Aaron,

Your article on mesothelioma was extremely interesting. As someone involved in this field I was happy to read your analysis.

>Imagine how many additional leads and
>how much additional profit a
>mesothelioma lawyer would get if they
>hired a top notch SEO using a profit
>share business model.

I am not sure about this (I am not a lawyer), but I think profit sharing with marketers, in this sector, is actually illegal. State bar associations are quite strict about how you actually get clients and/or leads. This is at least what I have been told by one of my clients (who is much more knowledgeable about the law than I).

>but I think profit sharing with marketers, in this sector, is actually illegal.

Couldn't they bring you on as an administrative assistant for their business or some other random title and pay you performance based compensation?

There are ways around most laws if interested, but the point of that article was that many people expect the SEO / marketing to be done near free even if they could make $1,000,000 from the lead.

I may be out to lunch in asking this (and you do not need to answer unless you want to...though I would love to learn from another friends real world market experience), but has your lawyer buddly let you know how much you have made them if any, and do they give you any considerable amount compared to what they make or what they intend to make?

>but has your lawyer buddly
>let you know how much you
>have made them if any, and
>do they give you any
>considerable amount compared
>to what they make or what
>they intend to make?

Actually it's early enough in the campaign they haven't made a cent yet... although they've gotten one or two promising leads. As for what I'm paid, I can't complain: it's basically exactly what I asked for. Since they didn't really know how to price SEO I took the lead. And the pricing was indeed performance based -- but based on rankings, not ROI.

I will say this for my clients: the area of "mesothelioma" in law is just as tough as it is in SEO. Competition between lawyers is extremely tough. For every suit that's decided in favor of the plaintiff there is one (or three) decided against the plaintiff -- it's not a matter of proving a person has mesothelioma, but proving who gave it to them, and when (which isn't always easy). Of course, any good lawyer wins a big case every now and then, I'm just saying they have considerable risk and expense before seeing any return. I guess, in conclusion, I would take issue that these guys are "greedy" -- some are perhaps, but no more than in any other type of law.

>but no more than in any other type of law.

thats my exact point. Many professions are viewed as professions and paid accordingly. Many "professionals" think that SEO should be cheap because it does not require any sort of qualifications and just about anyone can do it.

Since people do not see the actual work and there are no qualifications and there is a ton of fraud in the industry SEO services can be a bit hard to sell.

My general point of the article was that just becasue there is money in a field it does not mean that it is easy or accessible money for an SEO and that they may be able to make more doing what they are interested in.

Sometimes we may be better off just doing whatever we are interested in and forgoing trying to accumulate lots of clients as SEO services are not always easy to price out...and when they are priced out most businesses that will contact you or me are not usually willing to pay what we are worth.

Can't wait to get my Google Advertising Professional logo in a few months though :)

Thanks a lot for posting the link about pay incentives! A very good read!

Hi Kieran
welcome to the humble SEO Book blog :)

I found that article interesting too. Hopefully I will be able to find lots more good ones and link to them in the future.

thanks for the comment and happy holidays
cheers
aaron