International SEO Offerings and Experience

SEO Chiangmai is an SEO/SEM/Internet Marketing/Ecommerce consulting company. We've taught marketing, innovation and entrepreneurship, public relations, and organizational communication at the university level for 7 years. We've done IT consulting for 10 years and Internet marketing consulting for 5 years. The point is that this experience and expertise is brought to bear specifically in Internet Marketing where we do SEM (paid search/advertising) and SEO (site optimization and link-building).

Seven-Part Strategy

We have found a seven-part strategy works best:

• Keyword research, including competitor and market research
• Modern, open-source content management system and search engine integration (WordPress + SEO plugins)
• Content, content, content - updated, relevant, on-page SEO-ed content
• Social media integration, including Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube
• Linkbuilding
• Advertising (paid search and banner ads)
• Analytics, to provide feedback and progress measurements

Case Study - 140 Hours / 4 Months / $5,000 USD

Our most recent success story we engaged with a client for 140 hours over 4 months and achieved a 300% increase in traffic and keyword ranking. One thing that is an advantage is our cost structure, being located in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Our price for this work was $5,000 USD (at $35/hour). This client also conducted an ongoing Google Adwords campaign of approximately 1,000 USD/mo. This campaign is one crucial element of the overall SEO/SEM efforts.

SEO Scalability

As far as our scalability, we are a small shop but could take on new select clients. We are a little picky because it is important that the client believe in and adopt appropriate content creation activities, and be willing to conduct an ongoing Google Adwords campaign.

Copy Writing and Content Strategy Requirement

We can do copywriting if the client so desires, but the point is that someone has to create regular content. The effectiveness of our strategy requires regular (if only weekly) content creation according to specific SEO guidelines. We have had clients who simply do not take this step and therefore see only small, incremental improvement in their rankings, organic and paid traffic. This as you can imagine is quite frustrating, and so we generally "out-counsel" them.

White Label

If SEO/SEM firms have clients who are willing to engage with us on all seven elements of our strategy, then we are interested in discussing further. We can do all work white label.

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There is a long and storied history regarding pricing of goods and services. Wikipedia has a nice overview article with linked sub-articles.

Simplicity - The Rule of Three

Complexity is managed easiest with simplicity. In this case all the various Pricing "strategies" can be summed under three specific uses of pricing:

• Pricing as a competitive weapon
• Pricing as a product attribute
• Pricing as a market segmentation tool

Pricing is Psychology

One key thing to remember is that pricing is all about psychology. It is true that some so-called rational strategies (such as cost + plus) are based on non-psychological elements, but that is simply another approach to justify or legitimate a particular price. We have learned from Goldratt that that is a fundamentally flawed approach. All pricing communicates value, it is to whom and what is of value that are the two components of a strategy.

Pricing as Competitive Weapon

This approach usually means aggressive pricing (usually undercutting the competitors in a given market) to reduce the profitability in a market and make it less attractive. Combined with an already-established brand name, and a highly profitable segment, this can be an effective weapon to attack rivals and gain market share.

Usually only a single competitor can be successful with this approach and two equally matched competitors will simply bleed each other (remember the cola wars). The best approach to counter this is a differentiated offering which cannot be overcome by lower pricing alone. (This is nothing more than elementary Porter.)

And so here we communicate to rivals about the value of the market segment, as well as the defensibility of the segment.

• A low-priced offering tells rivals that the market is unattractive
• A high-priced offering tells rivals that a market niche is defensible

Pricing as a Product Attribute

This strategy communicates to customers the value of the product.

• Low cost means it is cheap, both in price and quality
• High cost means that it is expensive, desirable, valuable, and rare

A high-quality product or service without a commensurate high price is only confusing to the customer and makes them doubt the quality of the offering. The terms affordable, reasonably-priced, competitively-priced all really mean low quality and not "justifiable price" which is what some companies want to communicate.

The best thing is to abandon trying to justify price based on anything other than the perceived value to the customer. This means that a high degree of utility of the product or service and a high or medium-high price should be the focus. There are other ways of reducing the cost of the offering so that a given segment remains profitable. Kim and Mauborgne are most instructive in terms of cost and pricing strategies.

Pricing as a Market Segmentation Tool

A fundamental understanding of a market is that there are various levels of price sensitivity and desirable product attributes. The idea is that a diversity of offerings are used in order to capture the maximum profits of each market segment.

• A high price means that only those with a low price sensitivity will buy
• A low price means that higher potential profits are foregone

Offer two products or services at different prices, and everyone's needs are met at prices they are willing to pay.

Airlines are a visible model of segmentation. More legroom and better service enable a higher price for the same transportation service. Price differentiation based on when to buy tickets perform the same function, enabling greater profits.

Questions

Here are some questions based on these three simple strategies:

• Is your pricing being used as an effective competitive weapon, communicating offensive and defensive positions to the competition?
• Is your pricing effectively communicating the value and utility of the offerings to customers?
• Is your pricing effectively segmenting the market in order to capture greater profits?

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