SEO Cost - does this sound about right? [Archive]

Samg1

12th April 2007, 10:40

Well to most people it will sound extremely expensive but SEO can cost anything from a few hundred pounds to thousands. Therefore you would need to provide a more detailed specification of what is on offer for people on the forums to get an idea of what you will be getting for that cost. It also depends what sector he is working within for you, if it is an area that is flooded i.e. Web design, PC Components, DVD's etc it could be a comprehensive amount of work to get rankings up high enough to count. However if the subject is pig farming you would not need that level of SEO.

My company is a Graphic Design/New Media agency but there will be individuals on here that specialise in SEO so post back and I'm sure you'll get some great advice.

Coding Monkey

12th April 2007, 10:49

Completely depends what area of work you're in. If you're after gambling, that sounds very cheap.

pmarsh

12th April 2007, 10:53

Hi, it is giftware and household items. The website is dotcom giftshop dot com if that's any help.

There's tons of things in the proposal and it works out at 254 hours of time.

AlphOmega

12th April 2007, 11:25

If this comapny is established with great track record on ROI (what seo ultimatley does) the this price seems normal.

Is this in your budget, or will you have to go with a cheaper solution.

I will warn from experience, some comapnies are very good and theor prices reflect this, however some are not and their prices are then a rip off.

pmarsh

12th April 2007, 11:27

Hi Alpho, thanks for your comments. It is within budget, I think I will recommend to them that they do some of it first, give it some time and then do the next, they don't need to pay it all up front, I am sure. Thanks again.

Tin

12th April 2007, 11:32

How does that sound?

YOWZER!:eek: £24,200 is how it sounds to me, unless I've missed something. Even some of the big companies don't charge that.

Obvious things are:
1. Friend of the boss or not, he needs to perform for that price bracket.
2. Solid evidence of established performance in seriously intense market sectors would aid client comfort and expectation. This should have been on the table from the outset if it isn't already.
3. Lastly, but most importantly, what's the client getting for 9K? and 10K? what's the 1K management figure for and ok, I can guess the £700 per month probably relates to link building but a very proven pedigree of lasting performance is what's required first & foremost. That sort of figure demands some sort of transparency from the seo supplier, client contacts, testimonials etc and clearly, all need to be checked out.

As Sam commented, costs for seo can vary wildly. At the cheap end you generally can't expect much but, it's a very funny industry as there's always a newbie starting up somewhere that's kept a sharp ear to the ground, looked, listened and experimented and delivers good results regularly. Equally, the opposite end of the skill spectrum can be just as mixed (as AlphOmega pointed out) probably because client expectation is much higher as it's generally budget driven.

It's an industry which is too often down to 'pot luck' rather than solid performances but all the best with it.

awebapart.com

12th April 2007, 11:44

With SEO there's stuff you have to do on the website (e.g. keyword density of a page, coding) and stuff you have to do off the website (e.g. getting inbound links).

There's plenty an SEO consultant can do off the website.

Regarding onsite SEO, if an SEO consultant is not allowed to touch your website, i.e. they can only make recommendations on what you should change, then that means you also have to budget for someone else to implement the recommended changes. This could be simple things like changing product descriptions, to more complicated and expensive things like getting your web developer to change how the e-commerce system works, to impossible things like changing an e-commerce system which cannot be changed (e.g. if the system is developed with some closed source tool like Actinic, or some other managed hosted service which you do not have complete control over, or the current architecture simply cannot cope with the change required).

From what I can see there are onsite SEO issues that need to be sorted out, including: 1. the site is .com and is hosted in the US but is targeting the UK audience, e.g. it should be moved to UK hosting, 2. titles not changing on product detail screens, etc.

Overall though, I think the SEO cost is a bit high for this type of shop, and disproportionate to the money that's already been spent on the site so far (it seems as though not too much money has been invested in the shop creation judging by the look and the cheap US hosting - unless the boss got another one of his expensive mates to create it!).

For that kind of spend I would certainly advise that detailed contracts are drawn with the SEO supplier, with detailed breakdowns of what work is to be done and costs (e.g. paying for links from some site), with regular reporting on work carried out, milestones, etc, and I would recommend that the client checks other client references to see that the supplier has successfully SEO'ed similar online shops with similar success in the past. Also for that spend I'd recommend that the client shops around and gets a few quotes.

Getting top in the search engines for a lot of phrases in a competitive field is a difficult task and it can require a lot of work.

sharon25

12th April 2007, 11:45

My GOD :eek: :eek: :eek: that's very expensive, i think you can put-up a good looking shop in da street Conner for that price and get some good sales for years to come :D :D

SEO is a very Vast and complex field, and unless this guy gives you a guarantee that your listing will be placed on top of the all major SE's at least up to 5 years without rank change...then its worth but other wise, its sounds crazy, but the truth is u cannot guarantee any perm placement unless u pay google and use their ad words system which can be very expensive too

AlphOmega

12th April 2007, 11:58

Like evry industry there is a whole range of prices.

I assume some people will puke at this price :D

We dont charge anywhere near that ourselves but some comapnies do, and they do because some comapnies pay that price.

If say you did an seo proposal for eg British airways they wouldnt take that quote as it would be "too cheap".

Some companies even employ a whole team of seo poeple in house just to work solidly on their website.

The cost is not important its the ROI ratio that counts.

I do agree with awebapart, does seem strange to spend that cash on this websiet though and maybe money should be spent on the website itself first.

JustOneUK

12th April 2007, 12:19

I do agree with awebapart, does seem strange to spend that cash on this websiet though and maybe money should be spent on the website itself first.
Agreed, would be better to pay someone to build a good looking website first. They also need to run a spell check through the site.

Looks like they have a problem getting their pages indexed as most are supplemental, might want to take a look at that. :)

Out of interest,.. Do they run an adwords campaign?

SteveGibson

12th April 2007, 13:14

Out of interest,.. Do they run an adwords campaign?

Not by the looks of it.

And this makes me wonder what's going on.

Are they getting much traffic at the moment?

Have they tested the site properly to find out if it converts?

If they have, why are they not buying instant traffic?

If they've not tested the site, there's a chance that they pay all this money for SEO only to find that the site doesn't convert.

Then, if they have to revamp the site (or the copy) significantly, couldn't that mess up the expensive on-page SEO they've paid for?

It's a bit strange.

Steve

JustOneUK

12th April 2007, 13:20

Are they getting much traffic at the moment?
Have they tested the site properly to find out if it converts?
If they have, why are they not buying instant traffic?
If they've not tested the site, there's a chance that they pay all this money for SEO only to find that the site doesn't convert.
Then, if they have to revamp the site (or the copy) significantly, couldn't that mess up the expensive on-page SEO they've paid for?

All the same as I was thinking. However, are we just being samaritans?

Go for it, pay for the SEO. :D

awebapart.com

12th April 2007, 13:25

It looks like they already have had some SEO/adwords consultancy during 2005/06!

strawberrysoup.co.uk/portfolio/seo_dotcomgiftshop.html

Comspec

12th April 2007, 13:30

Sounds like far too much money to me !!

I would take back the free advice paul and the rest have given you and let the guy have a look. No point in paying this much to SEO a poor site imho.

These guys who get a friend in - bah !!

SteveGibson

12th April 2007, 13:31

are we just being samaritans?

Not me.

I can't offer to do their SEO, but I'd set up an adwords campaign for them. :)

Go for it, pay for the SEO.

They've got a ton of products, if this guy can get them to p1 for all of them (and keep them there), it could be a bargain.

... assuming the site converts.

I think the site looks ok but , if I owned it, I'd want to test the site with paid traffic, split test a few layouts to find the one that's most profitable so that, once the SEO guy comes in and works his magic, he's working with something that's stable and making money.

(having said all this, I'm no SEO and maybe the sorts of changes I'm thinking about wouldn't affect rankings or require "re-SEO")

Steve

SteveGibson

12th April 2007, 13:35

Oops, was typing when Paul posted.

Looks like they were getting good conversions with the site using adwords.

(though, now I'm wondering why they stopped...)

Steve

mattk

12th April 2007, 13:39

It looks like they already have had some SEO/adwords consultancy during 2005/06!

strawberrysoup.co.uk/portfolio/seo_dotcomgiftshop.html

Love the screen shot. The search term they rank #1 for is clearly dotcomgiftshop!

mattk

12th April 2007, 13:42

BTW - I think you should pay the money and then report back on the results. I'd love to know what £24k worth of SEO gets you!

pmarsh

12th April 2007, 14:23

Hi guys,

Thanks for all your comments, I'm going to speak to them regarding some of the things you've brought up and I'll let you know what happens.

Steve, they get around 80,000 visits a month and stopped buying instant traffic due to the cost against the average profit on a sale in that it was too high and since the website has a good turn around it was not considered necessary any more.

In the SEO roadmap it covered many of the things brought up on this thread, particularly the things awebapart mentioned. As someone else mentioned, the website has a good range of products and it is on this basis that they believe good SEO will really benefit them. As for strawberrysoup, they no longer work with these guys and have no further comment in that regard ;)

Thanks for all for your time, much appreciated.

3rigena

13th April 2007, 07:41

How does that sound?

