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This forum has been simply wonderful. Our agency, that specilizes in database development and graphical web design, has only in the last 6 months began to dip it's toe in SEO (a whole new world).
Unfortunately, in the beginning, we were guilty of creating "keyword-specific" doorway pages that were mere duplicates of each other and paying to submit them thru Inktomi without any real understanding of SE's or the time/effort involved in a true SEO campaign. Although this did get our clients ranked pretty well in *some* SEs.
We are now committed to "best practices" and have spent a tremendous amount of time reading and reading and testing and reading - which is why I'm on sites like this late EVERY night. :)
My Question(s):
What do y'all do for your clients?
Now...before someone says, "that's 1001 questions", I know. If you have insight on one or more, please feel free to answer.
Thanks in advance. You're all GREAT!
As far as pricing there are many different ways you can charge the client. You can charge an hourly rate (if you know what you are doing you should be able to ask for and get somewhere in the $50-75 range). You can also charge a flat fee. You will need to figure out how much work it will take you and how you will measure the results if you go this way. Also you can charge them per visitor that come from the search engines if you are confident that you will be able to drive some good traffic to their site. I have worked with all three models and prefer getting paid per visitor because that is more motivation for me to do good work and the customer only ends up paying for actual visitors to their site. I am sure others will have ideas and opinions as well.
So, DMOZ and a link on my 'clients' page gets them that. For those that show a little more interest: Topical directories, local search engine here in Denmark and a little research on related sites.
Nick
Thanks a million. We have started seeing a steady stream of our clients who are opting to spend several thousand dollars to get started. We have a very talented cretive writer on staff who usually works with them to develop 'meaningful optimized content', but we've been looking at what to do to take them to the 'next level'.
I really don't have ANY experience managing a PPC campaign, but I've been reading a tremendous amount on the 'gaps' and how you can really get in trouble on Overture by trying to keep that #1 or #2 position.
I have another question on what you actually "present" to the client that I'll post in another string.
Thanks again! I look forward to other feedback as well.
>>>Inktomi (should you submit all of your optimized pages or your 'best' pages?)
Paid Inclusion: Small sites - every page. Large sites - unless you have the budget, just stick with your most important pages.
>>>Ask Jeeves/TEOME (do you typically pay for submission here?)
In my opinion, a waste of money. I have several sites ranked very well here and see almost NO traffic at all from here. Your results may vary.
>>>Altavista (too much money? What do you think?)
Again - waste of money. Very little traffic from good rankings. At least you can get into AV for free. Just use free submission form.
>>>How do you go about establishing link popularity? Do you get clients to find possible sites or do you find them for them?
If your clients can help you find good sites to link to, encourage them to do so.
My technique is usually this to start with:
1. I identify my main competitor's websites.
2. I use the backlink feature on Google to find out which sites link to my competitors.
3. I request links from those sites.
If they will link to my competitors, 9 times out of 10 they will link to me also.
Also, be vigilant about getting into ODP.
It may take a while, but is one of the best ways to boost link popularity and increase traffic.
GREAT tip about the back links on competition. Thanks a million! ;)
