Needed: A SEO company review site
- Thread starter SillyJokes
- Start date
But again I say why should they believe an individual who is making money from the deal. With respect you are not independent as you are getting paid to provide the service on an ongoing basis.
I am not being critical of you, what I am saying is you are creating another level of decision making. How will you grade these companies? How long have you been doing SEO? 10 years, 15 years or more?
What makes you the complete authority on choosing an SEO company, as to do so you would need to have the full knowledge of all their combined staff, otherwise your decision is flawed.
I am not being critical of you, what I am saying is you are creating another level of decision making. How will you grade these companies? How long have you been doing SEO? 10 years, 15 years or more?
What makes you the complete authority on choosing an SEO company, as to do so you would need to have the full knowledge of all their combined staff, otherwise your decision is flawed.
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But again I say why should they believe an individual who is making money from the deal. With respect you are not independent as you are getting paid to provide the service on an ongoing basis.
I am not being critical of you, what I am saying is you are creating another level of decision making. How will you grade these companies? How long have you been doing SEO? 10 years, 15 years or more?
What makes you the complete authority on choosing an SEO company, as to do so you would need to have the full knowledge of all their combined staff, otherwise your decision is flawed.
There is just so many factors (hundreds upon hundreds) that I don't think they have factored in. In order to be a credible source, it has to be a pretty much perfect vetting process meaning almost all these factors need to be looked at.
And then, as you say, it has to be ongoing, at least annually. You'd need a team to handle all the vetting, then with that comes increased fees. It would just never work, not in the proposed model anyway.
It would prove far better to develop a bespoke ratings platform where SEO companies can submit a feed of their clients and their clients have to verify who they are and then receive a questionnaire with so very carefully, thought out questions (survey) which then get sent back to the website and these consolidate all ratings to find the average, score them and then they are automatically ranked in categories based on their average score. The feed is automated so that any new clients can keep filtering into the system and the SEO company is regularly scored/updated.
The website would have to be absolutely watertight to prevent any fraudulent activity. There would be no need for heavy manual vetting, large fees (just charge a small monthly subscription fee). etc etc.
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But again I say why should they believe an individual who is making money from the deal. With respect you are not independent as you are getting paid to provide the service on an ongoing basis.
I am not being critical of you, what I am saying is you are creating another level of decision making. How will you grade these companies? How long have you been doing SEO? 10 years, 15 years or more?
What makes you the complete authority on choosing an SEO company, as to do so you would need to have the full knowledge of all their combined staff, otherwise your decision is flawed.
They should believe me because I'm making the same amount regardless of who they choose, and if I were to be impartial then people would soon find out about it.
I think it would work better with smaller companies who don't have knowledge on the subject. Plus the less the budget is, the more absolute rubbish you come across. You get your agencies who have great sales teams who suck people in with their nonsense. Having me on board would ensure this didn't happen.
I would not be the final authority on who to choose, I would just advise based on the research I do.
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But that is the point, you are providing a paid for service which then puts them in the same situation as they would be anyhow. in that they have to trust someone.
The second but just isn't true, because 'people' have not found out about the £3000 a month 24 month contract rogues have they!
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You're immensely underestimating the amount of work involved with this process.
And they won't believe you either. Anyone can say what they want on a website, it doesn't make it true.
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There are also thousands of businesses out there already that work like a lead generator where you pay them for leads. This is what this idea would fall into. Most of these services are useless or scams.
No-one would trust this, as already stated, who's going to believe you over anyone else, who are you? They don't know you? You could just be the face of the latest company to pocket fees and advise anything to fob them off once you've took their money.
No-one would trust this, as already stated, who's going to believe you over anyone else, who are you? They don't know you? You could just be the face of the latest company to pocket fees and advise anything to fob them off once you've took their money.
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I guess on a very simple level someone who knows about SEO can smell a rat much easier than someone who doesn't - just scratch the surface of so many of the SEO emails and you can see they're not worth the 3 seconds it took them to spam your in box. Unfortunately though the small business owner with no knowledge of SEO can easily be taken in.... I'm not entirely sure how this can be translated into a business model though, reviews are too unreliable and are people willing to pay a couple of hundred pound for someone to vet their choices or advise them? Why would they trust you more than the agency waving promises under their noses.
I do hope the OP manages to set this up and overcome the hurdles, any steps that go towards preventing other businesses fall victim to some of the sharks out there have to be a good thing.
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Finally, have you considered the liability implications in all of this? you will need some pretty hefty insurance cover for professional indemnity, because by acting as an 'vetting and recommendation broker' you could find yourself liable for any unhappy customers. so say you recommend a £3000 a month service and the client is not happy, tries to cancel, but gets sued. they could well co-name you in the action they take.
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It can't be translated into a business model.
The best way to approach this is my suggestion in this post. I know I could make this work really well so that it would be an useful resource for businesses looking for an SEO provider. We have too many of our own projects on though currently to even work on this but we may do later next year.
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I don't think a ratings system is the answer - one size doesn't fit all. A large, multi-faceted agency may work fabulously well if you're Tesco, the small man in the street with a limited budget is more likely to end up being overlooked or with the office apprentice playing with his site in between making the tea. Recommendations may work better, after finding out more about the actual client and their needs, but how on earth do you make that objective, or even if it is, how on earth do you convince the client of the same?
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The ratings would be based on a set of questions specific to each client size/scenario and the formula works in the background of the site to score the company. One size fits all doesn't really come into it, what the client says about the company and the results it has achieved is what matters and this will be fed into the website via one set of a collection of surveys. It gets delivered to the most relevant person in the company and the initial questions categorises the rating in the website.
The rankings of the companies can be filtered by agency size and a variety of other criteria.
I didn't actually understand your analogy which makes me think you misunderstood my concept. I did explain it in a hurry, I could write about 2500 words on how this model would work. And I think it could work far more effectively and ethically than anything else out there and requires no big fees or favouritism etc etc.
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Or you can charge thousands and blag it like TOPSEO's did
Who then proved exactly how much they knew about SEO... by getting themselves banned by Google.
(As per this thread in October: Oh, the irony - topseos.com banned by google)
Steve
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We chose the agency we first used because of their testimonials from a company we knew (and who has enjoying an excellent rank) Unfortunately this was just a few months before Google let out the pandas and penguins. Both the customer's site and the agency have completely dived (no great surprise due to the predominance of articles in crappy English and link farming). Hopefully this is less likely to happen now since the algorithms gave a hefty slap to poor SEO techniques, but it was one of those few cases where recommendation really didn't work.
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Can't see how you'd compare SEO agencies and their working methods, when most (in my experience) agencies won't even tell you who they're reaching out to, when they're earning links. That said, perhaps Moz might be best placed to start up an independent forum - might be worth asking them.
Then there's the issue of changes to algos - so many SEOs play it too close to the wire and then - perhaps a year or two down the line - their clients get a penalty... so they might've earnt good rankings and reviews and then... whack...
Perhaps we need a quality standard instead - governing processes during SEO implementation - a strictly enforced quality standard. That would appeal to me!
Not sure you need an SEO agency anyway - look at The Web Developers Cheat Sheet - Moz - then move onto online PR for the offsite work (and don't forget social media and regular updates to your website). One big problem I encounter again and again is not enough content (words) on the page - including page intros and product description, so don't forget that bit.
If an SEO agency can't tell you where they're earning links, or what they're doing, run a mile - whereas with PR they will usually approve where they're pitching content before they actually do the pitching! I started my own SEO agency because I was so disgusted with the whole smoke and mirrors thing going on in the world of SEO, when... in the real world, SEO is incredibly straightforward! You get the site working well in a technical sense - with the onsite SEO (including speed! Don't miss that bit!) - then you identify keyphrases and content improvement requirements. Then you implement an ongoing onsite content and social media plan. Then you move onto outreach and engagement - you go and earn the links you need via PR. Never ask for links... EARN them with content.