Imo, that is robbery.. esp given the lack of track record, although granted I don't know the scope of the project. however, if it includes PPC budgets etc it could be very reasonable..

what sector is this web-site targeting?

welshnoonoo

13th April 2007, 09:20

As AlphaOmega says there are some companies out there who would charge even more - one of my client's was quoted £15000 per month - but then he did go to the company who do the marketing for a very large british insititution! But, there is a difference between website marketing and SEO and I'd be interested to know if this company are going to come up with strategies on how to get visitors interacting more with this website (which I have visited myself before!!) and then implement them for the same fee etc, etc.

With the site being an online store, and with it being in the giftware industry - then there is going to be a lot of competition.

Is this company going to set up a Google Adword campaign too?

It is a pretty huge budget, and I would be interested to know, if this site is not doing very well in the search engines currently, how are they getting their current customers? I can't help but think that they would have to sell a fair few items to actually get a return on this investment but they know their market place and providing that is what they would get then happy days!

welshnoonoo

13th April 2007, 09:22

esp given the lack of track record,

I missed this bit! Does the SEO company not have a track record? If that's the case I would have to say that I personally would advise them to part with such sums of cash to a company with no track record. There are plenty of good SEO companies out there with good track record that would probably charge less or at least the same.

SteveGibson

13th April 2007, 11:39

they get around 80,000 visits a month

That's around a million a year and, if this SEO guy can double this, it'll only work out at around 2.5p a visit.

(within the first year and presumably less or nothing in the years to come)

Surely any decent business site can yield 10p a visitor, so a cost of only 2.5p should return a nice profit.

Steve

kimmrunner

14th April 2007, 20:57

I didnt understand the reference dotcom giftshop dot com!
did you mean www.giftshop.com (http://www.giftshop.com),

If it is:

I agree with others that I would start on the site, not the SEO!

It is this sort of dorectory/pure advertising site that Google are determined to expunge from the rankings for good: since it adds nothing to the content of the web, and most users get annoyed seeing link farms & pure advertising.

It seems to me that the money would be best spent on market positioning, by which I mean finding some target niches in which search demand/supply (KEI) is better and so engine rankings are a lot easier to come by than generalised gifts - then focussing the online marketing towards those niches.

Then develop some real content , to become an authority site on those niches. That probably means adding markets, and product lines specifically because they can more easily draw SE traffic

The SEO for good niches will be a lot more rapid, and easier, and of course anyone who finds the site is a potential customer for the other product lines.

What I am saying is instead of tackling a huge competitor army head on, the better approach is to take a lot of easy pickings , and then use direct marketing of the customer base so generated to sell the really competitive products out of sight of the competition.

In the end it is all about getting traffic, and hitting the search engines for really competitive keywords can be an expensive and time taking way to go - but at present with the site as it is most people will click away when they realise they have been "conned" by a link farm - so having something valuable to offer customers in order to get the website to convert is more important.

So if that is what the SEO proposal said, that is the way to go.

quantad

15th April 2007, 02:00

I agree with kimmrunner. There are better ways to spend your money.

Also, I would make sure that your website is getting the highest possible conversions in sales before investing so much in a pure SEO campaign otherwise the risk is that your return on investment will not be good even if you do manage to increase your traffic.

JustOneUK

15th April 2007, 22:07

I didnt understand the reference dotcom giftshop dot com!
.
This will help then, www.dotcomgiftshop.com (http://www.dotcomgiftshop.com) :)

James.

kimmrunner

16th April 2007, 08:37

If the site already has around 80,000 visits a month - there is the obvious question is how much is that traffic costing: and whether SEO be justified in terms of traffic cost reduction.

It doesn alter the fact that the first thing I would do is start split testing conversion - there are a lot of things that need testing on that site. And it is generally accepted that it is easier (and cheaper) to double conversion than to double traffic

Reef

16th April 2007, 15:24

3rigena

17th April 2007, 03:26

I think that the best (imo) companies will charge you an initial retainer, and the rest of the cost might depend on results achieved.

I would also consider ask any potential seo company for a list of directories that you will be submitted to as there are a enough scammers out there [in addition to those who know their stuff] - this might indicate whether they are using automated submission software rather than doing any manual submissions..

sometimes these prices are justified due to where the seo company can promote you.. if they are doing a bit of SEM and linking to you from some of their (for example pagerank 8) digital assets - which they could easily "lease" to another client, then the expense may well be justified..

my 10c worth..

clairecastle

18th April 2007, 15:38

I agree with some of the comments above. I think before you spend that sort of amount of money on getting visitors to a site you should first think about how once you have got them there how you are going to get them to make a purchase and help them though a sales funnel.

I have recently moved and am looking to buy some kitchen bits and bobs. I clicked on kitchen and on the first row of products I am presented with a black wine glass and ice lolly moulds and 11 pages of results. I think some further thought needs to go into product classification to help visitors find what they are looking for, otherwise like me you end up a little lost.

Claire

sirearl

23rd April 2007, 22:17

I am considered the Number 1 SEO consultant in the UK,A big claim maybe,but I can say this based on the search engine results I have obtained.As to the cost of SEO ,it would seem to me that most companies out there are taking the public for a ride in various areas.
1 There is no need for a website to be submitted to search engines they will find your site.
2 Once a site has been properly optimized it will usually stay at its high position for a very long period.So whats with the regular submission and reports?
3 Why long term contracts when all that is needed is a watching brief.

4 I never spend more than a week optimizing a site,unless it is very large and needs a complete re design to make it search engine friendly.So where does the £2k to 15k a month come from.
5 SEO is pretty simple once you understand the basics.Not rocket science as some would have you believe.
6 Tip :find a company that has provable results,and not for some obscure search terms like "fish and chip shops in peckham" try things as competitive as "jet ski" or "volkswagen parts" or a major brand name.
7 the proof of the pudding is definitly in the eating in SEO.

3rigena

23rd April 2007, 22:31

I am considered the Number 1 SEO consultant in the UK,A big claim maybe,but I can say this based on the search engine results I have obtained.

You consider yourself #1 it seems - big difference! .
how about posting some of your results so we can judge for ourselves... ;)

AlphOmega

23rd April 2007, 22:32

Is this your website

http://www.whitstablescene.co.uk/books.htm

I am considered the Number 1 SEO consultant in the UK.

Not in a million years!!

3rigena

23rd April 2007, 22:33

Not in a million years!!

Quoted for truth.

sirearl

23rd April 2007, 22:39

One of many the proof is in the pudding

3rigena

23rd April 2007, 22:42

if that is one of your puddings, I am not hungry. that page is not optimised well at all, and the pagerank is poor. I won't bother looking at your serp ratings - something tells me that they will also be poor.

cmon, post some of your successful projects...

sirearl

23rd April 2007, 22:50

Try "sea doo spares" on google sites 1 2 3 6 7 11 12 are all our sites
don't worry I have "sea doo" "sea doo parts " " jet ski parts " covered I did not mean to seem like a pompous ass but my results say it all.
apparently I can't post the URL's till I have posted 15 times

Astaroth

23rd April 2007, 22:53

surely if you are number 1 in the country you would be with clients wanting keywords such as "cheap insurance" "current account" "books" etc and not "sea doo" let alone "sea doo spares"?

sirearl

23rd April 2007, 22:55

you make to much of page rank not as important as most people think.try "vw parts" on google No 2 I know but as a pensioner I am still learning

volkswagenspares.com

3rigena

23rd April 2007, 22:57

err, that is not testament to any skills whatsoever. niche keywords are easy to dominate.

i can go buy littlegreenwidgets.com and be #1 there within days.. doesn't mean I am a seo king.

the page h**p://wwwdotseadoospares.com/ is badly marked-up, had no DTD and has little or no onpage seo.. as for pagerank and inlinks..

http://ukgamblingforums.co.uk/images/seo.jpg
so far you are a snake-oil salesman.

sirearl

23rd April 2007, 22:57

not interested in the big boys prefer to get my percentage of sales of smaller businesses,and a quite life

sirearl

23rd April 2007, 22:59

I did not say I had any skills ,I just get top rankings on google for what I want

3rigena

23rd April 2007, 23:00

fair enough - just stick to the facts and don't make outlandish claims until you have dominated and optimised to the front page of Google (or any serp) for a saturated keyword rather than a niche keyword.

:D

p.s sorry for dragging this thread off-topic..
p.p.s everyone knows that I am the king of seo ;)

Astaroth

23rd April 2007, 23:01

Ok... so you agree for going for easy targets for "the quite life" then you cannot claim to be #1 in the country.

If you arent even playing in the major league you are simply going to look silly making a claim like that.

sirearl

23rd April 2007, 23:08

All sites that I am involved in share the profits from the site with me 50/50
does that not tell you something,thats the only basis I work on.

Astaroth

23rd April 2007, 23:09

I dont get the relevance? It is up to you what payment terms you go for and doesnt in any way reflect on your skills only your self confidence. We have built website in return for a share of the company and developed sites for cash. Does that mean we are number 1 too?

Go 99.9/0.1 with a large insurer and you would still be getting millions in income a year

sirearl

23rd April 2007, 23:13

It means that people know how good I am ,thre ain't many people on this earth that would give up half there profits to a SEO and you know it as for cheap insurance I had to give it up after a dispute with google.I.E they caught me !!!!

AlphOmega

23rd April 2007, 23:15

All sites that I am involved in share the profits from the site with me 50/50
does that not tell you something,thats the only basis I work on.

