Website Revamp/Optimisation

[jimbojones]

Hi All,

Please have a look at our website: www.conlon-construction.co.uk

It has been on my agenda to get this site up to scratch again and have requested that our hosts give the design a revamp, esp the homepage and also to look at some basic SEO e.g:

Site Map generation

Dynamic URL re-writing

Colour change on User Interface on the title bar (i.e when the cursor hovers over an option it changes from blue to orange i.e corporate colours)

amongst others......they have given us a quote for 6 months optimisation and a one off set-up fee.....

My question is: do you think that 6 months is enough/too much to do the work and once the optimisation is upto scratch will we need to look at continually maintaining the optimisation or will the techniques uphold our poistion for a year or two ?? (obvioulsy assuming the algorythms dont change...)

Any feedback is greatly appreciated,

All the best,

Jimbo

[walldred]

I should think that 6 months would be enought to do the intial optimisation work but maintaining your search engine position is a constant process. You can't expect to do it once and leave it at that. (eg one of the tassk involved in optimiastion involves researching profitable keywords and optimising for them. unfortunately these change continuously). So if you're not looking at doing your seo work yourself I think you should be looking to find a long term partner.

Hope this helps,

Take care.

[DuaneJackson]

They can certainly lat the foundations for your SEO that will leave you in good standing.

There are 3 things that you can rely on in life: death, taxes, and SE algo changes.

[Tin]

"they have given us a quote for 6 months optimisation and a one off set-up fee"

What are they doing over this 6 month period?

"will we need to look at continually maintaining the optimisation or will the techniques uphold our poistion for a year or two ?? (obvioulsy assuming the algorythms dont change"

Are your guys saying that you'll need to maintain this monthly optimisation? If they are, I'd only expect this scenario to exist in highly competitive serps, lower than this and onpage/site seo will work perfectly well, yes... I know plenty of people will disagree with this point.

A site map is helpful but it's a really simple thing to implement into a site so no wonder drug here and I wouldn't expect you to have to pay anything more than an hours work for this.

Sorting the url's is a sensible option and one I'd go for if you are intending to drill down into all pages and carry out seo techniques across these pages.

I know wherever you look you'll hear comments like 'content is king', 'update pages every day', add 'fresh content' constantly but being honest that isn't really my experience. In reality, here's my experience from doing seo over the last 11 years.

New client comes in wanting seo for his keyphrases.
I analyse the top 30 rankings for all those keyphrases.
I always see key indicators within those top 30 rankings which allow me to come to a conclusion about the difficulty involved in targeting the client keyphrases.
I give client a one-off price.
Client goes with the price.
I do the work.
Give the client evidence of rankings.
Client pays me.

No ongoing monthly bills.
No ongoing changes to pages.

Rankings hang around for typically 3,4, and 5 years without any further work being required.

That's my experience of my work with my clients over a long period of time. I accept that there's more ways to 'skin a cat' but that's mine.

If you are expecting to have to pay for seo work on a monthly and on-going basis I'd really be asking what it is they are doing for this. Building IBL's is the most likely reason you'll be offered and if that's the case I'd pass.

[3cellhosting]

I tend to agree with Tin.

I have worked on one site (adult toys) and spent 3 weeks looking at content etc. For the past 4 years we have been in the top 10 for our search term on Google.com

In the past 2 years we have done virtually nothing apart from add some new lines of stock and change a few offers :)

Just to make sure I was correct in this posting I checked our serach term "bdsm shop" on Google and we were 3rd (if you exclude paid for adverts).

The real problem arises when you are working with a highly competitive search term. That's when a good usp helps, along with lots of other marketing tricks!

Cheers for now

[jimbojones]

Thanks guys! great response,

To help explain the details...our hosts offer a few packages and we have picked the cheapest package as it offers everything I want and excludes things like pay-per-click etc. which i don't need as our industry is not ecommerce driven....

Some of the items on the package have already been done by myself e.g. the keyword/metatag analysis, competitor analysis, homepage focused copy etc....

I simply wanted them to produce a site map..purely because our menu structure has prevented spyders crawling the whole site and when I realised google had only indexed 3 of the many pages, I got on their case.....

I realise SEO is an ongoing, changing environment but construction doesnt seem to be as fast paced and therefore if you guys think that 6 months of optimisation is enough to get us up the ranks and keep us there for a while...im happy....the mamoth task in reality, is all the front-end stuff of which is under my control and is a case of hauling all the info upto date....