Business owners need to engage with the process and understand exactly what's being delivered... SEO is incredibly risky, if done wrong... most of my work involves undoing the work carried out by other SEO agencies, so I see just about everything that shouldn't be done... from optimised footer links (which lost a client 80% of web traffic!) to fake blogs to trashy linkbuilding.
Then there's the issue of changes to algos - so many SEOs play it too close to the wire and then - perhaps a year or two down the line - their clients get a penalty... so they might've earnt good rankings and reviews and then... whack...
Perhaps we need a quality standard instead - governing processes during SEO implementation - a strictly enforced quality standard. That would appeal to me!
Not sure you need an SEO agency anyway - look at The Web Developers Cheat Sheet - Moz - then move onto online PR for the offsite work (and don't forget social media and regular updates to your website). One big problem I encounter again and again is not enough content (words) on the page - including page intros and product description, so don't forget that bit.
If an SEO agency can't tell you where they're earning links, or what they're doing, run a mile - whereas with PR they will usually approve where they're pitching content before they actually do the pitching! I started my own SEO agency because I was so disgusted with the whole smoke and mirrors thing going on in the world of SEO, when... in the real world, SEO is incredibly straightforward! You get the site working well in a technical sense - with the onsite SEO (including speed! Don't miss that bit!) - then you identify keyphrases and content improvement requirements. Then you implement an ongoing onsite content and social media plan. Then you move onto outreach and engagement - you go and earn the links you need via PR. Never ask for links... EARN them with content.
Business owners need to engage with the process and understand exactly what's being delivered... SEO is incredibly risky, if done wrong... most of my work involves undoing the work carried out by other SEO agencies, so I see just about everything that shouldn't be done... from optimised footer links (which lost a client 80% of web traffic!) to fake blogs to trashy linkbuilding.
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searchangel
I couldn't agree more with this. I worked for an SEO agency in London who are always winning awards. When I started there I was told how lucky I was to work there and that they're one of the best agencies in the world. I was so excited about working for them, but they just bought links on a massive scale.
I'd say most SEOs are more towards the technical side of things, and very little have the creativity about them for link building.
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From my experience, SEO is a very delicate thing. You tell a client what they need to do to make their site better, they don't do it, can't do it, etc... SEO does not rely on one thing, it is often many things that both client and SEO company have to jointly do. It is most definitely not an overnight fix. I think SEO will be evolving into more web/business services than just "SEO." Word of mouth is definitely a good place to start. Or, you could contact a site that looks particularly good to you and ask them who they use.
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seomentor
I've been in the SEO business for several years now and I have had to re-invent the service I offer when more and more found my clients had access to better backlinks than I did. If they were an authority in their trade they often had access to the right trade journals, clients etc.
There was nothing tangible about what I sold and one month got better rankings with 1 hours work and the next month, I could spend days just to move a single position forward.
An SEO company can no longer work independently of traditional marketing, design, social media news updates etc, as it matters. I regularly see sites with a handful of backlinks outrank sites with thousands.
The problem is, most companies just want to hand everything over and focus on their business. Ths can be very dangerous.
My opinion is, it makes total sense to get involved in the SEO of your own website, but my advice would be to do still do it with professional support.
I have a differenent approach where I work with website owner, they keep control, but I have the experience knowledge and advice.
There was nothing tangible about what I sold and one month got better rankings with 1 hours work and the next month, I could spend days just to move a single position forward.
An SEO company can no longer work independently of traditional marketing, design, social media news updates etc, as it matters. I regularly see sites with a handful of backlinks outrank sites with thousands.
The problem is, most companies just want to hand everything over and focus on their business. Ths can be very dangerous.
My opinion is, it makes total sense to get involved in the SEO of your own website, but my advice would be to do still do it with professional support.
I have a differenent approach where I work with website owner, they keep control, but I have the experience knowledge and advice.
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F
FreeRangeWeb
For the last 14 years I have been doing SEO for businesses mainly in South West England, but also for some clients worldwide.
