I’ve been reading SEOmoz for quite a while now. In fact, most of us interactive MSAers do. And while I agree with the majority of his opinions, never has he hit the nail on the head like he did today.

Not only does Rand provide a list of what best practices should and shouldn’t be for Search Marketing Experts versus Novices, I believe he inadvertently brought up the expectation of the Novice Search Marketing client. Specifically:

Measuring Traffic Rather than Conversions
Rankings are great and so is traffic, but a website that's improved it's traffic tenfold while ignoring conversions has got the process backwards - your goal isn't (except in a few rare cases) to bring just any visitor, it's about bringing the right visitor.

So many of our clients have come to us requesting that we Band-aid the work of a novice hack. Their goal is to be ranked on 2 or 3 core terms, but they really haven’t thought through how to overcome their 50% bounce rate. And the reason that they are so adamant is because it’s all they’ve ever considered!

So that means there is a “relationship before the relationship” which involves the Expert helping prospect make smart business and marketing decisions (not necessarily tied to SEM). When you help the Novice prospect become an Expert client, you not only have realistic goals in a realistic timeframe; those goals actually mean conversions and dollars.

For those prospects who are unwilling or unable to have these conversations, this obviously leads to another favorite:

Accepts the Right Projects
A novice consultant or firm might be tempted to take any client who can pay the bills (and many times, they must). Experts know how to choose their projects, based on the expected outcomes, the style of the client & the short and long-term ROI.