Help hiring someone
-
We are a medium sized cleaning service in the Baltimore area and really need help with our website and organic listings. We used to be on googles 1st page before penguin came around and it killed our listing. We have survived for the last few years because of our good reputation and referrals.
We want to grow now but have been finding it VERY difficult to hire a SEO company/person. There are so many scammers out there and the only companies I can find REAL reviews on are in the 10k or more range.
I have been reading here and elsewhere trying to learn SEO myself a bit, but finding it a bit overwhelming.
Any advice, or could anyone recommend an honest SEO firm that a mid sized company can afford.
Thank you in advanced
-
Hi Gary!
In addition to the Moz Recommended Companies list Erica has linked to, you might also check out the Contributors box on the annual Moz Local Search Ranking Factors survey we publish, as all participants are recognized Local SEO experts.
-
Thank you Erica, I did not know your site had this option
-
You should take a look at our list of recommended companies.
-
Hi Gary,
If you're happy to teach yourself, I'd say go for it! It does take time to learn and there's a lot to it, but it's very rewarding. I'd start with the resources available for free on Moz, and get a good head start (especially the Beginner's guide to SEO). Then perhaps you could get someone to give you an SEO audit, with prioritised recommendations, and implement them yourself?
Hope this helps,
Zoe -
I really love the idea of learning this, and I a pretty good at picking up new concepts. I think this was just too much to take it on all at once, especially while juggling the rest of the business issues and my two young kids
What would be an average consulting fee? You said to get a consultant in, does it need to be a physical visit, most of this should be able to be taught via a remote session, yes?
And last, if I am going to go the self taught method, I have one question that really has been baffling me:
Backlinks and website authority seem to be really important. Getting people to talk about my website seems to be the best way to get that. How in the heck do I get people talking about a cleaning service? Sure they might refer us to a friend, but what could i possibly put on my website to make it exciting? I thought of putting up hints and tips of how to clean, but realistically I can not come up with enough on my own to get people to follow me. How bad (black hat) is it to copy others articles to re-post? Or any other ideas would be appreciated.
Thank you again for all your replies, they are appreciated.
-
Hi Gary,
I understand your frustration. There's little industry regulation, and so many methods of SEO being used by different companies, it's hard to choose. I'd ask the following questions, or look for the following information in your search:
- Has the company worked on local SEO before, or do they specialise in it? If I'm assuming correctly that you're aiming to rank locally in Baltimore, you're best to find a company with knowledge and experience specifically in Local search marketing, as there are many specific techniques which will help your rankings.
- Will they focus on 'white hat' techniques? Generally, assuming you're aiming to build your business for the long term, it's best to use a company which will not cut corners. You want to make sure your company aims to retain SEO clients for the long term.
- Are they going to carry out thorough keyword research? All good SEO companies will be able to explain their keyword research process a little, and this should involve several hours' work, at least, for your specific situation.
- Are they going to include on-page optimisation, a thorough SEO audit, and technical recommendations/changes? There are many companies which will focus only on backlinks for a cheap fee, and in my experience these companies are riskier to hire. It's generally much more beneficial, and future-proof, to hire a company which will dedicate some time to usability and on-page optimisation.
- Ask to see examples of websites the company has worked on. Ask specifically what work they've carried out. Take a look at the pages- does the text read well, does it sound like they've tried to repeat keywords over too many times? Can they show you evidence of successful work they've done before?
Search marketing definitely does cost money, but it also can be one of the best returns on marketing investment. I've worked with so many companies who have had 'bad' SEO in the past, and I really don't like seeing it when carrying out new client audits and work, so it's great that you're spending time finding the right company! This post also talks through quite well the considerations when hiring an SEO.
Please feel free to ask any more questions if you have them, I'm happy to help advise you further!
Thank you, and good luck.
Zoe -
I would get a consultant like Michael Cottam in for a few hours. Get him to help teach you what to do. It sounds like limited budget but you want a star. If that is the case that is the way to go.
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
-
Someone Hi-Jacked my Clients Business Listing and online presence, What to do?