The cost these days for SEO ranges from £280+VAT to just under £10,000+VAT and includes a monthly report that details the change in rank and also what we have done for the client. A Client who is trying to target the local area offering a service pays around £280 - £500+VAT per month. A Client trying to target the whole UK can spend between £800+VAT per month for a few keywords with low amount of competition to many thousands for high competition keywords.
Normally, we start with intelligent keyword analysis and then decide which main keywords we are going to target via the structure of the site and which long tailed keywords we are going to target via the blogs or other pages.
ON PAGE SEO
The website is optimised around the big keyword(s). This means that the homepage will have the keyword in the title, description, content, alt tag and also hopefully in an embedded YouTube video title. The long tailed keywords are either targeted via the content on other pages or by funnel articles in the blog. Funnel articles are ones that have being written around a long tailed keyword and these deliver potential clients to the site again and again, month after month. These also help give a foundation of SEO to the site and the social signals they generate help improve the sites overall rankings as well.
OFF PAGE SEO
This should include:
Sharing blog articles on your social media sites
Social Media Marketing
Niche Social Outreach and Commenting
Backlinks from Niche sites
Connecting with Social Media Influencers
Registering with local and blog directory sites.
PR sites
Some people argue the need for Web 2.0 blogging, but, with smaller clients, I would rather invest the time in on page blogging or niche guest posts instead. Although, for larger clients we do build niche microsites and blogs.
It is important not to use keywords in the anchor text all the time, you have to dilute them and vary what you link back to your site with.
As of 2015, there are no easy short cuts and getting your SEO / Online marketing done abroad will just lead to peaks and troughs in your rankings or even a Google penalty.
HOW TO FIND A GOOD SEO COMPANY
Ask for a list of a selection of their clients and see if you can easily find them online using their keywords (not their company name).
Look at their backlinks using Open Site Explorer or MozBar. Are they genuine backlinks or low grade generic paid Private Blog Network links. If the site linking to them looks low quality, has spelling mistakes, or the web address is totally irrelevant then run a mile.
I hope you find this article useful. I went into business to help businesses make the most of their online presence and like to think that I have achieved that over the last decade and a half. There are more SEO self-help articles on our Free Range Websites blog. I hope you find them helpful.
The cost these days for SEO ranges from £280+VAT to just under £10,000+VAT and includes a monthly report that details the change in rank and also what we have done for the client. A Client who is trying to target the local area offering a service pays around £280 - £500+VAT per month. A Client trying to target the whole UK can spend between £800+VAT per month for a few keywords with low amount of competition to many thousands for high competition keywords.
Normally, we start with intelligent keyword analysis and then decide which main keywords we are going to target via the structure of the site and which long tailed keywords we are going to target via the blogs or other pages.
ON PAGE SEO
The website is optimised around the big keyword(s). This means that the homepage will have the keyword in the title, description, content, alt tag and also hopefully in an embedded YouTube video title. The long tailed keywords are either targeted via the content on other pages or by funnel articles in the blog. Funnel articles are ones that have being written around a long tailed keyword and these deliver potential clients to the site again and again, month after month. These also help give a foundation of SEO to the site and the social signals they generate help improve the sites overall rankings as well.
OFF PAGE SEO
This should include:
Sharing blog articles on your social media sites
Social Media Marketing
Niche Social Outreach and Commenting
Backlinks from Niche sites
Connecting with Social Media Influencers
Registering with local and blog directory sites.
PR sites
Some people argue the need for Web 2.0 blogging, but, with smaller clients, I would rather invest the time in on page blogging or niche guest posts instead. Although, for larger clients we do build niche microsites and blogs.
It is important not to use keywords in the anchor text all the time, you have to dilute them and vary what you link back to your site with.
As of 2015, there are no easy short cuts and getting your SEO / Online marketing done abroad will just lead to peaks and troughs in your rankings or even a Google penalty.
HOW TO FIND A GOOD SEO COMPANY
Ask for a list of a selection of their clients and see if you can easily find them online using their keywords (not their company name).
Look at their backlinks using Open Site Explorer or MozBar. Are they genuine backlinks or low grade generic paid Private Blog Network links. If the site linking to them looks low quality, has spelling mistakes, or the web address is totally irrelevant then run a mile.
