Search Engine Optimisation-Does it Work?

[Greig]

Just wondered if anyone on here has paid any of these companies offering to do SEO and what was the results, did it increase site traffic & sales?

If so who would you recommend to carry out the SEO?

Thanks
Greig

[Coding Monkey]

This should be in Internet.

Yes, it works if you do it right, but don't expect to pay someone small amounts of money and then wonder why nothing is happening, or why they've attempted blackhat strategies. Also, don't expect things to take place over night. It's a long process and often an on going one. I've got 3 keyword searches with 120m results to #1, only for the owner of the website not to continue updating and find them vanished just as quick as we got them there.

I've also made minor changes to websites, for their hits to double in only a few weeks, along with their contact rate, but it will depend on many, many factors. Don't invest into people who guarantee you a #1 spot, as everyone would be there otherwise. Although many firms work on a bonus scheme, where if they get you to where you want, you pay them a specific bonus (normally a large chuck of dosh, but you should have made that money back x times over by that stage). Also, remember the most generic terms are not always, and are often not, the best.

[JustOneUK]

you want to be found for certain terms in the search engines?

you could..

A) go with an adwords campaign, to get your site infront of eyes.
B) improve your SEO

if you PM me which terms you want your site to be found for, I will tell you how much chance you have of achieving that.

James

[Ian J]

SEO companies can be useful but there is a load of free information out there on various websites and forums that deal specifically with this subject and you could do much of the work yourself as it's pretty basic stuff.

Google seem to place great store on the title and description of the site and page and it's recommended that you put important keywords in both.

Your title appears to be just "F1 Air Charter" whilst sin of sins, I couldn't even find a meta description at all.

The other thing that Google and the other search engines like are inbound links to your site from other quality sites and this is another area where you can do much of the work yourself by submitting the site to directories etc.

[mattk]

Ian is right, most of the techniques seo companies will apply to your site are listed on a multitude of Web sites and are freely available. It's nothing that the average Web site owner can't do, but seo companies may well do it in a slightly more scientific way.

The main point is that most Web site owners are too busy running their company to do the leg-work required for seo. It involves alot of reading, manually submitting your site to directories, trying something, evaluating it's worth, making slight tweaks - etc, etc!

[DuaneJackson]

A good SEO is worth every penny you pay him/her.

At the same time though, besides just optimising your site they will give you advice / instructions. Follow the advice! It's all important to the SEO he/she is doing for you and if you disregard the advice then you wont get the results you expect.

[Tazuk]

I just done a little work and now #4 in 14000 for helicopter handling qualifications and #1 in 488 for helicopter marshalling qualifications.

A thanks to TIN though for his help.

[Enigma121]

I just done a little work and now #4 in 14000 for helicopter handling qualifications and #1 in 488 for helicopter marshalling qualifications.

A thanks to TIN though for his help.

Yeah, with this level of competition just a basic level of advice can be all that's required to do the trick.

If the competition is more fierce (100,000's or 1,000,000's of competitors), you can expect an SEO to be doing considerable work and applying all sorts of tricks and techniques on your behalf to get similar results.

[JustOneUK]

my personal best to date in terms of competition is #2 of 131,000,000 :) although I have numerous #1's for lesser terms.

[Tin]

Enigma wrote:
Yeah, with this level of competition just a basic level of advice can be all that's required to do the trick.

If the competition is more fierce (100,000's or 1,000,000's of competitors), you can expect an SEO to be doing considerable work and applying all sorts of tricks and techniques on your behalf to get similar results.

Quite correct, with simple serps all it often takes is simple advice to get the result. However, the free advice I gave Tazuk was detailed enough to get him page 1 in a much more competitive marketplace.

Disagree with the comment about the work required for competing alongside 1,000,000's of competitors though as it again can be just the simple things (a 5 minuter on occasions will do it) whilst really difficult serps do take more effort. :-) From memory, I think Jonathans 'disability consultants' was another 5 minuter...
or was that 10? :wink: