Is My SEO Company Taking Me For A Ride?

[jamesbiggin]

Following a thread I did earlier in the week about another matter (which is sorted now thanks to UKBF) - I am worried about a lot of negative feedback on the SEO of my site (www.steel-city.co.uk (http://www.steel-city.co.uk)). I am worried I am in the middle of wasting a lot of money. I would really appreciate some concrete facts and advise on the following points, to go back to them and either steer them in the right direction - or call it a day and get my money back.

I am optimizing for 6 competitive keywords, with a page 1 aim for all. I have signed up for a year with a company. After 4-5 months, the movement up Google has stalled..

Firstly, this is what they have done onsite and I would appreciate comments as to how much this would cost to do anyway :
1. Homepage optimization (addition of SEO content - the iframe at the bottom??)
2. Validation of Homepage top current W3C standards
3. Inclusion of robots instruction file
4. Sitemaps
5. RSS feed throughout the site.
(They have advised of HTML errors and duplicate descriptions and tags and said that these need sorting and want to charge extra for this!!)

Secondly - what have they not done that they should be doing to my site - I know I will get a lot of conflicting views, but will put to them the "majority rules" views that come back.

Thirdly - If they do what they should be doing (from point 2) - what is a realistic cost to do this onsite...PM if required on this.

Finally - is a link campaign worthwhile (theirs is flawed and I want ammunition to go back to them on this). Again I expect conflicting views on this.

Cheers

[fisicx]

Morning James,

Of the 5 thingas they have done, only #1 is of any use. However it's about as useful as a chocolate fireguard.

[Kev Jaques]

Not sure if you are trying to sell anything on that site tbh, there seems to be no BUY buttons with calls to action on the products let alone do any optimisation for it.

I would say a link campaign is worth it but not while your site is like that.

[Ali-v-8]

Morning James,

Of the 5 thingas they have done, only #1 is of any use. However it's about as useful as a chocolate fireguard.

Don't forget the chocolate mantle piece and hearth.

No point linking till the website has the basics done properly.
Like I said on the other thread you have more issues.

[jamesbiggin]

Kev,

Cheers for the comments - we are not fully ecommerce and cant be due to what we sell, so we have put what we feel is a functional, evolving and pretty well constructed site for that purpose. We have call to actions across the site (it is about getting people to call us). I dont really want to strip the site down, I know purists will want to do this - I really want to nail the SEO that has been done and should be done.

[Ali-v-8]

Kev,

Cheers for the comments - we are not fully ecommerce and cant be due to what we sell, so we have put what we feel is a functional, evolving and pretty well constructed site for that purpose. We have call to actions across the site (it is about getting people to call us). I dont really want to strip the site down, I know purists will want to do this - I really want to nail the SEO that has been done and should be done.

If you mean by targeting just Promotional merchandise, gifts, pens, mugs, Promotional products, business gifts.
Who did your keyword analysis.

How much are you willing to pay?
Do you want it doing right.

I would like to take on your website if you are interested in results.

[Rusty]

As mentioned in the previous thread one of the glaring omissions to your onsite seo is your page titles. These should be unique and relevant to each page, with the keywords for that specific page near the beginning. Unless your brand is particularly important to you it is a waste to have it in your page titles but if you do feel it necessary to have it there it should be at the end.

Doing a quick check of your site, you have 486 pages according to Google, however only 34 appear to be in the main index. You need to sort out your page titles, meta descriptions and theming to all your key pages, there is very little attention paid to that area. I just re-read your post and you say that the seo company have pointed out there is a duplicate problem with the descriptions and tags, so maybe you need to revisit your contract with the company as this is definitely a major problem for the site.

There has been some attention paid to the homepage but there is no theming through the rest of the site to help what little homepage seo is there. You'll also need to get some links deep into internal pages in particular pages dealing with your main keywords.

To sum up, there are certainly some major issues on your site that are hampering your efforts but hopefully you can get to the bottom of these and turn things around to your benefit. At least you are opening up the communication channels with your seo company which is a start.

Hope that helps

Kerry

[Rusty]

Another thing you need sorting is that your site is currently appearing on www.steel-city.co.uk and steel-city.co.uk and steel-city.co.uk/default.asp. If you mention this to your seo company they should be able to sort it with a bit of code.

Kerry

[sirearl]

As others have said plus of 486 pages only 34 are in googles main index.

Earl

[Ali-v-8]

As others have said plus of 486 pages only 34 are in googles main index.

