design | Strictly CSS

Why Companies Choose the Wrong Agency Partner

A few weeks ago, MediaPost wrote an article on 10 Reasons Why Clients Don’t Pick the Right SEM Agencies.“ This post really got me thinking, and I wanted to make my own similar list of five common traps that marketers fall into that lead to choosing the wrong agency partner.

Picking the right partner for your business is critical to the success of your campaign. The wrong partner will not understand your business, goals, or even your target market, which could result in campaign failure and thousands of dollars wasted away.

If you are a client looking for an agency partner, stay away from these common problems that can cause you to choose the wrong firm.

1. You don’t have a clearly defined scope of work. Many clients fail to do the requisite preliminary research before issuing an RFP, including taking a hard look in the mirror and being honest about your assets and liabilities and what type of outside firm is likely to complement these.

You probably know about the importance of a good CSS layout so you don’t need them for that, right!? You do what you’re good at and let them do what they’re good at.

If you’re not sure what you need, you can always send out an exploratory RFI (Request for Information) to get a feel for what’s out there and/or hire an experienced consultant to help you navigate the waters.

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Keyword Research Tool

Before you begin the journey to find a set of keywords that’ll bring in a swarm of traffic, you’ll need to get your hands on a decent keyword research tool. Without a keyword research tool, it will be incredibly difficult to find good keywords to target.

No worries, I’m not going to send you on a wild goose chase, I’ll save you hours of searching and testing out various tools. There’s one keyword tool that’ll provide all the features a person needs to create a successful online business. It’s one of the most comprehensive and powerful research tools on the internet.

What is it called?

The name of this beautiful keyword research tool is Jaxxy. I don’t know about you, but when I see a list of keywords that can be targeted, I think that’s beautiful. You can test out the tool for free. The first 30 search terms are free, then it costs $19 a month for the PRO version and $49 a month for the ENTERPRISE version.

Would you invest in something that has the potential to quadruple the amount of money that your website is generating? I think that’s a smart investment.

So you understand how search engines work and you have the best keyword research tool available. What’s missing? Well, we need to learn how to use the tool in order to discover keywords to implement into our website content.

I wrote about the potential results of being on the first page of Google’s search engine results. You may want to check out this page about the only CSS layout you need to do it well. Especially in 1 on 1 marketing, this may be crucial.

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My Online Business Education

When you’re working in the publishing world, be it old school or for some fancy online publisher, you’ll, unavoidably, be confronted with the world of business whether you like it or not. After all, you’re probably more like a creative type.

It might help, though, to sharpen your business-minded brain a bit and become more successful, not only for your employer but also in your personal life. Well, I had my online business education. Now it’s up to you. So let’s look at some free online options to get ahead.

If you’re interested in taking business classes, or in earning a business degree, check out this post with a lot of useful advice. Start today and get ahead in your business career, also when you’re originally a designer. So go ahead and take business classes or earn a certificate, a Bachelors’s degree, or Masters degree in business.

There is a multitude of online business degree programs with an assortment of specialties and levels of difficulty for you to choose from. You may be the next Donald Trump (though I doubt you really would like to… would you?). You could be the next Sam Walton. Who knows? You’re only limited by how far and wide your dream. Don’t underestimate what you can accomplish.

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