Dilema in hiring SEO company services
-
Hi
My question is one that most startups face. No large budgets for online SEO marketing and lack of quality SEO consultants willing to work for peanuts.
To the point:
1. Where can I read reviews of SEO consultants before giving a contract?
2. Is it naieve to expect an SEO contract based on real ROI i.e. increase in qualified enquiries? All I spoke to over last 12 months refuse to commit, even in part, to this requirement. My take is what good is an SEO contract if all I get is loads of reports of work done? I do not have the capability to analyse the reports hence I employ someone!
3. I have SEOMoz pro memership. Can I do my SEO myself by using the tools in the dashboard?
thanks to all for reading my post.
-
without being too bold, I believe the only way SEO can work going forward is to have the client, or as i call them, the passionate expert, participate in the process. The key to the programs we're developing rely on the client. We are just consultants who help people build online relationships.
Basically we've been saying for over 10 years that writing quality content that engages your core audience is a sure fire method of gaining and maintaining rank, unfortunately over the years other methods that are easier have produced results for a lot of people, but now we have Penquin and our original marketing concepts have never been more valid.
-
Also keep in mind that SEO is not an exact science. There are methods that should produce results, but there are no guarantees that the company can rank your for the keywords you want at the price you're willing to pay. Theoretically, given the budget, any company can rank for any keyword they want, but you probably aren't going to be happy with the price tag. They're a company too, so the more work it's going to take them to rank you, the more it's going to cost.
-
don't put your fate into anyone elses hands
This is my basic philosophy. I don't like to hand important matters over to other people.
All of the work that is done on my sites is done here in my office by staff. The only exception is some database and programming work that is done by long-trusted consultants.
Sometimes it is good to use consultants to obtain opinions before doing a big change on the site or getting a periodic review. I don't always follow their advice but they often give me ideas that I would never have thought of on my own. These are sometimes very valuable.
But, always making the decisions yourself will keep you on a conservative or aggressive path as you see fit and on a philosophy that you agree with.
-
SEOrank does offer one such platform. I hired someone @$400 pcm, based in India, and found them unsatisfactory. They raised issues (your site has posts instead of pages which will cause loss of rankings due to penguin update) but clueless when asked to explain
Surely the search industry is so big that there must be golden standards of measurement or none??
-
It's possibly just our experiance, but we will never hire any SEO companies.
You are putting your site and business into the hands of someone else. And paying them for it.
What may work for SEO now, may not work in the future.
There are basics to creating a good website with easy enough SEO you can do yourself, but it takes time to read, research trial and experiment.
Start learning and don't put your fate into anyone elses hands.
-
Every time I have needed help with one of my websites I asked a person who posts on a forum where I have been a long time member. That long membership allowed me to see the responses of many people over time and determine who seems to know what they are doing and has a style that I would want to work with. I have never been disappointed.
So, consider asking as many questions as you want here and see how people reply to them. If they give you great answers for free then imagine what you will get when you pay them. You will learn the answers to your questions, make some friends, and possibly find someone who you trust and will do great work.
Visit the profile page of people who you think might do a good job. They usually say if they are not available or have a link to their site where you can see if they do consultations.
-
I would love to find and SEO expert, a true expert, not a self proclaimed expert. And one that was willing to point me in the right direction to do the work myself and charge a consulting fee. Do these exist? I think they should implement that here on this site somewhere to find reviewed vendors for this type of work.
.02
-
2) Expecting real ROI?
When you hire an SEO that person or company agrees to make you visible in the search engines and create a flow of traffic from search engines to your website. That is the deal in very basic terms.
Other parts of getting ROI are up to you. To achieve ROI you need: a website that converts, products clearly described, products that are in stock and priced reasonably, shipping charges that are not excessive, a shopping cart that works, phone staff that answer calls and advise on products. These other parts of ROI are under your control and are your risk.
The SEO should not be expected to assume your risks of doing business. If he wanted to assume those jobs and risks then he would be a merchant and not an SEO.
- Can you do SEO yourself with SEOMoz tools?
Anybody can use the tools, but there is a lot more to SEO than pushing buttons and running reports.
Lots of people do SEO for their own business. That's what I do. In fact, if you are willing to study diligently, experiment, work hard and smart then you can probably do SEO for your business as well as any SEO would do it for you.
A good way to proceed is to study on your own, experiment on your sites and then hire an SEO for consultation. That way the SEO studies your site, makes a job list for you, and reviews that job list on the phone with you so you know how to do it. Some SEOs will do this type of consulting and it works well for lots of business owners.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
QUESTION. Keyword Stuffing reduction while maintaining SEO optimal density?
Optimizing a keyword for a page on MOZ is telling me with a red exclamation mark to avoid keyword stuffing but if I remove any more of the keyword i will have none left in the content but titles etc. The moz message doesn't go away no matter how many keywords are removed. I am using wordpress i have the keyword the title element, the image alt text, the meta description/title, can't take anymore out of the content nothing seems to change but I can't figure out why?
Moz Pro | | 247mobileservices0 -
Hiring for SEO
so sorry if i offend anyone here ...but dang SEO Experts are the used car sale guy of 1999! we have a small eCommerce company in Jacksonville, FL - and we are always looking for improve our SEO - we have been members of moz for almost 10 years now! We have learned alot with all the tools they offer, We have tried at least 5 local and national SEO consultants, agencies and consultants - NONE HAVE WORKED. The time has come for us to hire an in house SEO do you have any advise on how a small business that wants to grow our SEO can weed thru the thousands of SEO "GURU's" out there today - Everyone is an expert. On a side not if you want to move to Florida and help us grow - www.HolmesStamp.com/team
Moz Pro | | BryanCroft1 -
Is there an SEO checklist that I can follow for every new project?
