Greetings all,
I have a small ad agency. We create sites but don’t do seo and don’t want to. We need to help clients optimize their sites, though, and some pay per click too.
In the past I’ve outsourced to a company that I am not really happy with. I’ve googled and found some potential new seo companies but always nervous testing new waters.
Wondering if the Breaktime IT guys or others could recommend a firm?
Not looking for cheap, looking for good.
Many thanks,
Todd
Replies
http://www.freelancewebmarket.com
SamT
Sam,
Hey, thanks for the link...I'll check it out. Never saw that site before but just farmed out a successful powerpoint project to a vendor on http://www.elance.com.Still hoping for some personal references. Don't believe I am racist, but I would really prefer working with someone who speaks decent English. The last seo company gave its address as US but I ended up dealing with someone from India. Couldn't understand most of what was said, very aggravating.Todd
Did the freelancewebmarket web page come up for you? I got "page unavailable" or similar...
I pretty much have the same Q as you, although I'm not an IT profesional. Just a builder with a web site that I need to get submitted to all the major search engines.
Do an advanced search for post by FatRoman containing the words "search engine."He has some really good stuff to say about bringing traffic to your web site and none of it really requires an SEO.SEO's are best used by national and international "supermarkets."SamT
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View Image “Good work costs much more than poor imitation or factory product†– Charles GreeneCaliforniaRemodelingContractor.com
Sam: That was extremly helpful. Thanks a bunch.
Huck. Thanks to you too!
PS:
I just spent 2 hrs reading FatRoman's comments and the associated web pages he referenced and have typed up a bunch of comments for our web design provider.
Not withstanding his excellent information, you said: SEO's are best used by national and international "supermarkets."
Still, to get local traffic to our web site jump started would it be a good idea to do one of those deals where we pay a fee to have our web site submitted to the popular search engines? Is it necessary to buy a monthly submission or is a one time submission adequate?
I guess one can also pay the various search engines fees to have one's web site returned in the top 10 hits for a particular list of keywords. Got any thoughts on that?
Anyone else have comments?
Matt,Just sent you a reply.Save your money on the idea of paying someone who promises placement in the top 10 search returns. Google fluctuates every couple of minutes, so even a properly prepared site might bounce off into the 11-20 or 21-30 range on a given search.Same thing goes for submitting your info to the search engines. You can easily do it and the search crawlers will come by anyway, eventually. Don't throw your money away on something like this.Best,
Steve
Fatroman is correct.The types of pitches you are hearing are the snake oil ones. The only search engines that matter are Google Yahoo and MSN for the most part. That and any industry-specific directories...but you should probably already be aware of those yourself.Good SEO is like Good curb appeal. No matter how much you do after the fact, if you didn't start with a solid structure to begin with, you're just dressing a pig up in a dress.A majority of SEO success starts with good and accessible HTML, good writing/content.Like building a house, don't skimp on paying the foundation crew so you can hire the expensive painters. ;o)Back to the original thread, I wouldn't outsource SEO off-site unless you have a really close working relationship with them...especially if the clients tend to be targetting regional hits more than multi-national hits.
Oh, and one final point 'in summary'...good SEO starts from day one of a web site project. It's not as effective to add it on after the fact. Things like picking a good domain name can play a big part down the road.
First, get a good Domain Name.Second, get a good Domain Name.A one month radio ad run during traffic jam hours.Direct mail announcing the site.Letters to your local newspapers. That's a whole other subject. Research how to do that effectively.Letters to any biz assoc's you belong to.Definitely write a letter to all your past clients and let them know, and ask them to tell their friends.Most of your desired web traffic is going to be from people who google for "Raleigh + something construction related."Link to every construction related site in Raleigh, (expect your direct competitors," and every nationally know brand you mention on your site. If you use the linked words in your content, (best,) have your Web Guy "No decorate" those links so they don't clutter it up.I would need to know more about the specifics of your company and its business to be able to advise you better, but it all needs to be part of your comprehensive Marketing Strategy.Finally, make sure you get a good Domain Name.SamT
Many thanks to those who replied. I remember the Fat Roman thread from awhile ago, I will check out his links, always trying to learn.I would agree to a certain extent to those that call SEO firms "BS's" or snake oil people. Know enough to understand that there are no guarantees in top page listings. Know enough to understand that some use unscrupulous methods that can actually be counter productive. But I think there are also firms that can help with rankings at a reasonable cost. Seen a couple that advertise "don't pay till you see results." That seems like a pretty safe approach as buyers.My client is relatively small but has nationwide prospective audience. Attracting one new customer to them is potentially an easy 50K plus each year in revenues. Can be several hundred K's. Pretty serious stuff.Understand the issues too about the site itself - domain, content, etc. - being extremely important. Would like to work with SEO firm to critique site, text etc. so it will be as engine ready as possible.A couple final comments to add personal perspective for those still following this thread. Used to have about a dozen employees. Post divorce, there's just two of us. We are good at most stuff, but farm out things we're not so good at to qualified subcontactors, take our margin, and move to the next project.I've read hours on SEO. Will never know as much as a real pro. Just looking for a qualified sub, that's all. A lot more confidence that way. Figuring on monthly maintenance, too.And whoever suggested finding someone local, that's a good idea. I am in central PA and figuring on a little trip to Philly to sit down and talk to a couple prospective "tradesmen," look at some before/afters, etc.Talking too much here. Thanks again.Todd
Todd,If you have questions, shoot me an email through the system. Be happy to talk to you.Best,
Steve
Steve,
Was hoping you would check in. I will review the links you mentioned and probably shoot you a follow up PM. Thanks for the offer, much appreciated.Todd
Good thoughts, appreciate it. Like a lot of others, most of my website use is from people checking it out who've met me, or heard of my website, in another venue. I know this because I haven't submitted yet. I'd love to be a top lister, but don't have the resources to pursue that goal. Maybe someday!
