Great question!

As you are already aware, SEO is one aspect of a much larger online marketing strategy for professional services firms. Unlike a product company, we can’t just drive consumers to our website and expect to raise revenues.

With an architectural firm such as yours, you are dealing with a more complex buying center and much different sale. The corporate purchaser of professional services is an educated and discerning buyer who needs to convince multiple parties within their own organization. Converting prospects into clients is based more on the merits of your professionals, previous success, similar clients, and overall firm knowledge. One of the most important aspects of optimizing your website is the overall plan and strategy to raise awareness of the firm’s knowledge and expertise.

I suppose it would be possible to find a generalist firm that could execute an effective SEO campaign for professional services. However, it raises the question, would you hire an architectural firm that designs tract homes in California to build skyscrapers in Singapore? Perhaps, the residential architect has the skill to do it right the first time. But, more than likely, they will be learning as they go, with those costs being passed onto the client in the form of increased billable time and second-class work.

Let me give you a brief example of one of the differences that might be important between a firm that specializes in professional services rather than a generalist. Once your SEO campaign is up and running, a large part of the success is making continual adjustments based on quantifiable visitor data from the website’s webanalytics. SEO companies that are used to working with product and manufacturing companies might make inaccurate deductions and decisions based on success metrics for product websites, rather than professional service websites. These decisions can lead your SEO campaign down the wrong track. The general SEO team may have you chasing the wrong types of visitors, and avoid better prospects that will generate more revenue.

To answer your final question, “What do you recommend for professional service firms?”, we recommend what you are already discussing above. The need for an end-to-end, and integrated approach - Website design, SEO, email responders, content production, webanalytics, and database integration.

I hope that helps!

Grant

We are currently researching SEO firms for our architectural firm. You raise interesting questions about the need for an SEO firm that specializes in professional services. Is this critical or can any SEO firm create a unique program through the creative process?

We are looking at PPC, landing pages, auto-responder emails and white papers.

What do you recommend for professional service firms?

Thanks,
Amy

Don’t worry…I wont say anything!

Check out Dr. E. Garcia’s website at http://www.miislita.com. He is an authority on search engine IR.

Grant

Although I wont be focusing on any factors relating to firm size or number of professionals in Part II, I would say that it isn’t as critical as you might think.

What is more important is to place the focus on the SEO firm in question. Do they specialize in working with professional service firms (in a future post, I will explain why this is so important)? Will your project manager be fluent in IR and document indexing (more to come in Part II)? What kind of tactics will they use to build site popularity? How is their team organized? How will they be compensated? Are there incentives in place for them to get you higher rankings? Etc.

If you have any specific questions, leave me another comment or email me. I look forward to hearing from you.

Grant

Do you have any recommendatoins though on where I can get more information about document indexing? or any places to start? Thanks.

Great post- gets me rethinking our current SEO firm!

In your next post will you be discussing any factors that are important for small- to mid-size firms when deciding on an SEO expert?

Sandra Ramos