I'm a very structured dude. I literally have to have every project in front of me in order to be productive. With that said, it would sure help me if there was a checklist to follow with at least the basics to both audit an existing website, to where they rank and what areas need improved and then another checklist that goes through each phase of implementing SEO for the first time either on a brand new website or an existing website that you're taking over... Any suggestions?
Moz Pro | | 2Spurs0 -
Web Site Migration Testing and SEO-QA Automation?
Hey Mozzers, Are there any good Migration-SEO-QA Tools out there? Given a prioritized list of URLs and prioritized list of Keywords, is there a tool that can compare basic SEO factors, old URL vs. new URL, and identify all the specific gaps that need to be fixed? Here is a basic SEO-QA acceptance checklist, for porting any website. . . . Until the porting work is completed we cannot accept the new website. Givens: 1. A list of the Top 100 URLs from the old site, prioritized by conversion rates, landing page traffic, and inbound links. 2. A list of the planned 404 - mapped URLs, old to new site, from the porting team. 3. A list of the current Top 200 Keywords, prioritized. 4. A good amount of SEO work has already been done, by several professionals, for the current (old) site. **How to evaluate if the new site will be acceptable to Google? Check ON-PAGE SEO Factors... ** **. . . that is, the NEW site must be AS GOOD AS (or better than) the current (old) site,
Moz Pro | | George.Fanucci
in the eyes of Google, to preserve the On-Page SEO work already done. ** Criteria: URLs ok? :: Is the URL mapping ok, old to new, best web page? LINKS ok :: Are all internal LINKS and keyword Anchor Text ported? TEXT ok :: On-page content, TEXT and keywords ok? TITLE ok :: HTML Title and title keywords ok? DESCRIPTION ok :: HTML Meta Description ok? H1, H2 ok :: HTML H1, H2 and keywords ok? IMG kwds :: HTML IMG and ALT keywords ok? URL kwds :: URL - keywords in new URLs ok? Potential porting defects: Keywords in URL missing: Keywords in HTML Title missing: Keywords in Meta Description missing: Any internal LINKS or Link anchor text missing: Keywords in Page TEXT missing: H1, H2 missing keywords: HTML IMG alt-text, IMG file URLs, any missing keywords: Notes: Until the porting work is completed we cannot accept the new site, or set a target date for potential cutover. There are eight (8) data items per URL, and about one hundred (100) URLs to be considered for SEO-QA before going live. We were expecting to cutover before the end of February, at the latest. There is no point in doing full QA acceptance-tests until the porting work is completed. QA spot-checks have found far too many defects. About 60% of the landing-page traffic comes via the top 40 URLs. With over 100 URLs to look at, it can take more than a week or two just to do SEO-QA in detail, manually, item-by-item, page-by-page, side-by-side, old vs. new. Spot-checks indicate a business disaster would occur unless the porting defects are fixed before going live. _Any Migration-QA Tools?_Given a prioritized list of URLs and prioritized list of Keywords, is there a tool that can compare basic On-Page SEO factors, old URL vs. new URL, and identify most of the specific gaps that need to be fixed before going live with the new site? _ *** Edit: Any comments on the SEO criteria, tools, or methods will be appreciated!_0 -
How to make a best SEO strategy
Hi I want to make a seo strategy for website. what things I need and how to make is there any tool?
Moz Pro | | Kabooter0 -
Can SEOMOZ do Local SEO ?
Most of our clients are local but we can not get local or regional (for example VA State or Washington DC) SERP results within SEOMOZ. it would be nice to create custom search profiles based on region (State or County) and track SERP within SEOMOZ. Ranking reports and even keyword difficulty analysis etc. within SEOMOZ are misleading for local web sites. SEOMOZ default site setup assumes every business doing SEO serves all over the US. I think it will be very beneficial if we have a choice to select State or County of local web sites during initial campaing set up at SEOMOZ. what do you think? do you know any work around of this problem? Thanks,
Moz Pro | | CertifiedSEO
Lewis2 -
SEO Industry Contracts, Resumes, & Jobs
We're in the process of looking to hire link builders & content managers in the Chicago area. While I know it's not a "core function" of SEOmoz, the SEO Industry Jobs section has been very helpful to us. Unfortunately, it's not easily searchable/filterable by geography. I think the Moz resume & job-board could be a lot more helpful with some updates, including filter by geography. Anyone else have any suggestions?
Moz Pro | | Gyi0 -
What SeoMoz tools should I use to track the sucess of my SEO efforts and find possible linking partners?
HI All, I am a new user to SEO moz pro and I have a few questions I hope you can help me with. We are adding a new product category to an existing site and I am wondering what tools to use to track our SEO efforts to build ranking for these new products. I have already started a campaign that tracks the ranking of our primary keywords but I am wondering if there are other tools I should be using as well. Currently our SEO strategy is centered around link building. I have been approaching sites that have content related to our products and offering to write articles, guest blogs, and create educational resources that benefit the sites users and have specific anchor text linking back to our site. Since we are trying to build rank for a new category of products should I be linking to the general product category page or should I try to link to sub categories or individual products? Also I have used the juicy link finder to help me identify related sites that I can approach but I haven't received very many good leads. Is there a more specific way to use the tool or another tool that I should try? If you have any suggestions about other SEO strategies/activities that we should be pursuing please share your ideas! Thanks!
Moz Pro | | AndrewY0