Sorry, wasnt the whole basis of this thread about seo costs. I believe you said that

As to the cost of SEO ,it would seem to me that most companies out there are taking the public for a ride in various areas

I think 50% of the profits is the most expensive seo company ive come accross

MichaelG

23rd April 2007, 23:15

For that kind of spend I would certainly advise that detailed contracts are drawn with the SEO supplier, with detailed breakdowns of what work is to be done and costs (e.g. paying for links from some site), with regular reporting on work carried out, milestones, etc, and I would recommend that the client checks other client references to see that the supplier has successfully SEO'ed similar online shops with similar success in the past.

Good positive comments and recommendations.

sirearl

23rd April 2007, 23:20

I build the site I promote the site I SEO the site I get the business.I sell the goods.before they had no sales now they have Moi

I work on a different basis to SEO companies I find what I think are viable businesses for the web and take them to a new level all the bigger companies are a pain in the ass ,to much back stabbing and one upmanship brown nosed joes e.t.c

MichaelG

23rd April 2007, 23:33

01: 80,000 visits / month - from what? humans or machines?
02: Presentation is key and the website does not do it for me
03: There is very little content (gots of code - view source) on each product page

Example of things they might consider doing

01: add something else to the website - e.g. spanishhabitat.com we added a spanish-english dictionary - visit sent up by 70%
02: kidspcgames.co.uk - we added a kids directory - visits up by 60%
03: kidspcgames.co.uk - created rss feeds (http://www.kidspcgames.co.uk/productrss.php?channel=Clocks)
04: export to google base (froogle) - its free
05: create a sitemap and submit to google and yahoo (sitemap.org)

If you are still having problems - PM.

sirearl

23rd April 2007, 23:44

ooops looks like I upset a few people with my outlandish claim,OK maybe I only No 2 in the UK I am a pensioner and only been working with computers since 1975 probably getting a bit senile and suffering from delusions of grandur e.t.c .I agree about the vw site but I never designed it just took it to the top with what I had if you think "volkswagen parts" is a soft target you surprise me.enjoyed debating with yous all A No 1

vinyl-grafix

23rd April 2007, 23:55

Sirearl, surely any company offering you 50% of profits does not trust you. If you are as good as you say you are 10% would be a huge amount of cash for you as all your sites are No 1.

If I find something to sell will you do the same for me? Build me a free site, free SEO etc etc, if you will I will give you 50% of profits and come up with 1000's of things for you to sell, sounds like easy money for me!!!

darren atkinson

23rd April 2007, 23:58

sirearl: You have some 'okay' results for some fairly niche terms, however if as you caim that you get 50% of the profits, why not spend your time tidying up the websites.

Looking at the sites linked from yours, it seems that even a few hours tidying them up and making them look more professional would yeild a much higher conversion rate and bigger returns for you and your business partners.

Lets be straight, you and me and most everyone reading this thread know for certain you are not the no.1 SEO in the UK.

Your claim is to try and spark some attention for yourself, possibly a very weak attempt at some wierd form of link baiting maybe.

So far your posts have added virtually nothing to the original discussion, and I would go so far as to call them laughable.

Don't worry about upsetting anyone here, most UKBF members have enough about them to see your posts for what they are.

Regards

Darren

sirearl

24th April 2007, 00:03

actualy its the other way round the fact that they will offer me 50% shows how much they trust me Logic not your strong point As I said aviable business is always welcome

sirearl

24th April 2007, 00:09

oops another one the great british public don't care what your site looks like they are there for 1 of three reasons
information
to buy
to be amused

as long a they find what they want at the right price job done
I actualy joined to tell the great british public what a rip off most SEO firms are I certainly don't want any more work e.t.c and did not mean to upset anyone I thought I was addressing the lay public not the SEO community

darren atkinson

24th April 2007, 00:14

I thought I was addressing the lay public not the SEO community

Ha ha

First thing that you have said that makes sense!

And once again, you have not upset me or anyone else, it seems quite the opposite.

I, Brian

24th April 2007, 12:06

sirearl

24th April 2007, 12:47

Hi Brian ,if all 1300 pages are optimized including page copy and it ends up in the top 5 for "gift shops" on google then the price would seem fair.A highly competative market .The would probably need a page rank of at least 4 to do it.they also have the problem of the site being in asp .Shopping sites as a rule do not do well in Serp's .I usualy put up feeder sites in htm.regards Earl

I, Brian

24th April 2007, 13:36

That's the thing - different companies deliver different solutions. From reading your posts, you specialise more on the on-page SEO, while I specialise in link development.

Not sure what you mean by shopping sites - you mean shopping comparison sites? Don't work with those, but my ecommerce clients usually have few problems with a good link campaign behind them.

I do hate ASP, though - very SEO unfriendly. PHP is great to work with.

darren atkinson

24th April 2007, 13:55

The would probably need a page rank of at least 4 to do it.

To the UK's no.1 SEO (aka sirearl):

Welcome to 2007.

In the years you seem to have lost you have missed:

- Italy win the World Cup
- UK house prices rocket
- Widespread global climate change
- George W Bush win a controversial 2nd term in the White House
- ohh, and page rank becoming non-existent as a Google ranking factor

To help you catch up fully why not undertake some light reading: http://www.seomoz.org/blog - The archives section should keep you going for a bit.

Regards

Darren

sirearl

24th April 2007, 17:36

Hi Darren ah now I know what I been missing,

ah football played with a misshapen rugby ball

why on earth would you want to target anything else, but the niche where you are flogging stuff ?

sirearl

24th April 2007, 17:47

Shopping site ready made e-commerce sites ,where you just stack the shelves

SteveGibson

26th April 2007, 09:30

JustOneUK

26th April 2007, 10:05

@sirearl
I don't see that you rank for anything particularly difficult and what's with the keywords at the bottom of the page, didn't keyword stuffing die already?

(just my 2p)

PeteYoung

26th April 2007, 10:40

I have been looking for SEO companies for the last couple of weeks and I have found that there is no average cost. Do you know if any of this money is being reinvested into the SEO campaign. I have recently been in discussions with a company who charge £3000 pm but they promise to reinvest some of this money for links and listings in directories.

Another company I have spoken to have offered to charge £300 for the initial consultation and £230 pm for the period of a year. The costs vary so much I think it is impossible to say if this is too much or not. I found that posting a thread in the IT and Internet forum requesting any information from people who use UKBF with good/bad experiances extremley usefull.

I would suggest this disparity is due to the varying "levels" of SEO available. It still amazes me having my own Online Marketing company what some people 'sell' as SEO, with many still bounding round meta tag optimisation and site submission as part of the optimisation process. SEO is constantly evolving and I would suggest you will pay a premium for the better organisations with proven results - simply economics would dicate this.

Every project is bespoke with varying levels of competition, and as such generally is bespoke in terms of price.

sirearl

26th April 2007, 11:07

Hi Steve you got it in one,only usualy involves putting up a 100 pages or more along with a complete site redesign plus a lot of behind the scene work

I, Brian

26th April 2007, 15:44

I don't know if this Earl is the real deal or just a wind-up merchant, but his business model makes sense.

If I was a super-duper SEO, I'd be looking for businesses that have nice looking sites and good products, but are nowhere in the rankings.

Then I'd offer to SEO them for a shar of the increased profits.

I know some SEO's do actually offer this service - but the big challenge is tracking which successes are due to the SEO and which would have naturally occured anyway. Also, it's more risky for the SEO in that the client may try and walk away from the agreement taking the profits with them.

I'm actually just entering the stats/tracking field because I feel this is the next level of SEO service - not simply the ability to rank keywords, but be able to track which rankings convert into what profit, and target/improve/profitise/charge accordingly.

If anyone is interested in findout out, feel free to let me know - I'll be happy to run some experiments just to get an idea of how it works and test possibilities.

By the way, sirearl, I'm actually chasing one of your keywords - currently a couple of placements below you, but we have a pretty big keyword list to work with.

Plus the client - despite going from page 5 to Top 5 for most of their keywords - is suddenly going quiet on the invoices. I may have to hand ownership of that vertical to you, else if you want to be No.1 instead of No.2, I'd could be happy to set up a revenue share agreement based on the 5x traffic you should get for that improved position. :)

sirearl

26th April 2007, 16:08

Hi Brian tracking sales is usualy not a problem as most sites I take on don't have any.As for anyone walking away from an agreement ,They would cut there own throats as I always retain control.All the people I work with are highly delighted with the results they see.It also comes down to how good a judge you are of people.I have often had to walk away from a person I felt I could not trust.I don't know what keyword you are 2 behind me on but if its "golf parts" your hitting the spot.Earl

PeteYoung

26th April 2007, 16:09

Seem to be working on time delay, but thought i would drag this one back up from page 3.

1 There is no need for a website to be submitted to search engines they will find your site.

Response: Agreed, there is no reason to submit a site to the search engines at all. A site can be found by search engine merely by inbound linkage. The development of sitemaps.org though does make the 'submission' process somewhat more intelligent and two way though. However I would add this has come alongway from simple site submission as it was 5 years ago.

2 Once a site has been properly optimized it will usually stay at its high position for a very long period.So whats with the regular submission and reports?
Response: Not necessarily. There are a number of factors to consider. Yes I have properly optimmised my site, but if i am working in a different industry (say something less competitive than sea doo spares like 'debt consolidation'), you can be rest assured all my competitors will be optimising their sites (both on page and off), and if I stand still I will 100 guarantee (not often you find this from an SEO), you will soon find yourself flying down the rankings. BTW Also consider those SEO'ers that utilise blackhat techniques.