I have a new client and I discovered that someone has ripped off the business and established it in Texas (business resides in New Jersey) My client is ssscustomclosets.com/ the hijack artist has created forms and business listings such as this https://wirykanaird.wufoo.com/forms/zivaxni09ew6nb/ There is no google listing for Texas however, I have to think that this is causing some seo issues. Any ideas how to rectify this? I have never come across this situation before. Thanks, Don Silvernail
Local Listings | | donsilvernail0 -
Help - my boss wants me to duplicate websites for local SEO targeting
my boss is insisting that I duplicate a site that is ranking well and then roll it out across the UK on new domain names beginning with targeted city names in the domain name. I will then be going through each duplicate site changing the location keywords to the target city location Along with images etc. what effect will this have? Do you have any advice on the best way to tackle this? thanks
Local Listings | | platinumhouse0 -
Individual practitioner NAP - unique "N", repeated "AP" Help!
We have a business where we have a number of doctor's offices, and at each office there are a few individual doctors. Customers often search for either the overarching brand or the specific doctors. Our hope is to optimize our listings so that we can rank in local SEO for both the brand name and doctor names. We have set up our local listings in Google My Business for all of the offices (common brand name, unique address, unique phone, unique landing page), but would like to explore adding individual doctor names in the listings too. The challenge is that each doctor within an office shares the address and phone number. They do have unique names (obviously) and landing pages, although the doctor landing pages don't have any specific contact information on them. My understanding is that we should have unique phone numbers for each listing. Unfortunately, this is a management and IT maintenance challenge. My question is - if we didn't use a unique phone number and instead used both the same address and phone number across multiple listings (office and doctors practicing there), are we violating Google's guidelines / damaging our overall rankings for all the listings? Does anyone have a sense of how bad this might be, so we can understand the risk/benefit? And secondly, would we make things worse by adding the non-unique address/phone to the individual doctor pages? Would this just reinforce inconsistent NAP, right on our site? Thanks!
Local Listings | | OneMedical0 -
Help with Google+ business name rules
I'm marketing a franchise gym business that has multiple locations within the same city. For the business name, I used to have it set as "Business Name" + City + Tagline. For example: "Ultimate Workout South Calgary Gym and Bootcamps". and "Ultimate Workout North Calgary Gym and Bootcamps". To comply with the google business naming rules I've updated all the listing to just business name. The problem is, now the local search results for my gym locations are confusing. Half the address is cut off in the results, the city is not displayed at all. And sometimes results from a neighbouring city are shown. Anyone have an idea on how to implement a strategy where people at a quick glance understand which location is best for them?
Local Listings | | John-Ray0 -
Do Citations help will all local rankings/Pages on my website or just the page it's linked to
Hi All, My ecommerce site has different category/landing pages for each of my branches . I'm currently getting some more citations done as wondered the following Is it a general rule to say, that the more citations you have the better as long as they are consistent and free? Given that I have different categories /landing pages showing the NAP of my individual branches along with unique content, should all these extra citations help with local rankings across my whole site or is it usually just helping the specific localized webpage it's pointing to ? I can get a company to help me do my citations but to do all the branches, it is going to be quite expensive. Is citations quite a big individual SEO factor in local search as opposed to on page seo factors etc etc. Any advice greatly appreciated. thanks Peter
Local Listings | | PeteC120 -
address on my websiteto help with local searches
If I put my address on my website, does it help that page to rank for local searches? especially if it's the same address that i am using for moz local and all my citations? I want my other pages to rank in different cities as well as i have a service that travels to all cities in my state. Will that address of my home town on my home page make google think that i don't service other cities? Thanks, Ron
Local Listings | | Ron100 -
Does embedding Google map help local SEO?
Hi I am curious if adding a embedded Google map to a footer helps for Local seo? Thank you
Local Listings | | Berner1 -
Need help with Title tags
Hello, My site is www.BrooklynSigns.com. This site just went up about 2 weeks ago. The site had about 130 old urls which we redirected by using 301 REDIRECT plugin. Google had indexed the site at least 4 times but still bot reading the correct title tag. I need to know what is wrong and what I can do to fix this. http://awesomescreenshot.com/0692f5qe26 Thanks Abie
Local Listings | | signsny0