Hi All,

 

I have a site I recently setup for a client - http://www.skunxtattoo.com A friend of a friend of my client has offered him a SEO deal to get the site ranking high up on google (ie number 1). He's offering him a deal but still at £500 for the year it really sounds like a ripoff.

 

When I built the site I really did take SEO into consideration (as much as my experience allowed - and I'm even making use of the all in one SEO plugin (site is wordpress based).

 

As my client knows nothing about anything web related, he asked me to chat to this SEO expert. After a chat it sounds like what they do is something I can do for my client instead. This expert mentioned something about adding extra copy to pages, rewriting meta tags and rewriting every blog post to ensure max. ranking.

 

I requested some of the sites they work with to see what he is actually going on about. I can see the extra copy that has been added to certain pages - the copy looks like links but is just plan static copy. (see bottom right corner of this site: http://acr-electrical.co.uk/).

 

Another friend of mine says the SEO of the site can be improved without spending all the money. I also know it takes time to build the site up - it's still very new.

 

I really think the £500 could be better spent with targeted advertising on facebook and google sponsored links.

 

 

What do you think? Any advise?

Tricky one because from a political point of view you dont want to step on the toes of a friend of a friend of a client.

 

Personally I think some SEO consultants CAN take a website dwindelling in Googles supplemental search results and turn it into a money-making enterprise. However, there are many that are out to make a swift buck.

 

Nearly all SEO companies guarantee a top ten postion in Google's search results... but when you look at it a bit closer any monkey can get any site in the top ten of Google for an obscure or lengthy search phrase.

 

If you're confident that you've SEO'd the site as much as you can, then it's possible that this guy may be offering to do stuff you've already done. From the sounds of it what the site really needs is a inbound link generating strategy - is this what he is offering to help with as well?

SEO seems to be one of the boom industries of the net with every man and his dog claiming to be good/excellent at it.

I wouldn't like to choose a SEO firm unless I could see evidence of past work/success etc.

As Aaron said, anybody can get to page one for a rarely used/very obscure search term.

The company in question needs to research the best keywords to use in the copy, headings etc for your clients particular industry and specify which search terms they will be targetting.

Are they going to offer a link building strategy as part of the deal?

Generic terms like 'adding more content' to pages is no use if the extra content isn't targetted at the right seach terms.

The company needs to be very specific in what they hope to acheive for your client's site and possibly offer some kind of sliding payment scheme where your client only pays after certain pre-identified results.

You also need to be wary and make sure that they don't use any black hat techniques that could ultimately end up with your client's site being penalised by the search engines.

I would also say that a good level of communication with the SEO company is vital for your client so that they are aware of what the SEO company is doing on a monthly basis (their strategies etc)

As for price, £500 for the year isn't very much considering some companies will charge you that per month.

 

I'm no expert at SEO but I hope this helps you out a bit

Hi Aaron,

 

Thank you for your reply. There is no politics involved, my client has made that clear. He just doesn't want to be 'screwed' because he knows very little about web stuff.

 

The SEO guy did mention something about placing the site link on relevant sites (again something I could do - and have been doing this past week...) As I said, my SEO skills aren't the best, as I'm still finding my way around this kind of stuff.

 

Is there any way I can see the effectiveness of my current SEO for the site?

 

 

Am I correct in thinking that strategic online advertising would also raise the profile of the site?

The company in question is EMP (http://www.business-printing-services.co.uk/seo.html)

 

 

 

....seriously, would you take them seriously? There site looks like crap IMHO...

I've not come across them before - it wouldn't be fair to pass judgement based on impressions.

 

In fairness to SEO consultants, I will stick up for them a bit. We paid some guy last november to help us optimise a Google Adwords campaign, which I know is slightly different but kind of relevant, and they did some keyword research and I was really impressed. They came back with a list of over 1,500 combinations of keywords and ad groups, and they thought about things that we would never have considered. It was certainly worth paying them, and it wasn't much money at all (London phone number - suspiciously east european sounding accents )

 

However, if you're confident that you are doing all of the right things in terms of the semantic structure of the site, using relevant sensible keywords, and creating quality inbound links, then I think your client would be daft to pay someone else £500 to do the same.

This could go either way. You can check out their portfolio and see if their clients are performing well, but there's really no way to see whether their skills can help your client's site until it's done.

 

So how about this: you write the contract. If they are ballsy enough to promise you a #1 ranking, write that down. Try to include stipulations about traffic increases, such as "Contractor will double Google click-through traffic in six months" or whatever is important to you. And finally, include a liability clause, so if they do add your site to link farms and get you banned, you can go after them for damages. If they're confident to sign with all of those conditions, go for it.

 

Oh, but make a backup of your files before they start work.

 

This all sounds a bit paranoid but it doesn't look like you trust them very much as it is.

Thanks for all the replies everybody.

 

I like the idea of me drawing up the contract, I like that a lot.

 

 

A friend of mine went over the site (he has some fairly good SEO experience) and he thinks the site is pretty well done from a SEO point of view.

 

 

I'm still not 100% sure what to do - I'm always sceptical when it comes to things I don't know much about - and I've read so much on the web saying one shouldn't pay for SEO.

 

 

I think I'm even more confused now than when I started on this SEO journey...

I'm still not 100% sure what to do - I'm always sceptical when it comes to things I don't know much about - and I've read so much on the web saying one shouldn't pay for SEO.

I think I'm even more confused now than when I started on this SEO journey...

 

I don't think the problem is paying for SEO; you're paying someone for their expertise in a particular field.

 

However, I personally have a problem with anybody who promises a particular ranking. That's either a completely impossible promise - they can't know what Google or the other thousands of sites in your target area are going to do - or they will get you to #1 for the most obscure key phrase possible, or for your company name (both are easy and mostly useless).

 

But paying for good SEO is totally cool and can turn out to be great value for money.

£500 for the year? lol.... I charge £500 a day!

Hey guys,

 

Just thought I'd let you know that I've been in touch with the SEO guy again and emailed him a list of questions I had come up thanks to this thread. I'm waiting to hear back from him.

 

Thanks again.

£500 for the year? lol.... I charge £500 a day!

 

Are you looking for a SEO apprentice...

Mate at £500 a day I'm not qualified to take on an apprentice, the big boys charge £1500 a day!

Mate at £500 a day I'm not qualified to take on an apprentice, the big boys charge £1500 a day!

 

 

 

...could you recommend any good books/sites/reference material I should look into?

well I post all my thoughts on my blog (in my sig)

the two best industry blogs for seo are SEOMoz.com and searchengineland.com

 

if you read this http://www.seomoz.org/blog/levels-of-searc...eting-knowledge

 

I have Ammon Johns (level 8 ) sitting beside me right now, so I know/pick up a fair amount every day!

Ammon Johns... Black_Knight from cre8asite forums, yes?

 

I owe a lot of my knowledge to his insightful posts.

I am learning alot about SEO myself and I even would not charge £500 a year.. it is too little. You get what you pay for! The pure amount of man hours needed to deveolp a site is immence. It sounds suspect to me. i don't want to cast doubts, but it does worry me that they are using such broad terms and no specifics.

I always view SEO from a non-technical point-of-view because I'm a copy-editor/writer. You don't need me to tell you about the importance of inbound links and all that jazz, but... I reckon you could make a great deal of difference with some SEO copy-editing. I promise I'm not just trying to sell to you - I've got plenty on my plate!

Having a quick look over the skunx site I can see there's a lot of work that can be done to make the copy:

1. More effective to readers
   
2. More effective to search engines
   
3. Help fine-tune your SEO
   

There's a bit too much 'We do tattoos and are good at tattoos because we're experienced at tattoos.' going-on and the different pages don't narrow down the keywords enough to be page specific.

Good SEO not only attracts more visitors but also converts more to customers - that means weaving keywords and the like naturally into powerful copy. I call it organic SEO copy-editing and it's much cheaper than £500 a day (unfortunately for me).

 

Check my website right2web and read Copy Corner where we're leading up toward SEO copy writing (sorry we're not there yet).

 

I know it's a shameless plug - but it's just easier than writing it all over again! And I am giving away free advice on this forum!

 

Just trying to give you another, cheaper angle!

 

Ammon Johns... Black_Knight from cre8asite forums, yes?

 

I owe a lot of my knowledge to his insightful posts.

 

That's the one

Hey everybody,

 

Thanks for the extra tips, threads and references for SEO - will start looking more into this as soon as I get back from LA

 

 

Also, after much pestering and question asking to the SEO person, myself and my client have decided to take him up on his offer - he dropped his price to £350 for the year too! So, now my client has some extra money to do some targeted online advertising too. Brilliant and thanks again, everybody has been a really huge help.

 

 

...it is because of threads like this that I find myself spending more and more time here on WDF, my addiction is now in full swing!

Hold on hold on! Before you part with any cash at all ask him for a full pre-audit, summary of areas to be addressed, and his monthly maintenance summary!

oh crap! Too late now, but will ask for the info anyway - thanks Eggman.

SEO is something that we can all do. Its just a matter of having the right resources and knowledge - that's the tricky part