3 Why long term contracts when all that is needed is a watching brief.
See above. A watching brief really isnt sufficient in competitive industries. By the time you realised something is wrong, your competitors have got a six month headstart on you.

4 I never spend more than a week optimizing a site,unless it is very large and needs a complete re design to make it search engine friendly.So where does the £2k to 15k a month come from.
Merely the time taken to do a job properly. Think Steve Gibson has touched on this - if I am making double that figure back in increased conversions -really its a no brainer.

5 SEO is pretty simple once you understand the basics.Not rocket science as some would have you believe.
Well thats open to debate - I suggest you read the the link from the following post - http://www.e-gain.co.uk/blog/the-did-it-didnt-it-saga-rolls-on/2007/01/29/ all regarding the 'Is SEO rocket science'. In its most basic form no - but I would like to see your approach working on a large scale website where there is a change in host, change in infrastructure, and change in naming convension. I dont think 'merely sitting back' will suffice here'

You say that
I thought I was addressing the lay public not the SEO community

I myself not only focus on the SEO aspect but surely tarnishing an industry as a whole with a grossly 'naive' comment is bound to get some peoples backs up.

Yes there is some dross out there, but I would suggest this is the case for a number of industries/products/services out there
you were

sirearl

26th April 2007, 19:29

Hi Pete points
1 I always put up a google site map

2 When a site has been at the top of google for a year or more ,it keeps attracting more good quality links without the need for link farms e.t.c volkswagen parts has been at the top for 4 years and I have not changed the basic SEO on it.

3 see above

4 been doing it since 1997 so got a fair idea of what needs fixing,don't have to read the manual anymore just do the research ,and like the piano practise makes ............

5 Done it !!!!! but don't know why anyone would want to do it ,unless there hosting company was unreliable
Cheers Earl

PeteYoung

26th April 2007, 20:26

Earl, please do not take my points on your earlier comments out of context, If you read the first point I actually agreed with you.

These boards are meant to be here for businesses to aid each other in terms of advice, mentoring and contacts, and I hope you find whatever it is you are looking to get out of it...

healthymedia

27th April 2007, 14:50

It does sounds a bit steep to me!

I also work doing SEO for clients. Just try searching for a mobile dent repair service in London, you'll probably come accross my client. Or, try searching for a London based e-learning development company - we get loads of our leads through Google for our own business.

I'd like to ask a question: what PPC advertising is this company doing? Do they know their profit-per-click based on this? If so, then what level of extra activity do they need to achieve in order to make a decent return on their SEO? Then make the decisions: is this realistic, is it better than simply purchasing more PPC advertising, is there somewhere I can get a better return for my money?

I agree with lost of the comments here that getting the website 100% right before spending this sort of money is essential. Can you post the URL so we can all take a look?

David

shorty

27th April 2007, 15:49

PeteYoung

27th April 2007, 15:52

Shorty, do you want to PM me the URL and I will be happy to just give you a quick overview.

Rob Willox

27th April 2007, 15:54

Some of the issues have been raised already and are some of the most basic when considering seo.

It only takes a few minutes to highlight:-

Page titles do not change significantly and when they do display only single menu item wording (not enough descriptive text)
Both meta keywords and description are static throughout site (description and keywords should be themed for each page content)
Product names use <font> tags rather than <h?> tags (search engines give more weighting to <h?> tags than <font> tag content)
There is no great or significant content for search engines to index (minimal product descriptions both for visitors and search engines to index)Some of the cash should be spent on re-building the site to address the basics first and their positions will improve then address some of the other issues to further increase traffic.

I don't know what ecomm package is being used but even some of the 'straight from the box' applications like Actinic allow for both individual product and group meta description and keyword changes making them more seo friendly. With proper training operatives can be made aware of the criteria when adding and updating products.

One of the most simple ways is to make the product description interesting and, in fact, descriptive with enough wording to include the main product/group keywords. And in doing so gives both the visitor more information and the search engines 'something to work with'.

If the Adwords campaign was deemed a success I've no idea how with simply the company name as the main search keyword.

sirearl

28th April 2007, 00:02

Hi Shorty ,afraid most shopping sites are not search engine friendly see http://www.kruse.co.uk/seo-checklist.htm bottom 2 items .There are some that can be fully optimized out there but they can never rank as highly as a site written in html.

On the design side it might be of use for you to read this article about the purpose and design of sites http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/biggest-mistakes-in-web-design-1995-2015.html

regards Earl

JustOneUK

28th April 2007, 00:21

I have just spent £9,000 on a new online shop only to be told it is not 'google friendly' and needs SEO!.....

Sorry to hear that, I hope it's a good looking site :|

sirearl

28th April 2007, 00:24

oops Shorty just spotted your refrence to "malarky"
well this malarky (what a great word ) is the most important aspect of almost any website that wants to attract buying customers to its site.

a few facts
No1 on google gets twice the traffic of No 2

58% of visitors to seach engines do not go beyond the first page

the general public think that being at the top of a seach engine is an endorsement for your site from the search engine,which is of course incorrect,well I better get back to me Malarking !!!

awebapart.com

28th April 2007, 16:25

I have just spent £9,000 on a new online shop only to be told it is not 'google friendly' and needs SEO!.....

I'm very sorry to hear that. Perhaps this demonstrates that the saying 'you get what you pay for' isn't always true.

I'd be very interested to see your site, and see how it compares 'google friendly' wise to our e-commerce sitebuilder service, which costs £250 per annum including hosting.

If anyone can give me some much needed advice I would be really grateful..

Again, if you could provide a link, it will be easier for the people on this forum to comment and give advice. As a new poster you wont be able to provide full web links, but if you type in something like the following you should be OK, e.g.:

shopname dot co dot uk

3rigena

28th April 2007, 16:27

our e-commerce sitebuilder service, which costs £250 per annum including hosting.

does it, like your web-site use tables for layout?

awebapart.com

28th April 2007, 17:17

does it, like your web-site use tables for layout?
Yes we do still use tables but we are reducing their usage in certain areas as we improve the service. The tables/table-less-CSS debate doesn't figure as highly on our list of priorities as other issues, and since the online shop part of our websites is based on our custom version of osCommerce v2.2 Milestone 2 which also uses tables, we are not tackling that particular issue in earnest until we migrate to a stable osCommerce v3 in the future (v3 is currently in alpha, but it does adopt a more XHTML CSS design with less tables).

IMO, the table/table-less CSS debate and text to code ratio debate is more an issue of squeezing every ounce of onsite SEO possible out of site, since this factor is one minor factor out of many that google considers when ranking a site. As such I would categorise this type of work as 'nice to have' hardcore search engine optimisation, not 'must have' basic search engine friendliness.

No way am I saying that we have the no 1 SEO'd online shop creation service in the UK. I do know that we have done most of the basic 'must have' stuff when it comes to search engine friendliness, I know there are areas that we can improve on an ongoing basis to squeeze out more SEO, and I know that our current offering is good compared to our competitors around the same price categorory as us (including BT eshop, ekmpowershop, easywebstore, etc). I'm just interested in how our service compares search engine friendly wise to the £9000 service in question. Generally for a business to be spending much more money on a shop, I would expect it to have better search engine friendliness and SEO than our service.

shorty

30th April 2007, 10:03

Thank you all for your advice it was gratefully received!

Sorry sirearl, didn't mean to disrespect your profession! ;o) I ment it in the nicest of ways!..

My URL is www 3av co uk if anyone could take a look I would appreicate any feedback.. I've missed the . out as I'm not allowed to post a url until I have posted 15 times..

Many thanks....

Rob Willox

30th April 2007, 10:43

See earlier post re titles, description and keywords (less important) and page/product content.

Although product links change title they change to a product code and not any descriptive text describing product (could also include product code). The problem with this is that not many people will search for a product code rather than the product they are looking for eg 'SVGA projector S-video' etc.

The following is what the search spiders will see and follow on your home page. Each of the followed links on left column all have the same title with no desc or keywords tags.

Spidered Text :
3AV T: 0845 603 4 853 | E: sales at 3av co uk SHOPPING BASKET 0 Item(s), Total: Â£0 . 00 | VIEW BASKET > Search HomeProjectorsDisplay ScreensPlasma / LCDPlasma / LCD MountsProjector ScreensProjector MountsSurround SoundAmps SpeakersClearance CornerInstallationsAbout UsContactPayment Methods © 3 Audio Visual | 3AV, 100 Circuit Lane, Southcote, Reading RG30 3HN | Returns & Repair Form | Terms & Conditions Web by Dynamics Media

Spidered Links :
3av co uk
3av co uk . . / . . / basket . aspx
3av co uk static / 3av / home . aspx
3av co uk projectors / all . aspx
3av co uk displayscreens / all . aspx
3av co uk plasmas / all . aspx
3av co uk wallbrackets / all . aspx
3av co uk projectorscreens / all . aspx
3av co uk projectormounts / all . aspx
3av co uk audio / all . aspx
3av co uk amps / all . aspx
3av co uk speakers / all . aspx
3av co uk clearancecorner / all . aspx
3av co uk static / 3av / installation_home . aspx
3av co uk static / 3av / about . aspx
3av co uk static / 3av / contact . aspx
3av co uk static / 3av / payment_methods . aspx
3av co uk projectors / all . aspx
3av co uk plasmas / all . aspx
3av co uk projectorscreens / all . aspx
3av co uk projectorlamps / all . aspx
3av co uk static / 3av / installation_home . aspx
3av co uk static / 3av / installation_questionnaire . aspx
3av co uk static / 3av / pdfs / returns_repair_form . pdf
3av co uk static / 3av / terms . aspx
dynamicsmedia co uk
dynamicsmedia co uk

Meta Keywords :
No meta kewords found .
Meta Description :
No meta description found .

