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If all of their claims are true, why wouldn't they make their own sites?
I came to this conclusion after reading "our system guarentees first page/first result ranking on any keyword you wish".
If they could do that, they wouldnt be telling you, they would be making a travel site, a sex site, a electronics site, and a web hosting site.
[edited by: pageoneresults at 12:13 am (utc) on Mar. 16, 2004]
If they could do that, they wouldnt be telling you, they would be making a travel site, a sex site, a electronics site, and a web hosting site.
How do you know that they aren't? ;-)
I mean I can do work on a site that is no where to be found on searches, but if I only get them results in 23rd place won't most people think that's not good enough position to pay?
Thoughts?
Our pricing is different per client (and per industry, really), but it can be based on traffic metrics, organic revshare, or other such measures.
I would not base it off of keyword rankings.
"our system guarentees first page/first result ranking on any keyword you wish".
Sounds like the claim of a company that offers PPC campaign management services. It's not an unusual claim for such a company to make.
I mean I can do work on a site that is no where to be found on searches, but if I only get them results in 23rd place won't most people think that's not good enough position to pay?
Your doctor charges you whether or not s/he cures your illness. A lawyer (usually) charges you whether or not s/he wins your case. Your personal trainer charges you whether or not you lose that 25 pounds. :)
Don't undervalue your service. Going from nowhere to 23rd is a helluva jump, and you should be compensated accordingly. That said, hourly billing seems to me the best way to go, not performance-based billing.
I mean I can do work on a site that is no where to be found on searches, but if I only get them results in 23rd place won't most people think that's not good enough position to pay?
That depends on how much that 23rd position is bringing in.
As BakedJake advised, you're looking at it wrong - you can't value your work on a keyword. I've worked on (my own) sites before, aiming for a particular keyword or phrase, and not got those phrases up there, but as a result suddenly I'm ranking for stuff I hadn't even thought of.
The value that you add is the commercial advantage given to the site you've worked on. That can come in many different ways.
TJ
If all of their claims are true, why wouldn't they make their own sites?
There are a lot of reasons that someone might sell seo services and not make their own sites - they don't want to open a business and have to deal with stock, shipping, taxes, etc. ; they enjoy doing seo; they prefer to sell a service.
I agree on being wary of seo companies that guarantee se positions. They have no way to guarantee that without PPC.
As far as how to charge - I charge a flat monthly fee based on how competitive the keywords are, and various other factors. If I fail to produce results, the client is of course free to discontinue my services. But I would certainly not charge based on their keyword positions.
A close cousin of the equally misquided "if they were good at SEO, they'd rank well in every SERP for 'search engine optimization.'"
Judging someone's performance by a standard to which that person does not aspire is rarely going to result in an accurate assessment.
Somebody who is good at SEO may not be good at making websites. They may also like what they do and they don't like the stress of watching a site go up and down. They may just want to have more security. They may make less money than the person they are helping but they are happy with what they are doing. Affiliate marketing is a very stressful business.
Knowledge is power...
$$$ make sense...
But most of the people I deal with are small business owners and unless they see actual results they are reluctant to pay.
Problem is they are very used to spending in the press as a (often thoughtless) habit, even despite poor results because they feel that is what you have to do. Same with spending 000's on exhibitions.
They'll also happily spend thousands on glossy brochures, whereas the same amount spent to make their website work properly ends up being a major board-level issue.
We've had some success by being negative ie. don't expect this, don't expect that.....but do expect that the whole thing is going to be a sight cheaper for getting your company name exposed than the press.
To be fair most companies have in the last few years been promised all sorts by the people who have got them onto the web and very little of it has been delivered, so can't blame them for wanting what they see as 'results'.
Got a feeling we will see a cycle of companies all competing with each other by spending more and more on PPC / Adwords / SEO and then when they realise what its costing, they'll go looking for fixed rate deals for their own mini-websites on portals and big websites in their areas of business.
However, the 'pay for results' movement is very strong, backed by big advertising budgets from credible companies. In some areas it also taps into people's feeling that they are in control and that they can make a fast buck by carrying links. There is no equivalent commercial push saying 'find the big sites and pay a fixed rate'.
Thanks for the feedback. Based on the what I'm hearing I have really been short-changing myself. But most of the people I deal with are small business owners and unless they see actual results they are reluctant to pay.
tell them it's not the position in the SERPS for their pet-keyword that counts, but traffic and conversion.
Thanks for the feedback. Based on the what I'm hearing I have really been short-changing myself. But most of the people I deal with are small business owners and unless they see actual results they are reluctant to pay.
An imminently reasonable position.
Small business owners are amongst the most saavy business people there are. Every dollar that they spend on your services comes out of their lunch money. That tends to teach the value of a buck like little else will.