View Image “Good work costs much more than poor imitation or factory product†– Charles GreeneCaliforniaRemodelingContractor.com
Well, the beauty of Google is that you don't have to submit your site, they've already found it!Here's a screenshot of a google search for 'bakersfield remodeling contractor'. You are on the first page, 6th listing down after the business map listings. Which reminds me, everyone here should submit a map listing in Google if you haven't already. It's free and pretty easy to set up.
http://www.google.com/local/add/lookup?hl=en-US&gl=US
Steve,
That's a good point,but wouldn't you agree that those keywords are pretty specific, hence the high results? Almost all of my words are very generic and return many million results.
Not an easy challenge.Not to highjack my own thread but what's your general thoughts on:
---PPC?
---mass email?Todd
Well, yes and no. They are specific, but not out of the ordinary for what someone might be searching on. Say I needed to find a dentist. If I just run a search on 'dentist' I'd get results running from the North Pole to Patagonia. So 'alexandria dentist' would work as a much better search for me. And of course if someone has registered alexandriadentist.com, that's more than likely to be returned on the first page.So Huck's site is fortunately named bakersfieldremodel.com, although he needs to add some text and alt tags, meta tags/descriptions/keywords that spell out things like Southern California, Los Angeles area, exit 52, etc. That's where you need to think like the people who are trying to find your site. More text in this sense is always going to beat more photos. And weighting the <h2> and <h3> headlines with descriptive key terms helps more so than just dropping them into the text.I don't do a lot of targeted ads for my clients. I've seen them in action and I'm really unsure of their usefulness. Part of the pay per click issue is, well, having to pay for every click through from the ad to your site. I've had clients (and small ones at that) fairly convinced that their competitors were just clicking on those links and running my client's costs up. Second issue with a PPC campaign is that just getting people to the site doesn't mean they are going to read through the information there and/or purchase anything. In many instances just driving a bunch of traffic to a site isn't doing the site owner a bit of good, in fact it's raising their operating costs. Third, I've read before about concerns with Google's adwords not being aboveboard on what's happening. All of which leaves me with a fairly dim view of the PPC process. That's not to say it won't work for some, rather I think there are better options out there for most businesses.Mass email? Hmm, obviously it works, right? There's a reason that these spammers are pulling in $250k / month. Me, I prefer to purchase any needed pharmaceuticals from a reputable dealer, LOL. If something like a newsletter is done WELL, and doesn't appear in my inbox every three days, I'm more likely to look at it. But for the most part, they all get deleted pretty quickly. I think clients are much better off giving prospective customers a reason to visit the site, vs. sending the site to them. So that means setting up a blog (and that has to be maintained, no use going months without updating it) and be sure to publicize the blog occasionally as well especially when you start it, and publishing an RSS feed. In fact an RSS feed that your users subscribe to via email is very useful. They get updates that have been made to the site, within a 24 hour period, and no email goes out if there's not an update. They can also use a newsreader to pick it up, but I kind of like the email service, especially because they opted in to receive it. People are especially concerned with the privacy of their email addresses and don't look kindly on receiving something (no matter how benign) from someone they don't know.Hope that's helpful.
Hmm, the attachment didn't make it before.
wow - you just made my day. Thank you!
View Image “Good work costs much more than poor imitation or factory product†– Charles GreeneCaliforniaRemodelingContractor.com
No worries. Glad that helped.Interestingly when I tried 'california remodeling contractor', I couldn't find californiaremodelingcontractor.com at all. Or at least the first 5 pages. Perhaps I just missed it. But if you own both domains, you might consider keeping content on both of them, and using some links back and forth.Can't remember if I mentioned it in this thread or another, but Google looks at sites' popularity as well in determining their ranking. If there are links to your site from other sites, Google perceives that your site is popular and weights it more heavily. Another good way of generating links to your site is to run an ad on Craigslist. It may or may not be free in your area. CL does a great job of appearing fairly high up on rankings, and if you put your link in your ad, it should come up in a search for it. You may not even want business off of CL, but it might not be a bad thing to do for 5 minutes on a Sunday night once a week.
I'm going to follow FatRomans advice for my fairly mature website to fine tune it's presence but I also rely on Postcards, photo business cards, and local advertising in our music festival program and environmental group newsletter. Getting your company name and the fact that you have a website in front of people is key. M------------------
"You cannot work hard enough to make up for a sloppy estimate."
Where you located, Todd?
I've found that SEO firms are like Mortage firms. 90% as BSing their way from scam to scam.
10% know what they're doing.
I build web sites for a living and have washed my hands of SEO work. The key is to find a firm that works on a continued retainer with the client. One that is constantly watching the technologies and adjusting the sites as needed.
It's great that you are a marketing firm as I find that marketing is usually a much better thing to focus on that simply SEO, though a lot of clients fall for the snake oil sales pitch and believe SEO is the path to riches.
Sorry, not really helping you specifically.