I’m not one for convoluted mission statements. If I had to sum up what we do it would be this:
We increase your visitors and boost your sales.
However, for the more philosophical among you, here are the 3 areas that are most important to us.
Our service: highly focused and simple. We’re not a ‘full service’ agency. We don’t do everything and the kitchen sink. We simply provide a cutting-edge service to boost visitors and sales from search engine visitors.
Our pricing: Our pricing is transparent and easy to understand. You pay, one month at time, for exactly the number of hours you want us to do each month. No tie-ins. No commitments.
For example, let’s say our initial research determines it will take 100 hours to reach your individual goals (bearing in mind the strength of your competition). You could pay, for example, 20 hours work each month for 5 months. Or you could pay for 5 hours each month over 20 months.
You can also decide to pay a bit more one month, a bit less the next month, perhaps not at all the next month—no problem.
Everyone knows the size of the mountain that you eventually need to climb (e.g. a mountain 10 hours tall, or 100 hours tall, etc.) We’ll get there eventually!
And of course, the more work we do, the better the results and the impact on your bottom line.
Our philosophy: We give our best work and secrets away upfront. Sounds silly I know, but we know it’s the right way to do things—what goes around comes around.
We provide a free in-depth report telling you everything you need to know about your current situation, the state of your competition and how to go about beating them. We can run the research right in your office so you can see the results for yourself: always an eye-opener!
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Dave, Well done on getting your new business off the ground! Sounds like a really good idea. We are always being asked by clients about these services too. We’ve offered ‘ongoing SEO services’ on an ad hoc basis but I’m sure this isn’t the most efficient way to go about it. So I’m curious to find out more about how you’re approaching this.
I have a question for you, partly asked out of peer-curiosity as I mention above, and partly on behalf of clients of mine who ask for recommendations for SEO services.
Obviously as a web designer working in HTML/CSS and using web standards I include basic SEO as part of my web (re)design package, but I know there is more that can be done on an ongoing basis. At least I think I do, but I confess I don’t know the extent to which you might go. You say you give your ‘best work and secrets away upfront’ – how do you do this? Is it in the free report that you promote on your homepage?
I’ve had some clients getting burned by snake oil merchants selling so-called SEO services and basically doing nothing except for breaking their websites. So now I’m very suspicious of all companies offering SEO services (as separate from a whole web design package – which I know you offer elsewhere).
What I would like to know – and not necessarily as a reply to this comment, but perhaps as a future blog post (or additional pages on your main website) is what kind of things you will be doing as part of the ongoing service that you are offering. I think this would also help sell your services better, because people like to know what they are paying for. I’m sure you explain this when you talk to prospective clients, but if I’m shopping around looking for companies to recommend, I’d like to be able to get a sense of what you’re offering and what your approach is straight from your website.
Maybe this is all revealed in the aforementioned report, so forgive me for wasting your time if it is!
Hi Emily,
First up, thanks so much for dropping by and for your best wishes, it really means a lot!
And no, no, you’re not wasting my time at all, I understand your questions and concerns perfectly. To be honest, I used to pretty much think the same of ‘SEO’ people too. It was only when I researched techniques for something quite different to providing SEO services to clients (as you know) that I realised how it should be done properly.
You’re right: the current main Woof home page does a pretty poor job of explaining in detail what we do. The first prototype of the site I built actually had 8 pages, with all sorts of information on the techniques we use, how pricing works, FAQs, etc.
And then I realised – this website has no focus! So I purposefully threw it all away (and sobbed at the hours of copywriting lost) to make just 1 page, with 1 clear call to action: make an enquiry. At this point in time, it feels like the right compromise in trying to achieve the right balance. Plus it got the darned website shipped and live
I do agree though, I’m the same, I like to thoroughly check out what a company is about whilst researching potential candidates. The plan eventually is to use this blog to post those articles, in-depth explanations, etc. and they’ll be coming slowly. The idea is that the home page will do its 1 job well—generate enquiries—and the blog will do the job of explaining things in more depth.
In the meantime, I’ll email you separately with some ideas of what we’re doing and the kind of processes involved. I’ll try and fill in the blanks as much as possible.
Thanks again Emily.
D
Ooh, one thing I forgot to mention: the Woof main home page itself doesn’t actually mention SEO at all (apart from right in the footer). I was really keen not to dwell on the actual methods so much as the results, which I guess is what really matters to Joe or Jane Bloggs.
I actually ran some usability testing of the first website prototype with 5 business owners and all of them said the same thing: what on earth are ‘rankings’ and ‘keywords’ and ‘SEO’? It was from their feedback, and a focus on your average business owner, that it was stripped right back to 1 page only and little mention of the process involved at all.
I do understand that it’s frustrating for someone with technical background though!
That is really interesting what you have done with the homepage, now that I look back at it again thinking about the audience you have in mind. The fact that you hardly mention SEO at all adds real credibility, because it demonstrates that you aren’t just another company trying to get rich out of the buzz (and ultimately mystery) around “SEO”.
Thanks for sending over the info about your process, it was very informative and I look forward to discussing it with you in more detail in the future.