Most of those that can really perform as SEO's do indeed make more money from affiliate marketing than any other source.
There are some industries that simply do not offer good affiliate programs, or programs that would be less profitable than SEO models.....so some good SEO's will still play "the game" to make a "few" extra bucks.
If you pay for SEO services that work, treat the provider nicely, they probably don't need you! They almost certainly make way more from other sources of revenue and you are just "lucky" to be the cream on their cake. Treat them badly and you will find out they can live happily without the cream!
If/when you find a good SEO you should treat them like a good Attorney, CPA, Doctor, Dentist or Psychiatrist;)
There are lots of bad ones out there, if you get a good one, be nice and hang on to them for life :)
That's how my company started. We used to do SEO 5 years ago and found it to be too much a burden to educate each and every client over and over again. We started optimizing our own sites and gradually have stopped doing SEO for other people.
Two things I find interesting:
1) We've been swamped with unsolicited calls lately from SEO companies all making #1 google guarantees. While I'm talking to them I check out there network and they are ALWAYS spammers or newbies that don't have any clue what they're talking about.
2) Because we only work on our own sites and focused exclusively on Google, we don't have outside clientele and we're in a real mess now. Bankruptcy has been talked about.
If all of their claims are true, why wouldn't they make their own sites?
Because they may not also want to build their own hotels, software companies, publishing houses, computer stores, legal practices, etc etc, that are the businesses that these sites are marketing.
The underlying business often has a lot to do with the goods and services, client relations, site content, and ability to attract links that makes the SEO on these sites work.
SEO is the marketing of the business, not the business itself. Some SEOs may be so good at Web marketing that they decide to go into business for themselves, but then they're doing something else, not just SEO.
Small business owners are amongst the most saavy business people there are. Every dollar that they spend on your services comes out of their lunch money. That tends to teach the value of a buck like little else will.
well, I wouldn't necessarily use the word "saavy". Many of the small companies I have dealt with are scraping together the fees for SEO and for that they expect the world. No offense against them by any means but I've found that the expectations of the little guy making a small seo purchase is much more than the bigger guy making a much larger seo purchase.
If a web site owner has never been on the first page of Google, it's hard to explain to them what it's worth. Afterwards, they don't want the traffic to go away, and they'll pay a lot more to maintain (in a proven win-win scenario) then you could have sold them in the beginning.
Of course, this requires a certain kind of client relationship. You can't just go advertise "first page listings guaranteed," but as part of the sales process -- particularly if you're newer, going out on your own, or trying to upgrade your fee schedule, it may make sense in some cases.
Meta Tags can be written by a hired techie I am in the market earnestly looking for a good techie just for this purpose. Of course there are other tricks to the trade but the most important things I believe I can handle so what exactly do I need a SEO company for?
Meta Tags can be written by a hired techie I am in the market earnestly looking for a good techie just for this purpose. Of course there are other tricks to the trade but the most important things I believe I can handle so what exactly do I need a SEO company for?
Hi jamaican - Welcome to the forums. A good SEO company might tell you that expending energy on meta tags is a waste of resources, and that there are other things that are much more important. It's good that you can handle those. ;) Some of us spend many hours a week keeping up with all the details.
I had my first customer in some time ask me to submit their new site to search engines and I was rather stunned to discover Google is about the only SE that still allows free addition of new URLs. Oh something called 'Searchhound' also did, but who uses that? Just stuneed to discover that none of the following search engines allow a standard URL submission;
Alta Vista
Web Crawler
Lycos
Info Space
Excite
Info Seek
Hot Bot
Anzwers
Hey guys I am at a loss here tell me SEO means keyword research, I can do that on my own, find high page rank backward links, I can do that, write good content with about 55% in keyword density and prominence, I can do that on my own too.
Meta Tags can be written by a hired techie I am in the market earnestly looking for a good techie just for this purpose. Of course there are other tricks to the trade but the most important things I believe I can handle so what exactly do I need a SEO company for?
Maybe you don't. I don't really need somebody to clean my office carpets, or to install new brakes on my car. If I run into legal trouble, I don't really need a lawyer; I can research the laws and represent myself. If I get a toothache, I don't really need a dentist; I can tie a string from the bad tooth to a nearby doorknob...
The point is that there are services you can choose to outsource to other people, or you can learn to do them yourself. You decide which services fit which approach -- taking into consideration how your own knowledge compares to outside expertise, how much equipment (or software) you might need to perform the new tasks, how much of you or you staff's time would be displaced from other tasks, etc.
So, maybe you don't need to outsource SEO. Plenty of people, though, are making the right decision in doing so.
On the other hand, the fact that you refer to "meta tags" and a 55% keyword density as if they're the important elements of SEO reflects, perhaps, a need to consult a pro with a more up-to-date expertise before you proceed on your own... :)