Earl

1300+ pages

the seo is worst i have seen in a long run 5months and they have done nothing in regards to the basics.
internal links (forget it)
host domain still exist (would have been done in the first 2 weeks)
Default should have been removed.
Unique title tags and meta not touched, and if they have call the firing squad. Usually within 4 weeks all these must be done prior to anything else being put into place

[Latitude-Express]

Unfortunately there are a lot of cowboy SEO companies out there charging for service of limited use as described in your post. I pretty much agree with most of the reply's received already, point 1 is of value, the rest is limited. an what has been applied to the homepage should have been applied to the internal pages too. Unique page titles, image alt tags, internal linking structure, all should be reviewed throughout the site and then you need to work on the offsite link building strategy to build your authority for these keywords. Unless you are in a super uncompetitive market (which you arent) website content alone is unlikely to get you first page listings.

[sirearl]

1300+ pages



Ok nit picker I only looked at google.

smarty pants.:D

Earl

[Ali-v-8]

Ok nit picker I only looked at google.

smarty pants.:D

Earl

Glad you know who wears the pant in this forum. LOL:D

[sirearl]

Glad you know who wears the pant in this forum. LOL:D

You may be confusing pants with nappies.?

No problem as long as one knows who's the daddy in the real world.:rolleyes:

Earl

[Ali-v-8]

You may be confusing pants with nappies.?

No problem as long as one knows who's the daddy in the real world.:rolleyes:

Earl

Yeah I'll bring your slippers and pipe pop's
Your pensions by the arm chair.

[jamesbiggin]

Is there a body that I can take this to - present my case - who will know what they are talking about and will be able to go in with power and cite everything that has not been done right and achieve money back - or am i left to fight this out myself?

[sirearl]

Is there a body that I can take this to - present my case - who will know what they are talking about and will be able to go in with power and cite everything that has not been done right and achieve money back - or am i left to fight this out myself?

Not sure about that,but there is some pretty damning evidence on this thread from a few qualified SEO's and Ali-v-8.:D

Earl

[Ali-v-8]

Not sure about that,but there is some pretty damning evidence on this thread from a few qualified SEO's and Ali-v-8.:D

Earl

Yes I come in another category called SEO MASTER.
Mr earl (your demoted) is right with the evidence you have it will support your case, but unless performance was specified you may have (ok you will have) trouble getting money from them.
I would get them to admit fault and ask them to rectifiy the work carried out, especially the H1's they put in place.
I would tell them i'm stopping payment untill all issues are dealt with.

[Rusty]

I think what you need to do first is to go back to the seo company with a comprehensive list and give them the opportunity to put things right before you go in demanding money back. Also, you should do this in writing and you really should have a look at what was agreed with this company at the outset.

I think you really need to do all this before any action can be taken against them.

Kerry

[jamesbiggin]

Agree Rusty, I am in the process of this now.

[jamesbiggin]

The mother of all emails has gone off to them - with all points raised - thank you....if they can fulfil this work and not charge extra - then the deserve to get some credit back....my feeling is they will rubbish all points raised by quoting "google"......reply required by 5pm today! tick tock...thanks all!

[sirearl]

The mother of all emails has gone off to them - with all points raised - thank you....if they can fulfil this work and not charge extra - then the deserve to get some credit back....my feeling is they will rubbish all points raised by quoting "google"......reply required by 5pm today! tick tock...thanks all!

Well I suspect Google agree's with the majority of us.:)

well it must do if you think about it.:rolleyes:

Earl

[PrettyPaws]

.....sorry to drag this on topic again but are you SERIOUSLY saying you are paying an SEO company for THAT? :eek:

[AndyBlack]

James,

How much Javascript do you need? Your code is choked up with it before the bots even reach any content.

I can't comment too much on your SEO and goals as I am in the process of getting my promotional gift websites to the top of Google. I have a promotional gift company that was established in 1991. It's quite a competitive market online.

Andy

[Mark Pocock]

You say you're optimising for 6 keywords.

Have this crowd come back with some figures
on the number of searches per month for these
different keywords?

You're better off to target one keyword phrase
which gets a decent number of searches,
ie 100/day, with fewer competing web sites,
and go after that.

And go for domination for that niche
keyword phrase.

regards

mark

[PrettyPaws]

What always gets me is that they fill footers with a load of old crap before doing the very, very basics like titles and internal linking content... :mad: