I've been meaning to post a review on Netmark for almost a year now, because we've worked with several SEO consultancies since about 2004 and Netmark has been such a standout I thought I should share it.
As everybody knows, there have been some pretty drastic updates to Google's organic algorithm since 2013 when we started with Netmark, such as Panda and Mobile-geddon. Netmark's demonstrated ability to stay focused on which nuances of these updates are critical and all things SEO has only served to validate my hunch that their business model and work ethic were the right complement to our in-house E-commerce team.
When I read the negative reviews regarding Netmark, I can see between the lines that here are some customers who expect Netmark to do everything for them. Probably the main mistake Netmark made with them is, accepting that type of customer. SEO is not something you hire somebody to "do" and then wait for the results. It's something you have to do YOURSELF, and the SEO consultancy is there to coach you and report on your progress. This may sound basic but there are millions of data points in SEO, and any good SEO consultancy knows which few of those millions are critical AND actionable. That's not basic. NOBODY can do your SEO for you. That would be like saying "I hired a business strategist and waited for my business to double but it didn't, so that means the strategist didn't do his job."
Here are some things Netmark has coached us on that most of our other SEO's either never thought of or didn't do near as thoroughly:
(1) optimization of Google Webmaster tools, sitemaps, 404's, schema;
(2) optimization of title tags, H1 tags, meta content descriptions, on-page body copy, friendly URL's, redirects, internal link densities and conversion snippets;
(3) optimization of JPEG compression, caching and site speed;
(4) identification of optimized backlink resources;
(5) optimization of language, voicing, responsivity, UI, long-tail phrases, Javascript, on-page events;
(6) Conversion Rate Optimization - this is possibly one of 2 most important value-adds on this list;
(7) optimization of Google Analytics, Moz, IP masking;
(8) optimization of AdWords, Bing Ads, negative keywords, ad copy, PLA's, rich snippets, remarketing and content advertising
(9) prioritization of social media, blog, videos, fresh content plus coaching on what is the best content and keywords for the blog and social media;
(10) setup and optimization of 3rd party reviews;
(11) reputation management...
the list goes on.
Notice I said "coached us on" not "did for us while we sat back". One thing we did learn by trial and error is that due to the specialization of our product line, SEO's are not the best source for copywriting, but that's more a clarification of their role than an indictment on their service as a whole.
Lastly, one of the reasons I selected Netmark out of the crowd in the first place, was because the other firms on my radar were based in large urban areas - which isn't so bad in itself but I'm an old guy when it comes to business years but a young guy when it comes to tech savvy, and I just happen to believe that urban business cultures are more prone to (a) turnover of skilled staff; and (b) higher pressure to commodotize complex services like SEO consulting. By "commoditize" I mean that in a very broad sense, urban shops are more likely to approach their business paradigm as if each customer is a statistic and needs to be conformed to a box, so that the enterprise can stamp out more "boxes" for less overhead. This may serve customers of manufactured products well, but not customers of consulting services. Consulting is very personal; it's a craft and an art; it involves trust and understanding, success and failure, nuance and subtlety. The sheer "noise" in an urban office (frequent new job postings, high management turnover, the exhaustion of long commutes, the in-your-face stimulus of urban / material lifestyles) takes a toll on the quality of consulting. Again this is purely an instinctive observation based on decades of working in business, so please save your rebuttals for somebody else who isn't as close to successful retirement after what most would consider an ideal quality-of-life.
Back to Netmark. I recently told 2 of my contacts there, in 2 separate conversations, that they're the best consultants in their field we've ever had. That's saying a lot for a scrappy e-commerce shop like ours, who began our own SEO in 1995, and who has very high expectations of performance from all our consultants. Example: when your SEO guy emails you at 2am on Saturday to say he's thinking about one of your problems and he found a solution and that he'll work on it before Monday morning, then you know you're dealing with a professional who cares about the success of your business, not a number pusher who's just looking to step on your head so he can climb up to the next 'deal'. read more