We do hit no.1 on "conlon" but are nowhere on "construction", "property developer" etc. and its these key phrases im really concerened with...

Does £90 a month maintanence fee sound reasonable ?

Thanks again,

Jamie

[Yorganic]

Hi Jamie,

I have to say I slightly disagree with Tin and 3Cell.

The vast majority of business want to be top of Google for obvious reasons and Google is getting much better at spotting quick fixes etc.

Rankings are most defintely linked to how competitive the market is for that keyword and some sites can take 2 years to optimise for and, some just a few days.

As a general rule I would say that any SEO offering that ties you into monthly support is potentially 'dodgy'. On the other hand I would also say that any company that offers you a package price for SEO doesn't know what they are doing.

6 months is a reasonable timeframe for most sites at least to show an improvement if not top 5 rankings however, at £90 per month your arent going to get much in the way of support - 2 to 3 hours for the average company charging £30-£50 per hour.

If you want a professional quote for the SEO I'd be happy to call in and discuss given that I am almost just round the corner!

Carl

[Tin]

Hi Jamie

You asked "Does £90 a month maintanence fee sound reasonable ?"

It depends on your expectations. I said it earlier, what exactly are you expecting for £90 per month but more importantly, what do your hosts expect to give you for this money? It doesn't appear to me that you've got your finger on the pulse because if you had, you'd know that for £90 a month you don't get anything worthwhile, let alone serious seo work.

My rate is £40 per hour, do you think you'd benefit if I gave you're site 2 hours work a month? Putting the boot on the other foot for a second, if I was quoted £500 for a building company to dig up my garden and build me a large conservatory for that money, would you expect me to get a decent job?

Before you do anything, I'd ask whoever you use for your seo to identify some real problems within your current site which will prevent any seo work from working fully in your favour.

My apologies but I'm not trying to sound harsh, just trying to help.

http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/images/icons/icon7.gif

[jimbojones]

It depends on your expectations. I said it earlier, what exactly are you expecting for £90 per month but more importantly, what do your hosts expect to give you for this money? It doesn't appear to me that you've got your finger on the pulse because if you had, you'd know that for £90 a month you don't get anything worthwhile, let alone serious seo work.



Hi,

Well this is what im trying to establish, because £90 a month + £150 setup seemed very cheap to me for the following items:

Analysis

- main keywords identified
- 5 key words targeted
- site review and optimisation report
- detailed keyphrase analysis
- initial rankings/status report
- in-depth competitor analysis

Optimisation

- Dynamic URL rewriting
- search engine friendly sitemap (which should've been included in the initail design in my opinion...)
- focused robots.txt creation
- 10 pages optimised (negotiable)
- advanced internal linking
- website link verification
- hand submission to top search engines and directories
- link popularity improvement
- authority site link acquisistion (optional)

Maintenance

- continuous optimisation updates
- ongoing free telephone & email support
- detailed quarterly rankings report
- access to ranking reports


Now, I agree, since leaving eccomerce companies like newreg.com and just4.net my involvement with internet marketing has been limited and so I would be the first to admit my finger's not on the pulse!! which is exactly why im posing the question to seo gurus on here....my expectations are that for £90/month based on the info supplied to me:

- our site will be positioned within the top 3 on Google for our all key phrases
- we will have a dynamic sitemap, allowing the robots to 'see' the whole website and its content...
- clean urls
- extra avenues for content by linking reciprocally with clients/partners e.g. Lancashire/Cheshire councils, Housing associations, Universities, Schools etc etc...

Please bear in mind that my family acquired our hosts as they were starting up and consequently we had our website built very cheaply indeed...we have maintained a great realtionship with them over the years...but before I joined the company, it hadn't crossed anyone's mind that the site needed a revamp/optimisation....and I felt our hosts would not have prompted for optimisation, hadn't i done so....

All in all....Im quite happy for the hosts to optimise the site and maintain techniques over 6 months but am curious as to whether they will deliver the goods, so to speak...in this case, taking into account the items listed above; what should i query them with ? I.e. what exactly will they do over 6 months? will it take 6 months for all the above to be completed or just 2 weeks?? leaving us to pay for a service we aren't receiving?

Thanks again for all your responses...much appreciated,

Look forward to your responses,

Cheers

Jimbo

[Tin]

Hi Jimbo

This is only my 2p worth but taking your points as I see them...

