The in-house vs. agency debate misses the real paid media problem
Performance rarely fails because of talent. It stalls when strategy, visibility, and accountability break down.
Topic: Outsourcing
Top link building services to scale your SEO efforts
An extensive list of top link building services that can accelerate organic rankings and brand visibility.
How white label link building services work in 2024
Wondering how white-label link building can boost your SEO? Discover its benefits and learn how to find the right partner today.
How to hire an SEO agency: The definitive guide
Learn key steps for selecting the right SEO agency for your business. Vet vendors by assessing their reputation and watching for red flags.
Google to cut thousands of search quality rater jobs after dropping contract with Appen
Appen says the termination notice goes into affect on March 19, 2024.
How to outsource link building: Benefits and tips to follow
Boost your SEO strategy with this guide to outsourcing link building for better website visibility.
Insourcing vs. outsourcing: The pros and cons for content creation
Learn how insourcing vs. outsourcing content differ and compare the pros and cons so you can choose the right route for your brand.
How Google’s turn to resellers coincides with its largest round of layoffs
The layoffs may be closely tied to another shift in strategy - the increasing reliance on resellers.
Enterprise SEO agency vs. in-house SEO team: What to consider
It’s time to let go of the surface-level thinking of us vs. them. The answer depends on how fast you want to run.
White label link-building services: How to do it right
Use these essential tips to help you understand if white label link building is right for you and how to find the right partner.
6 reasons why it makes sense to outsource SEO
Although brands can be successful by taking SEO in-house, there are several benefits to outsourcing SEO.
10 things to consider when hiring a ghostwriter
You can't hand off the entire content development process to a ghostwriting team, but it can scale your content and be somewhat affordable.
Video: Phillip Thune on finding good writers and writing good content
We also spoke about how SEO behavior changed around content around both the Panda and Penguin releases.
Pro Tip: Don’t add new services reactively
SMX East speaker Karl Sakas explains what you should do when a client requests a service your agency doesn’t offer.
How to find good writers and other content marketing struggles
You get what you pay for when it comes to copywriters says contributor Jessica Foster. Here's a look at how to hire good copywriters that will help drive traffic and sales to your site.
Google Responds To #GoogleGate: AdWords Account Manager’s Accidental Voice Mail Recording
Earlier this week, Martin MacDonald, inbound marketing director at Expedia EAN, in a post on his website titled “#GoogleGate – Can you Trust Google?,” embedded a voice mail recording a Google AdWords account manager unknowingly left for a client. Presumably thinking he’d hung up, the account representative is heard cursing the fact that the client upgraded to […]
Why You Need To Complement Your In-House Team With External Expertise
I am a big fan of large enterprise organizations having an in-house SEO team. However, there are strong arguments for supplementing the efforts of your in-house team with help from external SEO expertise. Below are a two major reasons why. The Complexity Of Topics It has been stated many times by the search engines — there […]
Optimizing The Business Of Your B2B Search Program
With 2012 stretched out before us, it’s a perfect time for B2B marketers to make sure that the year ahead is poised for success. By now you have laid the groundwork, and have clear learnings from your 2011 search efforts to build upon. But … are you operationally structured for success? The Importance Of The […]
Should You Have A Prenup With Your Global Search Vendor?
