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
-
Help with best seo strategy
Hello all, I am a little bit confused about the "content suggestion'' feature in Moz. If I understood well, this feature suggests Anchor texts we can use in other page to link to the page we are trying to Optimize. So far, I've been using page keyword as Anchor Text in other articles. For example, I have a page about the best places to visit in Morocco, where the keyword is 'places to visit in Morocco'. I am using this same keyword as Anchor text in other pages to link to that page. While Moz suggests '10 best places' as Anchor text. What does it mean ? Is '10 best places' anchor text better ? Or should I use both ? Thanks in advance for your enlightenment.
Moz Pro | | sportygirl0 -
What are the restrictions/limitations to running SEO/Adwords in these countries?
What are the limitations or restrictions to running SEO/Adwords campaigns in countries such as China, South Korea, Japan, Brazil, Portugal, Spain, and Mexico?
Moz Pro | | ThomasCenterInc0 -
On-Page SEO Fixes - Are They Relative?
So, I'm implementing on-page fixes for a site that my company runs SEO services for (www.ShadeTreePowersports.com). However, I was wondering if there was a way to rank a pages' SEO quality, in general? As of now, it seems like the only way your recommendations can be consumed and altered is on a keyword basis. However, this seems be the reason I have a good amount of my F-Grades. Since my website sells powersports apparel and accessories, we cover a variety of applicable (but different) keywords like 'Motorcycle parts' or 'snow tubes,' because we sell so many different types of products. But, when I look at my F-Grades - SEOMoz is telling me my homepage is ranking poorly for a multitude of those pertinent keywords - but only because my page isn't catered specifically to each of them (IE: 'Snowmobile Parts' - 'Water Sport Apparel') But, with so many different types of products, catering to a specific one is impossible and would be detrimental. Is there a way to see how a page ranks, without factoring in those keywords? Or a better way that I can use these recommendations more efficiently? Thanks guys!
Moz Pro | | BrandLabs0 -
Local SEO Rankings Report Tools (based on several locations)?
Hi, Just a quick question. I am looking for a Rankings Report tool that allows a user to not only provide a list of Keywords, but also a list of Locations for which to check Google UK's ranking results. In practice, I would like to be able to enter 6 names of Towns next to my keyword list and get "localised results". Many thanks in advance, Cheers Greg
Moz Pro | | GregoryTK
PS: first Q within the Q&A, so please apologise for any potential "stupid questions"1 -
I am looking for SEO tips specifically for magazine site's
I have a client who has a website that is based on a magazine. They make their money through advertisement I am primarily an inbound marketer I would be very grateful if anyone out there has any tips for a site that has been around for quite a while ( over 10 years) we are transforming the site from HTML into WordPress then hosting it with a fast managed WordPress host using CDN. I feel the lack of links is an obvious place to start however if there's anything specific to magazine based websites I would be more than grateful to hear your opinions. Thank you all in advance. Sincerely, Thomas von Zickell
Moz Pro | | BlueprintMarketing0 -
Why do some of my sites stop showing up as ranking on SEO Moz (listed as not in top 50) when in google ranks they are top five?
Okay - so i have several campaigns. And of these campaigns, about four or five of them no longer show up as ranking after several weekly crawls by SEOMoz... Not sure why the line on the chart just stops when they are ranking in top 5 for google organics am confused by this can you help me do what i need to do so that the seobot can read my pages and save me time on checking where i rank - thanks Creative Guy
Moz Pro | | creativeguy0 -
Where can I find documentation for the different SEO Pro Tools?
I apologize if this has been asked and answered or if the documentation is right in front of my nose, but I can't find it. I'm looking for information that explains what the various tools do and in particular, what each of the fields in the reports mean? For example, what does the "Find Links on this Domain" link mean in a Juicy Linkfinder Report? I know there are lots of resources on SEO and best practices and so on, but wondering if documentation on the specific tools exists. Thanks.
Moz Pro | | jkenyon0