Am I paying too much for my website?

[John Newton]

Hello All.

I have a friend who works as a driving instructor in and around Guisborough, near Middlesbrough, Cleveland. Guisborough is a fairly small place with a population of about 25,000.

He has a 'brochure' website which was built, and is hosted by, ems-internet. He pays periodically for his website which includes SEO.

He started with ems-internet about 5 years ago with their 4-page website deal. After a while, having not received any enquiries for driving lessons through his website, he was persuaded to upgrade to a 6-page site. Last January, 2015, after still not having received any enquiries, he was persuaded to upgrade to their 10-page site. Since then he has received two enquiries - one of which was converted to a sale, and the latest having been converted into an order, but without any payment so far.

Over the last couple of weeks, a salesman from ems-internet has been phoning my friend, telling him that the latest periodic payment of £948 is due (£354 for renewal of search engine indexing and Google analytics, plus £594 for the renewal of the website), and that unless this amount is paid soon, they will have no choice but to take down his website.

Now, since 2010, John has paid about £14,000 to ems-internet. He is at he top of the Google search engine results pages for certain key phrases, but these key phrases, e.g. "driving instructor guisborough", "driving lessons guisborough", etc., are highly specific to Guisborough - a small place with hardly any competitors. For the phrase "driving instructor Cleveland", he doesn't appear until page 3.

Now, I would have thought that a basic website consisting of about half a dozen pages would have made it to the same position by simply writing some good copy and letting it sit there whilst Google found and indexed it. That is, I would have thought that a brochure website costing about £2,000, including hosting costs for the last 5 years, would have been in about the same position in the search results.

So, in summary, after 5 years and £14,000, John has received exactly two enquiries, with the latest of these two enquiries having only been converted into an order - not a cash sale.

I would be most grateful for any thoughts and/or advice that any experts may have on this matter. Personally, I am looking at the results of his investment, which are obviously abysmally poor. If I were in his position, then I would discontinue the ems-internet service immediately, but I don't want to advise him to do that because I am a software developer with only limited experience in SEO.

Thanks in advance for any assistance. All the best,

David

 

[ADNattan]

So, in summary, after 5 years and £14,000, John has received exactly two enquiries, with the latest of these two enquiries having only been converted into an order - not a cash sale.

Yes. He's paying far too much.

Even if they're doing a good job with the SEO in terms of rankings, they're clearly targeting the wrong phrases.

It all comes down to ROI. If he's not getting value for money (and he's not, unless his one enquiry turned into a 15 grand order), he needs to look elsewhere. That'd be the case if he'd paid £1,500 or £150.

 

[fisicx]

Agree. He is paying way over the odds. In fact it sounds as if he is paying for a service that isn't even needed. There is no need to pay for google to reindex the site or to even renew the site.

It might even be worth getting a lawyer to look at the contract as it seems very iffy.

 

[LowPrices.uk]

I agree that he's paying an above market rate yet not getting a good Return On Investment.

You can monitor the traffic to a website with something like Google Webmaster Tools. I would find a company that is prepared to be transparent about what he is paying for.

You need to agree on detailed performance targets such as getting found on certain keywords, and getting enquiries from the website.

There may be another company that is prepared to pay on a more performance related basis.

There is a massive amount that can be done to improve conversion of a website, and a lot of tools and techniques to do it. I have a list of these, anyone who wants the link please PM me.

 

[Paul Featherstone]

I agree with others, he is paying well over the odds. The service he is receiving is very basic and poor ROI as you have pointed out.

Feel free to IM me if I can help recommend I will, I'm from teesside and have a few contacts there.

You are a good friend for looking into this for him!

 

[Scott@KarmaContent]

Was just looking at their SEO packages. Lowest package 150 links. Next one 250 links. Bet they're really good quality, natural and relevant links...

 

[paulears]

The cost of a TEN page site is tiny, or should be! I think I pay something like £8 a year per domain name registration, and £50 a year for half a dozen domains, and about £70 a year for a US domain that runs my secure music downloading system.

 

[Medusa Juice]

£354 for renewal of search engine indexing and Google analytics ???? wtf

 

[The Byre]

In my private life (i.e. not company stuff) I build websites for friends, societies and stuff like that. I pay $5 a month for all hosting for everything and I have about 19 or 20 sites that are active and another 10 or more that are just sitting there unpublished. Dot-Coms cost $15 p.a. and dot-co-dot-uk cost pennies.

As for SEO, two of them are on page one for their obvious key words.

You do the maths, to find out just how much of too-much your friend is paying!

I suggest that your friend gets one of HUNDREDS of similar services that provide building tools, templates, cheap dot-coms and co-UKs and some even bung in SEO tools for $5 or less per month.

 

[Chris34]

That's £53 per week, for 5 whole years. He would be stupid to continue with it.


Chris.

 

[Medusa Juice]

Personally I would either take down the site and find a better company then target more broad keywords, so more towns, city's local to him or just spend the money advertising in the local newspaper

 

[fisicx]

After looking at the site it's quite clear they aren't doing anything to earn the exorbitant fees they are charging. It's a basic non-responsive Drupal site with nothing Google is going be the slightest interested in. They haven't even set him up with a decent email address. If it were me I'd be talking to a lawyer about getting some of that money back.

