Lee Oden is one of my favorite bloggers/writers at TopRank.com
This incredibly insightful post is one that every business owner
considering SEO consulting should read, and every business owner
currently watching the clock for “results”….hear it from the expert.
A watched pot never boils.
Read on…..(below or this link)
http://www.toprankblog.com/2011/01/investing-in-seo/

Companies that seek to expand their market reach to growing
populations of customers spending time online have turned in
significant numbers to search and social media as marketing channels.
The world of search and social as an intersection with content
marketing is quickly emerging as well.
The pro of all that attention and budget is that companies are finding
increasingly effective ways to engage with customers and grow business
revenue. The con is that many companies categorize half-hearted or
incomplete search and social efforts as ineffective or irrelevant.
Marketers are tasked with finding technologies and communication
platforms that will grow the business and keep the brand ahead of the
competition. The tendency for industry media to idolize the latest
digital marketing tactics creates unrealistic expectations or worse,
tentative investments in tactics like SEO without actually being
committed to what it takes to be successful.
If you’re an Online Marketer, you might have heard requests like: “Our
competitors and several smaller companies that we don’t even consider
big enough to be competition are all over Google and we’re not. This
month, you need to find a way to optimize our site to increase our
Google rankings.”
Another example: “We need to engage a consultant, but there’s not a
lot of budget. So let’s test it (SEO or Social Media Marketing) out
and if they can shows results, we can increase the budget.”
Yet another example: “We’re launching a new website and we need to
optimize it to drive traffic. Forecast how many sales we’ll get from
the SEO starting from month one and through the  year.”
It’s reasonable to expect a return on a marketing investment, but
tactics like SEO require a commitment to content, links and continued
attention to web analytics and conversion optimization for improved
performance.  If an online marketer within a company is tasked with
engaging outside help from a SEO consultant or digital marketer, it’s
important to understand that commitment so expectations with business
leaders can be managed.
As a consultant, nothing is worse than seeing a SEO program just start
to gain momentum (especially after the client side marketer has
overcome the hurdles of getting internal buy-in) only to have someone
from the C-Suite look at a balance sheet and say: “We’ve invested $X
on SEO over the past 3 months on the new website and we’ve only had 2
leads?  We’re wasting our time and money on SEO, since it doesn’t
work.”
Experienced marketers from B2B to online ecommerce sites understand
that with a new website, it can take quite a few months to build up
the content and links required to get Google’s attention in the search
results. Even after persistent SEO efforts with content and link
acquisition deliver traffic to the site, the content and lead gen or
product offers must be compelling enough to convert those visitors to
leads or sales.
Launching a new website in a competitive category means even more time
to see the same kind of search visibility as competitors that have
been actively engaging SEO tactics for 3, 5 or even 10 years.  In
fact, SEO alone on a new website to drive traffic makes little sense.
Consultants should inform client side marketers of that and provide
other marketing options for what will drive traffic to the site and
how SEO efforts can work in concert with Social Media, Online PR,
Email, PPC and other Online Advertising.
I’ve often told business owners and marketers that if they want to
reap the rewards of dominant search visibility, they need to commit to
content and links indefinitely. Otherwise, don’t bother and drive site
traffic through other means. SEO is an investment and the way we
consult, works holistically with how a business publishes and promotes
content online. Expectations should be managed with proper competitive
analysis, benchmark reporting, forecasting and ongoing analysis of
performance.  A tentative approach always results in tentative
results.
Of course I am an advocate of SEO since we’ve helped numerous
companies generate significant revenue over the past 10 years, but I
can empathize with business managers that only look at spreadsheets
without understanding timeframes. I can also understand the pressures
marketers have at generating new business with slim budgets and not
necessarily understanding the specific mechanics of what goes into a
competitive SEO effort.  It’s only through education and raising
awareness that these barriers can be overcome.
If you’re a corporate marketer that has invested in SEO and not see
the results you’d been promised or expected, how did you handle it?
How have you overcome internal disconnects about how SEO can work with
your company? How have you managed expectations