PeteYoung

30th April 2007, 11:10

As Rob has eluded to previosly I would suggest that one of the main problems of the site is the content

Take for example the following
http://www.3av.co.uk/plasmas/all.aspx

As Rob has previously said most people will search for a product name or some derivative. On the results page, no such text is obvious, and users are presented with a combination of the Manufacturer Model number and size to work with. I would suggest as Rob has suggested you work with this content in order to make it more descriptive not only to the search engines but to potential browsers as well (ie 42' Panasonic LCD TV). I would also suggest the navigation between the pages is revised, as this is currently javascript based and as such would mean that search engines would not be able to find deeper content unless alternative means of navigation were provided,

The same roughly applies on the product pages where there is very little content ont he page.

Bad example (by company anyhow) but
http://homecinema.timeuk.com/tv/omega/18356/37104/42%22_PLASMA_TIME_P610_HC4_PACKAGE

is a fairly good example of how a page could be laid out for SEO effectiveness.

awebapart.com

30th April 2007, 11:41

Shorty, thanks for the link. I can understand why someone has told you that the site isn't search engine friendly. There is a redirect in place so when users want to go to www.3av.co.uk (http://www.3av.co.uk) they end up at www.3av.co.uk/static/3av/ (http://www.3av.co.uk/static/3av/) , but when google visits you home page it sees something very different, a page with just 3 links to other pages. You can check this by going to google and typing in:

site:3av.co.uk

google will return the pages it has indexed, you can then look at the cache of those pages to see what google has indexed.

As a first step, the page that google sees as the home page should at least have a link to the page where all the action is, i.e. the static/3av page.

Home page redirects and SEO were also discussed recently on another thread:
www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=32703 (http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=32703)

There are also pages which are preventing full search engine indexing because javascript is used for links rather than standard A links, e.g. the pages 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ... links on the projectors page.

Your site is currently not fulfilling basic search engine friendliness, but your suppliers should be able to sort this out.

On the SEO side there are other improvements which could be made, an obvious one is changing the title when clicking on the categories.

I, Brian

30th April 2007, 13:12

Hi all,

This is the first time I have posted on this site so excuse me if I've hijacked this thread, I'm not sure if this is for general chat or belongs to someone!!

I was after some advice on this subject...I am being bombarded with calls from people working in SEO and I'm lost at how much I should be paying and what is a good service or not.

I have a new company with limited cashflow and are trying to compete in the Audio Visual market (selling and installing projectors, plasma's for B2B).
I have just spent £9,000 on a new online shop only to be told it is not 'google friendly' and needs SEO!.....

I'm spending on average £400 a month on Google and not getting a return I'm happy with... I had a call from a Back Links company and have set that up and a company is re-doing all my ads...But SEO sounds like a mine field and I was naive enough to believe that a flashy website would work without putting thousands aside for all this malarky!
If anyone can give me some much needed advice I would be really grateful..

Thanks in advance....

If your website is new then the best you can do is make it search friendly - a link building campaign at this stage will reap little ROI as you need to wait a good 12-18 months for Google to develop "trust" in the domain name.

I would also *STRONGLY* advise against buying SEO services from cold-calls. The likelihood is that most such calls are from companies that will promise everything and deliver nothing. Ask for referrals from other people you know who may have had SEO services that worked for them, what was achieved, and at what price.

2c.

PeteYoung

30th April 2007, 13:25

Completely agree Brian

shorty

30th April 2007, 14:03

PeteYoung

30th April 2007, 14:14

I am one of the directors at E-Gain New Media and have about six years now in the Internet marketing arena. We work for a number of clients in a range of sectors including Home Entertainment (Retail), Finance and real Estate. Please feel free to drop us a line if you want to know more

I know of Brian (not personally), and his organisation are well established within the SEM sector

As regards your comments re:SEO. SEO has been around for a while, however there has been a significant shift towards digital advertising particularly over the last couple of years, and still growing.

Peter

awebapart.com

30th April 2007, 14:24

I am not an SEO specialist. My company provides a sitebuilder service, including an e-commerce sitebuilder service, which addresses the 'must have' basic requirements of getting a search engine friendly site, and goes some way to addressing other search engine optimisations. So we know a little about SEO as it is one of the many issues a company should know about who are delivering web solutions. I'd like to think that we know more than the bad SEO consultants, but obviously not as much as the good SEO consultants who specialise in this area (like Brian).

I think a few people, including myself, have now given you the advice that you need to address the basic 'must have' search engine friendliness issues with your site before you start tackling other 'nice to have' SEO issues. The company that should be sorting this out for you is your web development company, check your client-supplier contract and specs, if they said they were delivering a search engine friendly site then they haven't done so yet and they should be sorting this out for you for free.

PeteYoung

30th April 2007, 14:28

I think a few people, including myself, have now given you the advice that you need to address the basic 'must have' search engine friendliness issues with your site before you start tackling other 'nice to have' SEO issues. The company that should be sorting this out for you is your web development company, check your client-supplier contract and specs, if they said they were delivering a search engine friendly site then they haven't done so yet and they should be sorting this out for you for free.

Completely agree with you there.

sirearl

30th April 2007, 17:44

Hi shorty be very carefull chosing your SEO company if you use one.ask to see there sucess rate with highly competative terms like "estate agent" or "car sales" e.t.c .It is easy for any SEO to get a high ranking with obscure terms.

There are only 6 companies in the UK worth there salt for SEO.I would still go back to Dynamic media and insist that thy do the SEO for free as there price was way over the top and they know it .A first class shopping site usually sell for £1300.

philbaynes

30th April 2007, 17:51

I do a lot of seo work and for a shop personally i would put the money into pay per click and ebay

PeteYoung

30th April 2007, 17:56

Sorry Sirearl, have to slightly disagree with the six SEO companies, here as I could rattle off a number more than that who have very experienced and successful consultants in their employment (you included as the self-confessed number 1 seo expert ;))

Companies such as BigMouth/Greenlight/Connectpoint/Spannerworks/The Search Works/Latitude/Neutralize charge a lot, but at the end of the day, their results speak for themselves and as such they can charge those prices - simple supply and demand would dictate that. The rest of us (on the way up) - still have to earn our way and as such cannot charge the 'larger' rates.

As regards the 1300 - we have to be careful here. Every site is different to a certain extent, and once you start getting into incorporating bespoke aspects into the website, costs start increasing and as such that 1300 starts increasing very quickly.

I don't condone charging over inflated prices but at the end of the day, if company x is making x hundred thousand as a direct result of changes introduced by me/you, surely that is money well spent.

sirearl

30th April 2007, 19:24

well Pete maybe a dozen.The lack of good SEO is probably due to most companies being web designers / programmer orientated and various other marketing type activites,who have seen the rise in SEO and come to the market place rather later.

A SEO consultant does nothing but SEO ,He has complete control of the website design structure and control of what may or not be placed on the site.If you ain't on the first page of google for the keyword /phrase you want then you ain't in the top 10 so how can there be more than 10 top SEO companies chinese logic maybe

I, Brian

30th April 2007, 21:19

Thanks for that I,Brian.... But I don't know anyone who uses SEO...I'd never heard of it until a few weeks ago when our site went live..

Can anyone here recommend a company?

Can i ask...do you guys work for SEO companies yourself?

Thanks again...

My own SEO company specialises in link development, which is exactly what you don't need right now. :)

What you need is a company that can really focus on the programming/coding issues involved, from a SEO perspective. Hopefully you'll be able to connect with one of the people here in that regard - ask them for a couple of references on similar work, then shoot an email to one of the site owners asking how they felt about working with XYZ SEO company. That possibly opens up your options for you. :)

umeshsethi

1st May 2007, 06:21

Hi all,

An SEO guy has consulted with one of my client's and given them his recommendations to improve their website in the search engines. Currently it does not do very well in rankings and does seem to need quite a bit of work.

He is a personal friend of one of the directors of the website and seems to be reputable.

The costs are: he has quoted £9,000 for things to do immediately and £10,000 as one-off costs for a 6-month plan. There is a £1000 management fee and a monthly cost of £700 pounds.

How does that sound?

Hi, I have come in bit late into the conversation so apologize if i am repeating something. For what its worth, my company provides link building which has come under a cloud since last 2/3 google dances. We are also looking to provide SEO to companies, but we are not established and hence charging comparitively quite low while building our capabilities . The other reason ofcourse is that much of the work is done in India.

However we know what many established players are doing in the field. For example a top canadian seo company does provide guarantees... does this guy provide that. Then, we are outsourcing to good players in Australia and have Seen a mix of fixed + performance based model.

A top Indian company in SEO - Pinstorm with multi- million dollar turnover offers SEO+SEM ( pay per click) combo deal with an emphasis on measurabe results. If you are spending 24k over 6 months , your profits should probably be 3-4 times this figure over that period that to justify that spend (and hence corresponding sales )

Hence unless their are some results tied in the contact which in terms of ROI provide adequate returns in sales over the 6 months and thereafter , it does not really seem worth it.

Regards
Umesh

RayB

2nd May 2007, 19:20

RayB

2nd May 2007, 19:30

A SEO consultant does nothing but SEO ,He has complete control of the website design structure and control of what may or not be placed on the site.

