must agree upon a package that includes:
  • Return on investment (for client after our compensation is deducted)
  • Length of compensation
  • Termination conditions
  • Probability of success

We try to be as finite as we can in creating our agreements so there is no ambiguity and no misunderstanding. We are open and flexible and of course interested in both of our success. Our goal is a long-term, positive relationship and outcome.