Nearly all search vendors have some sort of agreement, and the larger the client, the more complex the terms of service will be with procurement as well. Most of these focus on the standard stuff: how long, how much, scope and what happens if their vendor screws up and the relationship needs to be terminated. […]
How To Hire A Great In-House Search Engine Marketer (Or Not)
At search engine marketing conferences, I am often asked for advice on how to hire people for in-house search engine marketing jobs. Usually over lunch a business owner turns to me and says something like, I came here to learn more about all this search engine stuff and what I learned is that I need […]
Yahoo Completes Outsourcing Its Real Estate Search To Zillow
Yahoo and Zillow have finalized the details of their agreement last year that effectively sees Yahoo outsourcing its popular Real Estate search vertical to Zillow. The two companies say this deal “creates the largest real estate network on the web,” and involves several elements: Yahoo Real Estate search will gets its for-sale listings exclusively from […]
Ask.com To Focus On Q&A Search, End Web Crawling
Talk about getting back to your roots. Ask.com, which originally used humans to find answers to questions, is going further back to its origins by abandoning its web crawling technology. The Need, Or Not, To Crawl Search engines like Google and Bing try to have answers to anything someone might search for by “crawling” the […]
Bing Outsources UK Local Business Listings
Bing is finally offering local business listings to UK-based small businesses, but in an odd arrangement, it’s outsourcing the data management to a third party — a company called 118 Information. Bing recently launched a site, www.bingforbusiness.com, that invites local UK businesses to add or edit their free business listings and touts the benefits of […]
Following Shopping, Yahoo Partly Outsources Health Vertical To Healthline
The Yahoo strategy of outsourcing content and technology continues. According to a press release, Healthline will support and augment the existing content and provide search for Yahoo Health. In the Healthline partnership, Yahoo! gains a technology partner that already provides over 90 million users a month with the most contextually relevant and clinically accurate health […]
When In House Should Opt For Outsourcing
There are not too many times when I advocate that an in-house SEO program should turn to outsourcing. Far too many times I have seen businesses hire agencies to perform SEO work, and it ends up being a case of the visually impaired leading the visually impaired. It’s rare, but some agencies and consultants truly […]
The End of Yahoo Shopping? Company Substantially Outsourcing To PriceGrabber
Relatively quietly Yahoo has decided to outsource most of Yahoo Shopping to PriceGrabber. This is analogous to what Yahoo is doing with Microsoft-Bing in search — just not with Microsoft. Merchant listings will now come from PriceGrabber and e-commerce sellers will only be able to get into Yahoo Shopping via PriceGrabber or Yahoo Search (Bing). […]
How & When To Outsource Search Marketing: Free Webcast Thursday
If you’re thinking about hiring a PPC agency or SEO firm, or looking to outsource all your search engine marketing, there are many factors to consider. This Thursday at 1 PM EDT, I’ll go over the pros and cons of hiring an outside firm in a webcast “When to Outsource Your Search Engine Marketing: Making […]
Ask.com Drops Map Product & Outsources To Microsoft Virtual Earth
The LiveSide Blog reported that Chris Pendleton,Virtual Earth Evangelist, posted the news that Ask.com has now dropped their own mapping product for Microsoft’s Virtual Earth. Virtual Earth can now be found on Ask Maps, Ask City, and within Ask’s search results as Smart Answers. It is a shame to see Ask.com dissolve the mapping service, […]
Five Ways Link Builders Hurt Themselves
In the wake of the mass hysteria over Google’s recent PageRank decreases, devaluing of certain links, and the resulting rankings drop many people experienced, I’d like to offer some perspective and advice. First, my rankings at EricWard.com didn’t drop one spot. And remember that my site is 100% devoted to link building, so I have […]
Training: Heart & Soul Of In-House SEO/SEM
I must admit, I wasn’t very perceptive when I received my first in-house SEO prospect call back in 2000. The caller recognized the value of his organic search results and the business need for integrating SEO functionality internally. I did not. That’s because in those days, I thought it made much more sense to outsource.
MarketingSherpa Report: Challenges To Bringing Search In-House
MarketingSherpa has just released the fourth annual edition of its Search Marketing Benchmark Guide. The Guide is a comprehensive benchmark for all things related to search marketing, including things such as expected search spending for 2008, how search ROI stacks up against other tactics, difficulty in SEM staffing, new ways to evaluate clicks and click […]
Vetting An Agency: Protecting The Family Jewels
One of the biggest realizations that hit many in-house search marketers is the simple fact that they cannot do it all themselves. Despite the best of intentions and the strongest work ethics, the fact remains—you are but one person and there are only so many hours in a day. If you are fortunate enough to […]
WSJ: After Considering It, Yahoo Declines To Outsource Paid Search Business To Google
According to an article in the Wall Street Journal today, discussing the “no sacred cows” pledge by Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, the company actively considered — and decided against — what some institutional shareholders are calling for: outsourcing its paid search advertising business to Google (or Microsoft).
When In House Should Work With Search Engine Marketing Agencies
While the ideal for in-house search marketing is to perform all tasks related to search marketing internally, the reality is that there are times when help is needed from outside sources. There are several reasons for this, but when it does happen, the prime motivator should be that the relationship between the company and the […]
Google Partners With Dell To Manufacture The Google Search Appliance
The Google Enterprise Blog announced that they are getting out of the hardware business by partnering with Dell to manufacture their Google Search Appliance boxes. Google said they made this move so that they can “focus more on the software side.” Google is also excited about Dell’s capabilities of marketing the search appliance globally.