B****CKS

2 things not to do:

1. Give a crook your bank account details
2. Give an SEO "complete control" of what "may or may not be placed on the site"

You may know about SEO - but you know sweet FA about my vertical - prices - USP's - I could go on and on.

Utter BS - sorry!

awebapart.com

2nd May 2007, 20:50

So, most of the forum SEO experts are posting here, citing the usual onpage and off-page things like - sort out your title tags, optimise the content, engage in "link building" activities :rolleyes:

So, a question to the SEO experts posting here:

Please search "printing services" on G (no uk filter) and comment on the reasons why the top 4 results (out of 70 million pages+) do not mention this phrase in the title even, and how this has been achieved?

I am interested in your responses cos there is some good stuff on this thread - and some utter garbage!
I'm not an SEO expert, but I do need to know something about SEO in order to provide an all-encompassing service when delivering websites with our sitebuilder service. I'll have a go at answering your question.

To take one of the top sites, superchrome, as an example, I would put it down these factors:

1. offsite inbound links from other sites which either have printing services as high density words on their pages or inbound links where the text for the link is "printing services", e.g.:
allthelink.com/detail/link-949.html

2. established history of the site going back to at least 2002, and google probably knows that the site has a history related to printing services

3. dmoz directory entry under printing

4. page content containing a lot of printing services, and onsite link structure containing links with text of printing services and urls of printing services, all inbound linking back to home page

5. UK based website since google detects you are searching from the UK so it gives preference to sites it knows are UK based even if you didn't click on pages from UK only (someone in the US would get US companies coming top for the same search)

etc

Probably factor 1 is the most important factor, with inbound links from high google PR ranking sites using text links of printing services. Whether or not these linking sites are determined by google in the future to be valid directories or link farms will determine whether the site will continue to do well or not.

Finally to demonstrate the power of offsite inbound linking with text links, just google for: click here

You will find the adobe site as no 1 site even though click here isn't mentioned on the page at all, because of all the links from other websites saying 'to view this pdf you will need adobe acrobat reader, to download adobe acrobat reader click here '!

sirearl

2nd May 2007, 21:12

PeteYoung

2nd May 2007, 21:26

2934 searches on Overture last month SirEarl, plus another 1000 odd on varients thereof

sirearl

2nd May 2007, 21:50

As I said to few searches "printer " 526,344 searches

"printing" 44,874 searches

not to fond of overture stats try http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/ more detailed break down

RayB

2nd May 2007, 22:07

I'm not an SEO expert, but I do need to know something about SEO in order to provide an all-encompassing service when delivering websites with our sitebuilder service. I'll have a go at answering your question.

To take one of the top sites, superchrome, as an example, I would put it down these factors:

1. offsite inbound links from other sites which either have printing services as high density words on their pages or inbound links where the text for the link is "printing services", e.g.:
allthelink.com/detail/link-949.html

2. established history of the site going back to at least 2002, and google probably knows that the site has a history related to printing services

3. dmoz directory entry under printing

4. page content containing a lot of printing services, and onsite link structure containing links with text of printing services and urls of printing services, all inbound linking back to home page

5. UK based website since google detects you are searching from the UK so it gives preference to sites it knows are UK based even if you didn't click on pages from UK only (someone in the US would get US companies coming top for the same search)

etc

Probably factor 1 is the most important factor, with inbound links from high google PR ranking sites using text links of printing services. Whether or not these linking sites are determined by google in the future to be valid directories or link farms will determine whether the site will continue to do well or not.

Finally to demonstrate the power of offsite inbound linking with text links, just google for: click here

You will find the adobe site as no 1 site even though click here isn't mentioned on the page at all, because of all the links from other websites saying 'to view this pdf you will need adobe acrobat reader, to download adobe acrobat reader click here '!

Cannot comment on the site first in the results - but the site ranked a fluctating 3rd/4th I can comment on - 99.9% of what you suggest is not true....

DMOZ yes - rest no.............

RayB

2nd May 2007, 22:12

all the above from Awebapart ,plus at least 400 pages stuffed with good and lots of information.Why anyone would want "printing services " I don't know as there are so few searches for it.Try " printing " or " Printers "

Utter B*****KS!

Firstly, your reasoning is incorrect (at least 400 pages??), secondly - not many searches? Bit more than "See Doo" or "VW spares" or whatever!

SEO = Bumkum in 99.999% of cases - prove me wrong with facts.

I'm just off to MARKET my business - I'll leave the SEO to you lot :D

RayB

2nd May 2007, 22:14

2934 searches on Overture last month SirEarl, plus another 1000 odd on varients thereof

and multiply that by 8 for google searches - then try postcard printing, flyer printing.................

RayB

2nd May 2007, 22:17

As I said to few searches "printer " 526,344 searches

"printing" 44,874 searches

not to fond of overture stats try http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/ more detailed break down

And these include things like inkjet printer, printing on my home pc etc

untargetted Bull***t

On this basis rank for for "paper" then!

JustOneUK

2nd May 2007, 22:22

On this basis rank for "paper" then!
Funnily enough I actually looked at "paper" last year when I was researching a new website I had planned.. it has something stupid like umpteen-trillion searches/month. :D

P.S Ray are you having a bad day?

RayB

2nd May 2007, 22:31

P.S Ray are you having a bad day?

:D I'm having a great day - just wading into a debate where "SEO's" think they know best - and are masters at self promotion - without substance - I'm having a right old chuckle over this thread (and making mischief :eek: )

JustOneUK

2nd May 2007, 22:41

I had a quick look, something peculiar about "automarks", if I had time I would investigate, but I am off to register my new printing domain.... want an ad? :D

RayB

2nd May 2007, 22:49

but I am off to register my new printing domain.... want an ad? :D

Yikes- are there domains I did not buy already - oohh yes to an ad - as long as it has a "rel=nofollow" - dont want to break any rules :D

RayB

2nd May 2007, 23:14

sirearl

3rd May 2007, 00:18

There are lots of things that have more SERP's than vw parts or Seadoo ,but as we sell vw parts and are sea doo main dealers ,we are quite happy being top of those particular trees.being a big fish in a small pond is a lot more valuable,than a medium fish in a big pond,as far as search engine placement is concerned.

sirearl

3rd May 2007, 00:29

X=0
y=100,000%
z= I just can't wipe the grin orf me face

RayB

3rd May 2007, 08:28

X=0
y=100,000%
z= I just can't wipe the grin orf me face

And neither can I ;)

sirearl

3rd May 2007, 09:23

On tuesday night too ? ;)

awebapart.com

3rd May 2007, 09:45

sirearl

3rd May 2007, 10:24

Awebapart you got it mostly right as far as RayB.s site is concerned apart from needing a lot more content and pages for a high placement and organising how his pages are presented to the search engines.I guess we all know what the "B" in RayB stands for seems his favourite word.
As the saying goes a "little knowledge is dangerous ,but a lot of knowledge is lethal " ;) for someon who professes not to be an expert in SEO ain't he got a lot of bloody opinions

RayB

3rd May 2007, 10:29

On tuesday night too ? ;)

Indeed :D There are some great SEO's on this forum - and some not so great - but I'll keep that to myself ;)

sirearl

3rd May 2007, 11:21

awebapart.com

3rd May 2007, 11:51

Cannot comment on the site first in the results - but the site ranked a fluctating 3rd/4th I can comment on - 99.9% of what you suggest is not true....

DMOZ yes - rest no.............
Ray, my humble suggestions for the reasons why the sites are top ranked were just limited to the one site I looked at, superchrome, which was 1st/2nd. What is the name of the site fluctuating 3rd/4th which you are talking about, and I'll have a look.

If the peculiar site in question is automarks.com, which is 3rd/4th in google for printing services, then that does look strange, and I'd have to say that I don't know why that is so high.

My only humble guesses would be:

1. it still has a lot of inbound links with the text printing services and direct mail printing services, have a look at link:w ww.automarks.com (without the space between the w's) in yahoo, e.g. there are inbound links from sites like:

extremecashsite.com/high_pr_link_directory.html
best-buy-on-desktop-laptop-computers.com
lil-hoss.com
etc

again, whether these links in the future are deemed by google as link farms will determine whether the site continues to rank high or not

2. there might be a play on what google understands as related words, e.g. although printing services isn't mentioned, direct mail, paper and newspapers are, on and off site

3. dmoz entry under printing

4. other directory entries (e.g. yahoo) under dealer services

5. the site still has a fair bit of history going back to at least 2001

6. the site's url is mentioned on other sites even though there is no back link:
pr.com/company-profile/overview/4187

7. Although it is a US company with a com and has US hosting, it still ranks well on google in the uk (even though google in the UK does add some weighting to UK searches). It is still feasible that a US company can rank high here, amazon.com is still in the top ten, if the other ranking factors are strong enough. But perhaps it also shows that not all printing companies in the UK are targeting printing services so much.

8. there's a strange related link to it on:
aboutus.org/Dmoz.com
which lists it with other high profile sites like google, altavista, etc - I don't quite understand that one, either it is wrong, or perhaps automarks used to be a directory/bookmarking site (archive.org doesn't think so)?

9. there's some other gliche in google, depends whether the site has been 3rd/4th consistently or not, which I don't know.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents worth, coming from someone who isn't an SEO expert. I'd be very interested to hear what the SEO experts have to say on why automarks is so high in the rankings for printing services - I know that SEO is complex and everchanging, and there's always something new to learn!

