Hi People,

 

I understand the basics of SEO with regards to website design i.e. valid semantic mark-up, hierarchical code, keyword placement, unique content etc. but have always been a little hazy as to what a company such as http://www.matchmakermarketing.co.uk/ actually do.

 

You provide them with various keywords you want to be found with and then they...?

 

Any insight would be much appreciated.

We clean up your mess

We clean up your mess

 

...okay but what does that mean, I'm pretty certain Google Matchmaker doesn’t have access to the site so they don't play with keywords in the copy content etc., what is it they do?

If it's like far too many of the usual SEO 'experts' it will be shroud themselves in mystery, sound like authoritative experts and then basically spam the internet (probably outsourcing to an Indian company) with links to your site with half-a-dozen quickly chosen anchor texts based on the most cursory glance at search volume v search competition!

 

No idea what these guys specifically offer and nor do I suggest that what I wrote above is what they do.

 

What you'd like these SEO companies to offer is to help you formulate a successful SEO strategy, offer content optimization advice/ services, an integrated approach to marketing and SEO... as well as the obligatory spamming (sorry I meant link-building).

 

 

It totally depends on the client. Any proper SEO guy will need access to the site because things need changed, tested and changed again.

 

In a nutshell we (should) be 1st understanding the clients business 2nd working out the best way to make them money using the internet 3rd implement and test. Yeah thats about right.

 

Ok so how do we do it..? erm.. It's a pretty vast area and there are a lot of different techniques we use. I'd suggest signing up to 30dc for an idea of whats involved

There you are... what Monsieur Tycoon said!

The understanding and testing are the vital parts... there's no single technique that gets best results for everyone - you need a mix, and the right mix depending on your business, market and target audience.

Everything from your site to your marketing (even offline) should be optimized to work together (SEO is only one part of a successful online business, and is only one way to get business).

 

So, if someone says "I'll SEO your site just give me your keywords and cash - you'll see results in 3 months" and that's the end of the process I'd bail out!

(SEO is only one part of a successful online business, and is only one way to get business).

 

And probably the hardest and most risky if we are talking about pure getting to the top of search engines in the organics.

Okay thanks for your thoughts, oddly enough a client of mine has used MatchMakerMarketing, given nine (relatively similar) key phrases and is now at least on the first page for all of them! It's a driving school website and I think the client has been using these guys for maybe a year or so but I believe he saw results within a matter of months.

 

They don't play with the site (as I was asked to make some content updates the other day) but they have managed to get the site a good ranking, do you think this is just link building and sticking them in directories etc.?

whats the site and keywords? il have a look and let you know.

if they're only link building then that's probably money down the drain... however saying that i always do some link building for my sites but only target relevant websites that will return some google juice - it's a tedious job though and in the end doesn't give as much return as i'd like it to.

 

by the way scaz182, you have a head like a f***ing orange.

Seo is something that every designer and developer should be familar with and take into account when designing a site. People have made it into a seperate industry to sucker in the average joe to paying thousands for work that should have been done with the build.

 

Why do people not charge for the initial SEO with the build?

Seo is something that every designer and developer should be familar with and take into account when designing a site. People have made it into a seperate industry to sucker in the average joe to paying thousands for work that should have been done with the build.

 

Why do people not charge for the initial SEO with the build?

 

Theirs on-site seo and off site seo.

 

I agree that every designer/developer should be knowledgable about the on-site seo, but off site seo/sem is a completely different ball game.

I offer SEO as standard with all of my packages for onpage.

 

For offpage, there are various techniques. Normally we will sit with the client, work out where the traffic is coming from at the moment, and will work out what they are expecting.

 

Link building is only part of it, but we will use a mix of places to get you higher up google. You will want a mix of high pagerank websites, as well as websites that will bring traffic in. Top of google is achievable without touching the page, but it is also worth modifying the page slightly to make it more 'SEO friendly'

 

Another option we will look at, is wether an advertising campaignw oudl be worth while, wether its a pay per click campaign, or that we will use a series of free/cheap places that will bring you in the extra traffic and customers.

 

Where possible we will also look at getting the copy rewritten if it is required, as that can make a big difference in the conversion rating.

 

 

We can spend days analysing a clients website, and helping them work out where they are, where they want to be, and how we can help them achieve this.

 

Unfortunately alot of the more amateur companies (like the one he is currently using) dont care, and just spam links.

 

Reaper

My advice would be simply to ask the SEO what they do. Whether or not you get a satisfactory response is whether they are worth hiring. Like anything checking past results is not a bad place to start, especially when you take into account a specific industry.

 

There is of course that classic SEO versus Web design clash/debate, chicken and egg scenario! This is where designers say you need a great design to get the business and the SEO says you need rankings for traffic!

 

So what do SEO's do? I think we drive targeted traffic to well constructed nice looking websites who then convert them to customers.

Okay thanks for the information, I'm aware of on-site SEO techniques it’s the marketing side I was interesting in, but your comments have helped clear up some of my confusion, cheers.

 

by the way scaz182, you have a head like a f***ing orange.

 

Yes, this is true, I do in fact have a head like a f***ing orange!

Yes, this is true, I do in fact have a head like a f***ing orange!

 

You look like a teacher from my old school lol

I think possible the most accurate description, at least of the first thing that a lot of SEO guys do, is "clean up your mess." There are a huge number of sites out there which have been around for a while, have a fair bit of good content on them and a reasonable number of links but are so badly coded that their rankings get trashed. Just cleaning up/ validating the code and sorting out the basics like Titles, Headings and Internal Anchor text often gives a heft jump in rankings.

Many times the difference between two marketing companies as well as the SEO firms offering services could be regarding the links they establish.

 

For instance, try guessing the difference between one link from the homepage of BBC pointing at a site and then thousands of PR zero links from forums and blogs for the same site. Do you think they would be equal in the eye of Google?