Web Design Agencies and Search Marketing Agencies Should be Friends
For most of the history of the commercial internet, web design and development agencies have claimed that they do search engine marketing (checkout the Services section of the website of most web design agencies). Mostly, they don’t. There is a good reason for this. Search marketing requires a different set of skills and technologies to those used by web designers. Also, web design is usually done on a project basis, with a project completion date. Search marketing is often an ongoing endeavour. So, the two disciplines rarely mix very well in the one company.
While advertisers were only learning about the search marketing environment, a little knowledge went a long way and the design agency could probably get away with populating the homepage’s meta tags, submitting the site to Yahoo! and adding a line item to the invoice for “website marketing”. However, search is now mainstream, advertisers are more discerning and most will require a professionally planned and executed search marketing campaign.
This brings many benefits for all concerned:
- The client gets the very best web design and the very best search marketing
- The search marketing agency and the web design agency can stick to what they are really good at
- Where the respective agencies have a partnership they can confidently refer their clients to each other
Martin Murray, CEO, Interactive Return