 

[liamx1234]

14k far too much my friend is paying a seo company so much a month and he hasnt even got a title on his pages!! he is still page 5 on google in his area i did mine myself and page 2 fisicx can you please inbox me? i have a question as id like too get my website done thank you

 

[Medusa Juice]

Im just looking at the site now at it looks like the "seo" is a list of the keywords in the footer of every page :/

 

[E-Liquid UK Store]

I just can't believe he's continued to pay them for 5 years.

Crazy!

 

[sksservices]

Although your mate has been royally shafted, I think they should take the blame for not checking what the SEO company were up to for 5 years. It is however an instance where your friend should ask for a detailed breakdown of what was actually done and then ask for a hefty refund.

 

[John Newton]

Thank you all so much for your feedback. If John had any doubts about leaving ems-internet, they're now gone. So thank you all for confirming what I could only suspect due to my limited knowledge of SEO.

I have to admit though, I did expect someone to spot at least something half useful that this company did for the money they took from my friend.

I just can't believe he's continued to pay them for 5 years.

Crazy!

I know it *sounds* crazy, and I can understand why you might find it unbelievable, but John is actually a highly intelligent man - he's just not very interested in computing! He is also a very nice man who always wants to be nice to people - including slick-talking salespeople. Anyway, I'm just glad I was able to help in putting a stop to it.

I have over 14 years of experience in software development, a few of which are in web technologies and web site development. However, I wasn't completely sure that he was being ripped off because I've never really taken that much interest in SEO or web marketing in general. I've always been more into the geeky side of things with programming, software engineering and computer science.

But I have managed to pick up a little about SEO over the years, so when I saw what was happening, and especially when John asked me to listen in to a telephone conversation between him and a salesman from ems-internet, I just knew something was amiss. I immediately told him not to give them any more money, and my next move was to come here to get confirmation from some experts. So once again, thank you all very much.

Before John's current term expires with ems-internet, I will build a new website for John and get him on to another server with shared hosting. I am currently with Web Hosting Buzz whom I think charge about £13 per month and of course give the customer full control over their website. I have a pretty solid understanding of the Magento framework, so that's what I'll use.

As far as other components such as SEO and web marketing in general are concerned, I will spend a few hours researching these areas, and then look for someone honest to provide these services.

John will be along sometime to add his thanks to mine. Could take a while though because, as I said, he's not too interested in all this internet stuff!

All the best,

David

 

[fisicx]

I have a pretty solid understanding of the Magento framework, so that's what I'll use.

That's a very large hammer to crush a very small nut. WordPress would be a more suitable and easier to manage solution for John. And it has the big advantage of being free.

I did also notice that John has two websites which means he is hampering his SEO strategy. Bin one and focus on the other.

 

[Plan A Link]

Nail on the head wordpress is a much better platform than magento, Magento is much more product based so if you are running a driving instructor company you are better off using Wordpress and optimizing the site with SEO Yoast.

 

[SearchEngineOptimisation]

Hi David,

There's no such thing as 'search engine indexing' in terms of a service, unless they mean submitting a sitemap through Google Search Console (formally Webmaster Tools), even so this is a hefty price tag for a 20 second job.

I'd advise that you check your contract or look at moving your services to a seperate hosting provider where you can retain full control of your website. Your client needs to be looking at the terms that are currently generating visitors to the website and focusing efforts here, ditch those that don't and also establish where there are other search terms with high volumes and low amounts of competitors.

A good SEO company would be speaking with your client every week as to their focus and explaining the services that they are providing. It is only possible for an SEO company to do a good job when they are in constant communication with the client.

 

[John Newton]

Hello Everybody

Thank you all for your responses to David`s request (on my behalf) asking for help about whether I`m paying too much for my Driving School Website . Your answers/comments have been invaluable in helping me to decide whether to carry on with my current provider , EMS Internet .

David says that with maybe a bit of help from some of you out there , he can build me a website & run it at a fraction of what I am currently paying .

So thank you all very much.

Regards
John Newton

 

[Will_Authentic_Style]

Crikey that's an absolute rip off!

Yeah go the wordpress route... No need for magneto.

As for ongoing seo work, John would be better off focusing on creating and marketing content and publishing that on his website and around the web (or paying someone to do that for him).'the days of paying for X amount of backlinks are well behind us.

 

[Medusa Juice]

If you need a hand just ask, im usually about if you need any help, would happily help on any technical things you might need answering. I agree with the people above, wordpress would be the best route to go. You can set it up in about 5 minutes

 

[woodss]

The very first thing you should do is to make sure your page is well structured for relevant keywords - your homepage H1 tag is currently "flexible driving tuition" - it should be something like "Guisborough Driving Instructor" or "Driving lessons in Guisborough" - basically, target what people are likely to search for.

If you need a hand with this, please feel free to get in touch.