RayB

3rd May 2007, 12:30

well that ain't nice is it this forum is about helping out other Uk Business's,and witholding valuable information is just not cricket old chap,there are plenty of up and coming young SEO who need recommendations and are in a position to help various bussiness's improve there turnover vastly.As I said before SEO is the most important aspect of any online business.If no one looks in the window you ain't going to flog noffink

I think I make a positive contribution in this forum to help others. Equally there are some on here that use posts to tell people how great they are - now that ain't nice. :(

You never see me using these forums as a sales pitch/self promotion - save for the occasional relevent response to printing requests in "tenders and jobs".

RayB

3rd May 2007, 12:36

Hi Paul,

I think you last post is some good detective work - i think those results are strange

carps

3rd May 2007, 13:58

One question (that often gets missed as part of the whole SEO issue) is does being 3 or 4 on Google for 'printing services' actually do them any good?

They seem very specific in their offering, and even if that keyword gets them lots of traffic, the site and the messages don't really seem that good for that term. I think they could make a lot more money by selling that domain to someone who *does* offer general printing services, and focussing their own efforts on the niche/regional thing they actually do.

As for why it is there, the age of the domain is a big plus - the site's changed radically over the years since 2001 but the core theme has remained the same. They've invested in decent quality links (Yahoo! Directory is specifically recommended as part of Google's webmaster guidelines). They've done plenty of online PR - good quality press releases put out on several networks - which will have netted them credibility and a decent amount of the links they have.

They also seem to have done some "grey hat" SEO - building up related sites with unique content and linking strategy which then pass all their juice onto the main Automarks site (www.directmailsamples.org for example). Google's always trying to filter this kind of thing out, but if the site is hosted at a different IP it's pretty much undetectable unless done by hand.

I'd wager that many of the links use the phrase 'printing services' in the text itself, but it's dinner time and I don't have the inclination to check that hunch out!!

And of course it could be a glitch in Google's algorithm for some historical reason we can't see. In any field you always get these rogue results - just trust to Google's engineers to eventually find a way to wheedle them out. I've seen even weirder results in some markets...

RayB

3rd May 2007, 14:01

Good post Paul!

Also, when a term is this competitive do you notice that "lss is more" seems to be the case with page title

carps

3rd May 2007, 14:22

Hi Ray

I'd definitely recommend very focussed page titles - long rambling ones seem to perform worse, on the whole. Like all things though, it's part of the yin and yang of website marketing - it should ideally describe the page to which it applies, rather than just be a place to dump keywords.

In this case, the "less is more" approach is taken to the absurdist degree of not being there at all! From what I can see of the site, their main targeted keyword is "direct mail" (for which they don't rank at all) or "automotive direct mail" (for which they rank only moderately well).

I'm putting my money on this result being down to some historical factor that we can't see any more. Maybe they once targeted "printing services" really heavily and their current ranking is just a hangover due to aging factors.

PI Guy

3rd May 2007, 14:25

how do you think my site is performing from a seo perspective?

carps

3rd May 2007, 14:55

Hi Salinv

Bit hard to say without a few keywords to hand! If you're targeting the term "private investigators" then obviously you're not showing up in the first couple of pages, so there's some work to do. Whatever you're targeting, there's generic advice that's always worth following.

In terms of how the site is built, I'd probably recommend reversing the order of your page titles. Currently they all start with "Salgado Investigations". This is fine if your brand is well known and people search for it specifically (even then you'd probably rank for it if you just used the homepage for this term). You've got unique meta descriptions for most pages, which helps - but I'd maybe look at making them a bit more compelling as sales messages.

I'd probably lose the 'resources' page and find a way to seed the links into the normal flow of your content - Google generally pays scant regard to links pages (low value to visitors) but likes it when you put links in content (adding value to the visitor experience).

The blog posts read well (and blogs are a *great* idea, done well) but it looks like there's a lot of content you've lifted from press releases elsewhere. You could make better use of them by quoting the original press release, but putting your own spin on them - get your opinion to the fore. Not only is it more interesting, but it's good for that all-important search engine love!

You're going about getting some decent links by getting on forums and contributing (hi!) but the links are pretty much concentrated on two or three sites. Perhaps look at getting a couple of *decent* directory listings (Yahoo, BOTW) and maybe running some PR of your own through PRWeb, PRleap or similar.

I, Brian

5th May 2007, 18:43

Oh and another thing for the SEO's - how about a useful posting along the lines of:

My client invested £X for my services
Which resulted in a demonstrable uplift in sales of £Y
Which therefore increased my clients profit by £Z

Therefore the return on their INVESTMENT in my SERVICES was £??

To be honest, it's a very good point and I see a lot of SEO moving this way - certainly I'm training myself up in stats to be able to offer a service that will track everything in this way.

However, I think the result is that I will stop charging so little. :D

In the meantime, a lot of decent SEO companies will probably offer keyword rankings based on what the client states they require - after all, if the client knows exactly what converts for them (and most do via PPC) then they will know if the campaign is helping to deliver. Usually proven by a reduction in PPC spend without loss of sales.

sirearl

5th May 2007, 21:00

Hi Brian One area of SEO which I have not seen touched on,is the increase in the value of a given website,due to the efforts of the SEO.Which I think should form part of the equasion when considering SEO charges.
A site with 200 visitors a day has a very different value to one with 5,000
especially if it is a brand leader with a very high conversion rate such as "car parts" ( usually a must have product ) see on website values

http://www.powerhomebiz.com/vol151/selling.htm

I know it is very hard for a SEO to predict what will happen to a sites profability in the future,but my own experience is phenomenal growth over a 2 year period usually in the order of 25 x or more dependent on the product and demand

PI Guy

5th May 2007, 21:49

SteveGibson

6th May 2007, 09:35

My client invested £X for my services
Which resulted in a demonstrable uplift in sales of £Y
Which therefore increased my clients profit by £Z

Therefore the return on their INVESTMENT in my SERVICES was £??

It depends on the site and business in question, but those questions should be answerable to some degree.

(though it does take some work)

Alternatively, if you take a client from page 5 (next to no traffic) to p1 for a popular search term, what's wrong with saying:

"google would charge £1.20 a click to get onto page 1 for this term. You receive 400 visitors a month for the term. So the value we've added to you for the term is £480 per month"

And then going through all the main terms like that?

(though one should remember that - unlike PPC - many people's on-page SEO restricts the use of words and that weakens the copy and reduces the conversion rate - so a click wouldn't be worth the same amount)

Steve

sirearl

6th May 2007, 15:30

Steve goes some way to giving a rough guid but the other variable is the value of the potential product that is on offer.

We sell property world wide and also clocks on another site at £2.99 each .1 sale on the property site is worth an awful lot of clocks :D

darren atkinson

6th May 2007, 18:52

"google would charge £1.20 a click to get onto page 1 for this term. You receive 400 visitors a month for the term. So the value we've added to you for the term is £480 per month"

...

(though one should remember that - unlike PPC - many people's on-page SEO restricts the use of words and that weakens the copy and reduces the conversion rate - so a click wouldn't be worth the same amount)

Steve

I have just completed a 6 monthly SEO / PPC overview report for one of my clients.

The business is still fairly new, around 18 months old. I am responsible solely for SEO, the client insists on managing their PPC campaigns and spending.

The site has had a 6x increase in organic traffic over the last 6 months.

I track all online sales with analytics software, but can not track telephone sales for obvious reasons.

The clients monthly PPC spend fluctuated between £1000 and £2250 per month over the 6 month period, gradually increasing.

Towards the beginning of the period PPC generated over twice as many online sales as organic, the last months figures show that organic produced just over twice as many online sales, a complete reversal.

Over the 6 months the cost per sales (PPC / sales or SEO budget / sales) difference was immense.

PPC = £49.71
SEO = £3.47

This shows 2 main things:

- Their PPC management is rubbish
- I don't charge enough for my work...

The full figures actually show many things but you can probably get my drift here.

One final nugget of info is that over the 6 month period SEO generated more sales (just) than the PPC.

I honestly predict over the next year organic traffic should at least increase by a factor of 5 and if conversion rates and PPC spending remain constant online sales generated by SEO will be 10 x the amount generated by PPC.

For this particular client I have also found that over 6 months the organic or SEO traffic had a slightly higher conversion rate than the PPC traffic.

All in all, I think that the full report demonstrates without a doubt the high value of my SEO work for this client, yes I do charge a monthly fee for continued work for them but I feel it is entirely justified.

Without giving away figures my 6 month fees amounted to under 7.5% of the clients PPC spend, and realistically if they walked away from me tomorrow their organic traffic would not die away, just wouldn't increase as much.

I hope this gives some of you more understanding to how beneficial SEO CAN be, and how this particular SEO guy / business reports back on ROI.

*Note this is not a blatant advert for me, and I hope it doesn't get construed as one.

Regards

Darren

sirearl

6th May 2007, 20:04

As they say "a defendant who defends himself has a fool for a client "

so it would seem with your client managing his own PPC.

Without knowing the value of your clients goods/services ,Its hard to comment on your charging ,but 7.5% of his PPC budget seems rather low,as you would seem to be creating the wealth.
Interesting Stats :D .

I, Brian

7th May 2007, 09:57

That's the trouble with SEO - we enrich our clients...and then get bashed over the head by people outside the industry, for being SEO's. :)

Great to see your stats, by the way, Darren - thanks for that - I love seeing how the different figures work out where available. :)

I think it's also pretty common for a lot of SEO's to not charge their full value. I figure that's because a lot of the good ones are more techie than salesman, so we charge simply solve problems, rather than try to milk clients for profit for profit's sake.

