About RiseOak

Prasanna Perera is the owner/consultant at RiseOak. He oversees all Search Engine Optimization and Web Design work. A few partners work under Prasanna’s close supervision.

These are the pros and cons of working with a large marketing agency vs working with Prasanna at RiseOak.

Let’s start with the cons.

1) You will probably get more communication with a large agency.
Most large agencies have an account manager that is responsible for communicating with the client and keeping the client happy. Since communicating with you and keeping you happy is the focus on such an account manager you are bound to get more communication from an account manager than from Prasanna.

However, these account managers are not experts in SEO or Web Design. So, they will not know the details of your project and the digital marketing industry to provide you with more nuanced insight.

At RiseOak, we need to streamline the communication so that most of our time is spent on working on your project. However, we make sure that what we communicate is what is really important to the project and relevant for results.

2) A large marketing agency may offer other marketing options in addition to SEO and Web Design
There are marketing options other than SEO and Web Design that work. We do not offer these other services because we want to be the best at what we do, and we simply do not have the resources to be great at all marketing options.

So, if you are serious about other marketing options you should talk to a larger agency. Do be aware of agencies that say that they offer a lot of marketing services, but in fact outsource the fulfillment. Also, keep in mind that these agencies will try to upsell you with the other services they offer.

We believe that SEO is overall one of the best marketing options because of its massive potential Return on Investment and that is our focus.

3) At a large agency if one person is no longer able to work on your project another person can take it over
At a large agency, if an employee leaves the company or is not able to work on the project for an extended period of time, someone else can take on the project.

This is indeed a risk of working with RiseOak. However, we have been in business for over a decade (since 2011) and have clients that have been with us for years.

Also, keep in mind that having one person responsible for the project from the start to end is better. Knowledge transfer to other people can be hard as some of the details and background of the project can be missed.

Pros

1) To work with a true SEO expert, you will have to work with a company like RiseOak.
Most SEO experts do not work for other agencies. It is more satisfying and profitable to provide SEO expertise through your own company.

At RiseOak, Prasanna has been approached by other larger agencies to join their team, but Prasanna has refused. From time to time, Prasanna ‘white labels’ his services to other larger agencies so that these agencies can offer Prasanna’s services to their clients.

Some larger agencies get junior personnel to fulfil the SEO work using templated methods. This is not the case at RiseOak, where Prasanna is fulfilling the SEO projects himself using the latest methods that work today.

To be a true expert you need to focus on it to know all the details and trends. This is what we do at RiseOak, focusing on SEO and Web Design. Larger agencies by contrast tend to work on many different marketing methods. So, it is hard for these agencies to be true experts at what they do.

2) We have incentive to truly care for your project and get results
At a larger agency, your project will be one of a large number of projects. So, there is less incentive to take a special interest in your project.

At RiseOak, we can only work with a few selected clients at a time. Prasanna is closely tied to your project and it is very important to us to make your project a success so that we feel proud and happy with your success and you will have the incentive to refer other people to us.

When we take on a project, your work is not outsourced or delegated. I (Prasanna) will be involved in all aspects of the project.

I get hands on involved in all projects because:

1) I love the work I do, and I get a satisfaction in doing a good project. At heart I am a geek at what I do.
2) I compete on quality of work with other larger agencies. I want to ensure superior quality by doing the work myself or working with a few key personally vetted partners that I closely monitor.
3) I want to be very knowledgeable and at the cutting edge of getting more traffic on the Internet as I think this is a very valuable skill to have.

The downside of this approach is that I can only take on a few selected projects at a time.

All communication will be directly with me (Prasanna).

For an SEO project, we will have an initial call to discuss the project. At the start of the project during the on-page SEO part stage, we will touch base weekly through email. After this initial phase, which will take four to eight weeks, we will touch base monthly via a video review I will be sending on how the project is going. You can also schedule one call a month with me on an as needed basis.

For a web design project, we will have an initial kickoff call to discuss project timeline and deliverables. After this we will usually have a call every two weeks. But this time to touch base can vary based on several factors such as if the content for the website is provided by you and how long you are taking to provide the content.

For SEO, if it is not related to a project we are working on, I do offer consulting hours for $300 for 1hr.

It is not possible to do an entire SEO project based on consulting hours. This would be like asking a heart surgeon to walk you through a surgery, so you can perform it for someone else. It is inefficient, does not produce good results and a waste of your money and my time.