tbomedia

Done!

Hate these junk sites, and the crazy pricing models they have. One of many.

I'd need to see the sites to comment further. Are these global results?

It all depends on the strength of the sites ranking directly above you - forget the 55million other results below you, its all junk. To clarify, and for anyone else reading, by 'strength' I mean all the standard SEO technical areas (title, heading tags, content, last updated etc) but also backlinks. So, your website sits second to a website above which is identical in every way (ignore Google's duplicate content penalty for now) - the site with more backlinks would rank the highest. As for your example, how are you concluding you have a 'difficult keyword'? Three links will do very little to your site, regardless of the PR - unless the guy above you has zero, unlikely as you have mentioned they are highly competitive terms. Sure it'll help, but three links is a drop in the ocean. However, to get those links noticed faster - make sure you 'ping' the website, submit the rss feed and social bookmark it.

Seriously - this isn't the answer to your situation. By all means study it along a 'normal' job, build up a portfolio etc, but you will not generate any usable revenue as a 'beginner' offering web design services - its hard enough for the already qualified guys! Sorry if that sounds harsh/cocky - its not intended to be.

12hour days, fierce competition, constant learning curves, testing new ideas and developing new material. Work your contacts, network and build relationships. Get into promoting yourself, on and offline. Talk to everyone, especially your competition. Secure monthly retainers. Horde email addresses, add them to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter. Communicate with them. Be front of mind for 'insert you here'.. Working from home? Invest in good equipment, a comfy chair, plants and good lighting. View it as a workplace. It is not an extension of the bedroom/games room - apart from the iTunes and free beer at 5pm. When you leave the office - shut the door and forget it - detach from work. Until 8am tomorrow when you start it all again. I'm starting to sound too dramatic; but its a long hard road, difficult to sum it all up into words - let alone a forum post. You get back what you put in. You need to be dedicated, good at marketing and get the jobs done quickly and not just meet client expectations, but beat them. Over and over. Invoice & Repeat.

Thanks Chris!

Thanks Sam! Big family guy fan here too

Bank transfer...

Thankyou! Where about's in east London?

Forgot to mention - I've a graphic/web design background but now focus on SEO consultancy for clients across Europe. All the best, Andrew Wheeler

Hi everyone, not sure if I already said hello - registered the account a few months ago and left it idle. I'm trying to be a little more 'active' on the boards, so you may have seen a few of my post replies already, hope they have helped. All the best and look forward to contributing further. Andrew Wheeler

How many pages? Static HTML or database driven? You need to add up all your time for the above tasks before you can give a price. Worst case (working with a hangover, in a loud office on a slow computer etc etc) would that take you? Then work it from your hourly rate.. Then subtract your 'costs' to get a better idea on profit. Andrew Wheeler

No, Googlebot will crawl your site a lot more than once a day - check your server logs. As for updating the Google index (listings), this is an ongoing process that happens every minute of the day. Can you imagine the state of the search results after a month of no changes? I'd switch to Yahoo pretty quickly if that was the case! Andrew Wheeler

Yahoo Site Explorer is a must. Andrew Wheeler

Identify keyword phrases relating to your business you can rank for, before building the website. That's the key to generating ongoing 'free' traffic. Andrew Wheeler

Blimey - A lot of wrong answers on this thread. Hafsoh is correct - it depends on how many links you build. It definitely is not a case of 'it takes as long as it takes' (whoever said that), and IS all about backlinks. I have sites which have sat on a PR0 for years, why? Because I build no backlinks to them. Other sites I have monthly backlinking campaigns running see rises in PR. Why? Because I'm building backlinks. Here for more detail: http://www.google.com/corporate/tech.html Quoted if you'd rather not read it all: "PageRank also considers the importance of each page that casts a vote, as votes from some pages are considered to have greater value, thus giving the linked page greater value." The higher PR you get, the more backlinks you need to get up the next rung on the ladder. PR updates are generally quarterly, and you may notice the updates sooner via the toolbar - but that's speculative and depends on which data center rolls out the update first. There is an equation somewhere on my hard drive with the PR breakdown vs time/links etc, let me know if its needed. Hope that clears up a lot of the confusion here. Andrew Wheeler

You've mentioned a lot of excellent points, but that is incorrect. The Meta Description is one of the few vitally important meta tags you can use to your advantage to drive more traffic. The Meta Description will appear under your title in the search engine results, so its effectively 250 characters of sales copy to convince users to click on your link in the SERP's. Make them unique for every page and relevant to your body copy, aswell as including some form of call to action for the user. Difficult, and getting it right is a fine art! Andrew Wheeler

As a rule of thumb; You should be conducting SEO before, during and after website builds. Having it as a 'bolt on' after thought will do you, or your clients, no favors in the long run. Bottom line, it'll cost you and your clients more money. Build sites around the above SEO techniques to generate traffic, but put these into place as you develop your next website. Andrew Wheeler

I'm always in the market to expand my portfolio for sites which are already ranking and generating traffic. I'd be interested to know when you start selling. Andrew Wheeler

YouTube. Plus the additional viral capabilities and search engine optimsation you can perform on YouTube videos, makes it a no brainer. Andrew Wheeler

£10/yr for .co.uk, £15/yr for .com

Does your business really need a Facebook profile, or a Facebook Fan Page? A Fan page is more suited to business, and avoids the identity crisis! Its located in the footer of facebook, under advertising. Andrew Wheeler

How could I forget Aweber, one of the best for internet marketing. If you have a solid double opt in list you are selling products to, give them a go. You can get an account for $1 at the moment aswell. Andrew Wheeler

They set you apart from the standard web design companies who claim to be masters of everything. When in fact very few understand how to build a website with keywords in mind, and managing an ongoing PPC campaign. Is it worth it? Depends. Depends on what you do - if its solely PPC, then maybe yes - just make sure you broadcast it to every potential lead. Andrew Wheeler