I hope you find this article useful. I went into business to help businesses make the most of their online presence and like to think that I have achieved that over the last decade and a half. There are more SEO self-help articles on our Free Range Websites blog. I hope you find them helpful.
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So the scammer just does the same search and claims the results are theirs...
Again, how would the average business owner know a good link from a dodgy one? How would they know a PBN? And it's not at all difficult to hide your best links. Many SEOs do this to hide them from competing SEOs (especially the amateurs
).These' s no simple answer to finding a good SEO. IMHO any SEO that has survived pandas and penguins unscathed is probably a good bet... But even then, that's not foolproof...
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I suppose the only problem with a review site for SEO agencies is that it could fall victim to abuse. Just imagining lots of spammy negative (or positive) reviews engineered if it wasn't policed in some way.
The whole area of poor results from SEO is an issue we see every day (short version: one of the features of our analytics software simplifies part of Google Analytics, showing non-techie customers which pages act as site entry points during a given period of time, helping them to understand what ROI - or not - they're getting from SEO they've paid for), and it's quite sad to see businesses that have been throwing budget at something that's not getting them enough results.
Even if a review site didn't exist, perhaps there's scope for an ultimate "this is what you should consider when buying into SEO" guide (that's got some sort of recognisable seal of approval/credibility), that could be white labelled by various industry bodies (e.g. Chambers, FSB, bodies representing particular sectors), who push that message out to their members.
The whole area of poor results from SEO is an issue we see every day (short version: one of the features of our analytics software simplifies part of Google Analytics, showing non-techie customers which pages act as site entry points during a given period of time, helping them to understand what ROI - or not - they're getting from SEO they've paid for), and it's quite sad to see businesses that have been throwing budget at something that's not getting them enough results.
Even if a review site didn't exist, perhaps there's scope for an ultimate "this is what you should consider when buying into SEO" guide (that's got some sort of recognisable seal of approval/credibility), that could be white labelled by various industry bodies (e.g. Chambers, FSB, bodies representing particular sectors), who push that message out to their members.
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Do you think an SEO agency who can deliver actual results, would have a "wall of client results" or client case studies ? We do, a tiny fraction of our competitors (less than 5%) do. Ask yourself a question: why wouldn't an SEO agency have case studies showing their client results if they can get amazing results ?
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I can't post any links yet, you could check out on our website at GoldenLeads.co.uk
We are different than most SEO agencies not only in a way that we have the case studies, but in many other ways, everything adds up and a business owner can clearly see what is what.
If that's not enough and potential client has any suspicions, he can ask us to give him the names of the websites, as the businesses that are showcased are agreed to that.
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Competition: High
Average Daily Visits: 60
I would have thought ranking top for a high competition keywords would be getting a lot more than 60 visitors per day. In fact ranking on page 1 for 35 keywords means about two visitors per day for each. So maybe not really a compelling case study. This is why reviews and case studies can often be misinterpreted because of the lack of detail.
Average Daily Visits: 60
I would have thought ranking top for a high competition keywords would be getting a lot more than 60 visitors per day. In fact ranking on page 1 for 35 keywords means about two visitors per day for each. So maybe not really a compelling case study. This is why reviews and case studies can often be misinterpreted because of the lack of detail.
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What you wrote here, just shows your level of SEO knowledge. May I ask you have you ever had an SEO client ? Because by what you wrote here I highly doubt it.
Try to imagine this: there are competitive niches that gets low search volume (oil, plastic surgery, ac heating repair and hundreds of others), and clients in those niches makes 4-5 figures per one job. So it makes sense that getting 60 visitors each day and converting as low as lets say 1% of those visitors is not that bad ?
"In fact ranking on page 1 for 35 keywords means about two visitors per day for each. "
Are you serious... ?
. You did your math based on a premise that each keyword gets same search volume each month, and that each spot on first page receives the same amount of visitors, if you ever worked on an SEO campaign before, you wouldn't have done such mistake.
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