Analysis:

"- main keywords identified"...

Did you identify them or did your seo company? Your seo company should go through the pro's and con's of determining what words to target and why.

"- site review and optimisation report"...

sounds to me like it's a 'pad out the package' job to make it sound like you're getting a lot for the money. I'd tell them to focus on the seo and the time they were allocating for the review and report side of things I'd push back into the seo too.

"- detailed keyphrase analysis"...

Analysis is easy once you know how you should go about it. You're the one who should be doing this as you know you're business best. All you need to do is to ask them to explain clearly where you need to go and what you need to look for in order for you to make some solid decisions. Once you've done this, go back to them and mutually determine your best words to target. I'd point out that this may well have a bearing on prices.

"- initial rankings/status report"...

I'm guessing you've more than a gut instinct about your rankings which is why you're asking for advice. Tell them to throw the time they'd spend in this area back into the seo too. It's seo you want, not some sort of boardroom report.

"- in-depth competitor analysis"...

Does this stuff never end? Let your competitors pay for this sort of thing, you don't need to know how they are doing as long as your seo company does it better.

Optimisation:

"- Dynamic URL rewriting"...

no probs with this, just make sure it makes sense when they rewrite them.

"- search engine friendly sitemap"...

A simple file with some seo slotted into the right places. Nothing to write home about.

"focused robots.txt creation"...

Sounds like something really special going on here, another 'pad out the price thingy'.

"- advanced internal linking"...

Could mean lots of things, do you know what it means? I'd ask them to explain this to you. My best guess would be different techniques for content linking.

"- website link verification"...

Come on, they're going to start accounting for turning their computers on in a minute.

I'm going to stop there as I think you can see where I'm coming from.

You mention that your expectation for all targeted keyword/phrases is top 3 placement, has your seo company implied this? If they have then ask them for evidence of previous work they've done for their clients and have a look at those respective rankings both in terms of how difficult the keywords are to hit page 1 whilst bearing in mind their competition. It won't take you very long to work out if they are likely to get top spots for you.

Your domain was registered 3 years ago and you've a PR4 on the home page. You should expect to see page 1 rankings start to kick in within 4 weeks of them doing the seo, most probably earlier. If you're happy to give them a go then it's only £90 a month at risk. If they don't get you on page 1 or 2 within the first month for your easiest keyword then it's probable they won't get the top spots for the others. At which point you could dispense with their services and save some money.

I've only attempted to plug some of the holes here but if it's any help to you I'd be happy to give you an hours free advice so that you can identify the more important elements required which should put you more in the driving seat of your site. I don't do sales pitches over the phone by the way so don't worry.

[jimbojones]

Hi Tin,

Again many thanks for your response...I understand you wish to be helpful without giving too much away... ;)

It seems you've confirmed my thoughts....the analysis has largely been completed by myself as mentioned, and they therefore shouldn't need to spend much time checking it out.......and more time on physical seo....

The keywords had already been selected previous to me joining, and yes they have achieved number 1 status on the family name "conlon" (But is largely uncompetitive and so gives no indication of their ability). However, terms like "construction company", "property developer", "Joinery Manufacturer", are what I really need to be hitting the top 3 (far more specific).....our keywords in fact are singular i.e. "property" rather than "property developer" and feel this hampers anyone performing searches for such a company and so need reviewing.....

The bottom line is that I want to hit the top 3 across our 5 main key phrases....I will ask for evidence of this of previous/current clients..if they have a good track record...i will feel a little more confident in their ability...

I want google to see all the content, rather than a few simple pages..and the site to be cleaned up (links, urls etc.)...

I got the impression they were trying to pad the work out with some items listed and will ask them clarify and to simply concentrate their time on the key, water tight seo techniques....based on your info....

Can't really comment any further till I have spoken with them about it....would you even suggest trying to meet with them so I can churn out all these issues and then make a decision from there.....??

Once again...thankyou for your invaluable information....

All the best,

Jimbo

[autolycus]

If done properly, SEO should see results within about 4 weeks, so not sure what this six months business is all about.

Also, I would steer clear of anyone who charges an ongoing retainer. Would you pay a plumber an ongoing monthly fee? No. So why do search engine optimisers think they can justify asking for it?

Instead look for an SEO firm that charges a one-off fee and only invoice you if and when your site is in the top 10 on Google for a range of agreed search terms.

Dave.