2c.

sirearl

7th May 2007, 10:40

I don't think milking the client is the right expression.Most of the people who come to me are hovering around the zero sales from there sites.
I offer one deal only 50/50 on the website sales.As I usualy have to build a new site do all the promotion and keep it at th top of the rankings e.t.c .There end is to wrap and post the product or supply the service.

Traffic on our most succesfull site has gone from 200 visitors a day to 5,000 over a 2 year period.

I would maintain that in most cases a site without good SEO is dead in the water with exceptions of course or a huge PPC bill as Darren demonstrated
Why we are presented to the GBP as mumbo jumbo men who almost have the status of parasites is beyond me.

darren atkinson

7th May 2007, 12:07

Great to see your stats, by the way, Darren - thanks for that - I love seeing how the different figures work out where available. :)

I also like to see other peoples stats for comparison reasons.

I find much of SEO is shrouded in mystery, not just in technique, but in reporting and ROI etc...

I am planning an article for my site on SEO ROI based on a standard 6 month report for one of my clients. Obviously I will remove all references to the specific website (as I'm sure my client doesn't want their competitors knowing their sales figures) but I think it will be beneficial for prospective clients to look over when deciding on their SEO budgets.

Could also prove to be some nice linkbait...

Regards

Darren

SteveGibson

7th May 2007, 12:23

a site without good SEO is dead in the water with exceptions of course or a huge PPC bill

I think "PPC bill" is the wrong way to look at it.

If it costs me 20p for a click but my visitor value was 40p, then I'd be happy to pay £100 a day (or £1,000 a day) for clicks as it's not costing me anything, it's putting £100 a day into my pocket.

And, with numbers like that, the bigger my "PPC bill", the better.

Why we are presented to the GBP as mumbo jumbo men who almost have the status of parasites is beyond me.

I think the reason the public doesn't like SEO is that the public uses search engines to find the best and most relevant sites while SEO - especially SEO dependent on artificial linking strategies - tries to fill page 1 with pages that wouldn't be there on "merit".

While I think much of this impression dates back to a few years ago when google was dominated by keyword stuffed spam sites, SEO's still responsible for a lot of crap on p1.

Steve

darren atkinson

7th May 2007, 12:42

I think "PPC bill" is the wrong way to look at it.

If it costs me 20p for a click but my visitor value was 40p, then I'd be happy to pay £100 a day (or £1,000 a day) for clicks as it's not costing me anything, it's putting £100 a day into my pocket.

Your logic is valid here, it has been shown many times that the right website combined with the right product at the right price can make lots of money solely using PPC.

However, dragging the discussion back into the realms of SEO using your example above, if an SEO could provide the exact same level of traffic but at 10% of the cost of PPC (as my post on a 6 month review showed) then wouldn't it make much more sense to invest your PPC budget into SEO?

If each visitor cost only 2p per visit, yet still yielded 40p then anyone can see that SEO is a much better proposition.

The problems for an SEO are gaining a clients trust. If somebody walked into any business and claimed that within 12 months they could reduce the main marketing spend by a factor of 10, and actually increase potential customers (web traffic) then they would largely be met with scepticism.

I can provide potential clients with hard data and facts but more often than not people are still cagey.

It's all about perception really.

Paying a company £500 per month for a service sounds like a large outgoing for small - medium business which they resent. However, it seems that paying a large corporation (Google) 4,5,6,7x this amount is easier for them as:

- many others are in the same boat
- it has instant results
- they can directly measure items like conversion, and click through rates

If all SEO's could and did provide the same service at the same price with the same results then everybody would engage in it.

The problem is, as Steve has correctly pointed out many times before, not all SEO's are equal, and like most industries there are cheaters, liars and scam artists, tarnishing our good names.

Regards

Darren

sirearl

7th May 2007, 12:44

Point taken about PPC Steve .I don't understand why any one would want to get a top position for some thing they either don't stock or information / service they don't have.surely people would click on there site and move off straight away to find what they wanted ,remembering not to click on that site again?

I have also noticed a decline in mini directories,which were at one time hogging a lot of top positions ,me thinks Google has updated its alogrithms in this area.

SteveGibson

7th May 2007, 13:46

However, dragging the discussion back into the realms of SEO using your example above, if an SEO could provide the exact same level of traffic but at 10% of the cost of PPC (as my post on a 6 month review showed) then wouldn't it make much more sense to invest your PPC budget into SEO?

If you're turning a profit at PPC - and you're getting your money back quickly - you soon don't need a "budget".

As Claude Hopkins wrote back in the 1920s:

Sometimes we find that the cost of the advertising comes back before the bills are due. That means that the product can be advertised without investment.

(see Scientific Advertising (http://www.scientific-advertising.co.uk/test-campaigns-page02.html))

So, to answer your question, the PPC doesn't necessarily cut into cashflow or the money available for things like SEO.

If it's working (and if it's a business where payments come in quickly), it should be adding to the money available for such things.

I don't understand why any one would want to get a top position for some thing they either don't stock or information / service they don't have.

I agree that it makes sense that there's some level of relevance.

However, if you type in "Manchester United official site" into google, do you really want the first 3 pages of results to be "unofficial" sites selling Man Utd related merchandise?

Over the last 7 years (since I started using the internet regularly), google's gone a long way to eliminate a lot of this and (quick check) you now get the official site at the top.

Steve

PeteYoung

7th May 2007, 13:48

If you're turning a profit at PPC - and you're getting your money back quickly - you soon don't need a "budget".

I would suggest the 'law of diminshing returns' would come into play at some point, however I guess that really is picking at straws as this would merely be a case of establishing that threshold and 'setting the budget accordingly'

I, Brian

7th May 2007, 21:34

I also like to see other peoples stats for comparison reasons.

I find much of SEO is shrouded in mystery, not just in technique, but in reporting and ROI etc...

I don't do ROI reporting as yet, but am planning to very soon - it's on my todo list to set up with IndexTools this week and then start running it on a few test sites and client sites. Definitely an important area to grow into.

About the only figures I have on SEO profits is that last year two clients with big link development campaigns went away for two weeks - all marketing off except the SEO. When they came back, both had sales of over £8k from organic searches. What was really interesting is that they both had different campaigns - one was targeting major keywords, but the other I targeted at the longtail because of sandboxing.

Extrapolated, that would have been £16k in sales per month each (just under £200k per year) from SEO alone, but I'm afraid I don't know the actual profit margins on their goods - it's simply never been something I've asked clients. Both are still with me after nearly 2.5 years, so I figure I must be delivering a decent return or else they'd have stopped long ago. Hopefully I'll be able to start providing much more detailed info, and work with them to compile a better data set.

sirearl

7th May 2007, 22:43

I don't know the actual profit margins on their goods - it's simply never been something I've asked clients.!!!!!

Well its one of the first questions I ask ,along with a detailed explaination of all there financial structure and product dispatch system.

Some orders just require a phone call to the supplier ,who then dispatched direct to our customer which entails little work on our part and no initial financial outlay E.T.C

I don't see how you can place a value on your work unless you have the full financial implications before you

I seemed to upset a few people with my outragous claim to be the No1 SEO consultant in the UK .Forgive me but I am an old age pensioner with "delusions of Grandeur I expect".I don't care if I am 1 or a 100 but I do care that I get top results on the search engines as do my partners.
Last year we had car part sales of over 1 million,most of which were generated by the websites.

Remember if a company has no sales there is no business no employment E.t.c so I would maintain that what we do is probably the most important part of any online business soon to probably be of any business

darren atkinson

8th May 2007, 09:50

I don't do ROI reporting as yet, but am planning to very soon - it's on my todo list to set up with IndexTools this week and then start running it on a few test sites and client sites. Definitely an important area to grow into.

About the only figures I have on SEO profits is that last year two clients with big link development campaigns went away for two weeks - all marketing off except the SEO. When they came back, both had sales of over £8k from organic searches. What was really interesting is that they both had different campaigns - one was targeting major keywords, but the other I targeted at the longtail because of sandboxing.

Extrapolated, that would have been £16k in sales per month each (just under £200k per year) from SEO alone, but I'm afraid I don't know the actual profit margins on their goods - it's simply never been something I've asked clients. Both are still with me after nearly 2.5 years, so I figure I must be delivering a decent return or else they'd have stopped long ago. Hopefully I'll be able to start providing much more detailed info, and work with them to compile a better data set.

I too am only really getting started with ROI reports, it is surprising though what you can find out. I may talk to a client and explain how well the SEO campaign is progressing etc... but spending the time going through all the figures along with some calculations surprised even me.

I do generally find out profit margins, but for many clients of mine the differences between certain products are large, and with some of them stocking up to 5000 items, you can only work on an average (well you could track every sale recorded against their records for definitive figures but that would be a pretty major undertaking).

My opinion is that the basic report I put together for that specific client is of immense value to them.

It showed that sales have been steadily increasing over the period, we all knew that, but what the client might have thought is that because their PPC spend was also increasing, the PPC was responsible for the extra sales.

The reality is that although PPC spend increased, actual sales stayed the same or even dropped on occasion.

Now a sensible person with this new information can make some pretty good desicions on their future business plan.

As you can all probably tell, I'm quite interested in this area of business at the moment.

Regards

Darren