As I’ve started down the path of marketing our agency platform over the past few months, one of the things that’s surprised me has been the number of our resellers for whom email marketing is a brand-new service offering.
It seems many of the consultants and agency owners in my network at least have exclusively sold SEO and paid search to their prospects and clients. Keyword research, title tags, links, and citations…it feels like many folks are bundling basically the same services they did in 2010.
Reading the tea leaves of Google’s strategic direction and market position, I think that’s a dangerous recipe.
The search landscape and broader digital landscape has changed dramatically during that time, and in particular the last 9-10 months have seen a colossal shift in local SERP features.
Small businesses’ awareness of SEO has grown dramatically in the last few years, but there are already indications that they are feeling the squeeze created by this new landscape: direct mail is now rated as a more effective channel.
Agencies who don’t adjust their offerings to fit may still be able to sell SEO, but run the risk of a lot of disappointed customers unless they package and fulfill it appropriately. Particularly at the lower end of the market, it’s essential to update your service offerings to adjust to this new reality.
I’ve given versions of the following presentation at AAN, SMX West, ADP, Local U Advanced, and on my webinar with Grade.us this Spring. I hope it helps you figure out how to evolve your agency for continued, long-term success.
10 comments on “For Agencies: How to Adapt Your Service Offerings to the Modern Digital Landscape”
Thanks Maurice! Appreciate your kind words.
Great presentation and Lot’s of great insides and truths. For the local SEO there will be a lot of challenges and opportunities. Exciting times lay ahead for all of us.
Thanks Maurice! Appreciate your kind words.
It seems like all the SEOs I’ve know in the past 10 years are moving on to non-SEO disciplines or simply focusing on one thing similar to your recommendation like knowledge panel (or featured snippets). Great presentation! Thanks for sharing.
David,
It’s been awhile. For the sake of conversation I had two things I wanted to comment on;
Your assertion that Adwords Express is getting better and will put PPC agencies out of business. I disagree with this. I see no market acceptance that express is better and clearly looking at the tools to manage both, the ability of a qualified PPC practitioner to generate a better return is unquestionable. Now you might is it so much better to offset the fee charged. That depends on the fee charged so here you may be right that the PPC margins get squeezed. I would also agree that AI systems will do a better job than humans but that is likely to be on large accounts with requisite data for the next several years.
Secondly, reviews. Do you see a point when the public becomes dissatisfied or distrusts reviews to the point they are not useful marketing tools? I mean much like links there is a huge ecosystem developing around fake reviews ( For example The Washington Post ran a huge article about this last week) and also last week Google stated they have changed their policy around bulk review solicitation. And while I think it will be hard for them to police this change the last thing you want to see is the typical heavy handed Google response that takes out the good with the bad.
Dave
Hi Dave,
Mike Blumenthal and I have covered a lot of the Adwords Express conversation in particular in our various columns on Streetfight. Even if there isn’t yet market acceptance, Google is actively building self-serve organic products to get more SMBs in their “direct” funnel. But I agree that the considerably bigger risk for agencies is the Local Service Ad, which has been wildly popular with SMB advertisers AND which Google is actively selling direct. Rumor around the LSA conference today is that these are rolling out in 100+ markets very shortly. Google will use AI across SMBs *at scale* (i.e. ALL insurance agents) which actually gives them better data than any enterprise Adwords agency will be able to collect.
Regardless, there’s no margin available for the sub-$500 or sub-$1000/mo. advertiser even for a moderately qualified professional, which is the vast majority of the SMB market.
On reviews, Google has been slow to the spam game but I haven’t seen a ton of data (Bright Local’s study is probably the best) in terms of the level of trust people put into reviews. It’s declining but still healthy.
Well it’s funny to me. The Local Service ad is the least informative ad Google runs. It looks like an old basic yellow pages listing. Except of course for the “google guarantee” which is what I’m sure is driving the CTR.
…and the placement. …and the cost-per-lead. …and the onboarding. It’s a BRILLIANT product, by far the best ad product Google’s ever introduced to SMBs. Google is actively commoditizing & I’m sure they’ve done plenty of testing on the core data that customers care about 🙂
Incredible article! However, I’m a little confused about your stance on MOZ Local. You say local citations and ancient aggregators are irrelevant, and yet you recommend MOZ Local as part of an ageny’s stack. Please clarify.
Hey Phil, great question.
While citations no longer move the needle as far as rankings in most markets, they’re still table stakes & given the price point of Moz Local (or BrightLocal or other services less expensive than Yext), there’s still value there.