APPLYING SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION TO MY WEBSITE (SEO)

[geek84]

Hi Folks

I am thinking of getting someone to apply search engine optimisation to my website, so that when someone does a 'Google search' it appears on (say) the first page.

What qualifications/experience should I look for when selecting that individual?

Is SEO expensive?

Thanks in advance for your responses.

 

[Mark T Jones]

An expert will be along soon.

In my view, the first thing to look out for is how they manage your expectations vs claims and promises. At the extreme, anyome 'guaranteeing ' you page one in a week is likely to full of sh!t.

They should start out by asking about your marketing plan, who your customers are and what they ar actually searching for.

The more popular/generic the term, the harder it will be to get placed.

 

[fisicx]

Impossible to answer any of those questions without knowing the website, your target customers and the keywords you want ranking. Your competitors may make it very expensive. Or you could go niche and go low cost. It may require a major restructure of the site and reworking of the content.

The cost could be £500 or £5000. Needs more data!

 

[BenJeffery]

Hi Folks

I am thinking of getting someone to apply search engine optimisation to my website, so that when someone does a 'Google search' it appears on (say) the first page.

What qualifications/experience should I look for when selecting that individual?

Is SEO expensive?

Thanks in advance for your responses.

You want to see what results they've achieved for clients in the past, and as the other poster said watch out for outlandish claims. They should be realistic about what you can achieve, looking at what keywords you should actually target, and aware of other elements like speed, mobile friendliness, AI optimisation, etc. Cost will vary massively depending on the site.

 

[Frank the Insurance guy]

An expert will be along soon.

In my view, the first thing to look out for is how they manage your expectations vs claims and promises. At the extreme, anyome 'guaranteeing ' you page one in a week is likely to full of sh!t.

They should start out by asking about your marketing plan, who your customers are and what they ar actually searching for.

The more popular/generic the term, the harder it will be to get placed.

^^THIS^^

You need an expert that knows what they are doing without giving you exaggerated claims. Would highly recommend @Paul Carmen at Insiteweb - they certainly know their stuff and have done a great job of my own website!

Key is to listen to what the experts say - they know how things work more than you do!

 

[gpietersz]

As others have said it all depends. There are several elements to SEO:

1. On page - things on pages on your site. A good site should already have this as its about what is in your HTML etc. You might need to check for things like broken internal links.
2. Off page: who links to you, who you link to, broken external links (link checkers exist). As much PR as technical.
3. AI optimisation: much less clear and well understood.

It can be very expensive. One SEO specialist (admittedly one with a great reputation) I spoke to a few years ago charged a $1,000 a month retainer - I had a client in a competitive niche, and I had already fixed their on page issues.

On the other hand you might have a lot of low hanging fruit that is easy to fix and that anyone halfway competent can fix.

As others said, do not believe extravagant claims.

 

[Data Swami]

In terms of the newer layer around answer engines and AI search. Tools like Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT browsing, Perplexity, Claude, etc. need to understand very quickly:

• who the business is
• what it does
• who it helps
• where it operates
• what pages are the authoritative ones
• what claims or proof points support it

The hows around that take alot more to setup but they involve .txt files that you host for your site.
These are robots.txt, llms.txt and llms-full.txt

Those .txt files are basically plain-English guides for AI systems and crawlers. They can explain what the business does, which pages matter, which services are offered, who the company is suitable for, and which URLs should be cited. They’re not a magic ranking trick, but they help make the site easier for AI tools to understand instead of leaving them to guess from scattered pages.

The robots one states what the different bots like chatgpt, gemini etc is allowed and not allowed to see from your site. And linking all of them together including to your sitemap.xml is another things to use. Ive got a deeper resource on the site but that is the general jist of AI search side of things.

Another thing i have found to help with SEO for AI side of things is to have blog posts that are more tailoured to being a question that you are directly answering

 

[fisicx]

In other words: exactly the same as normal SEO (if done properly).

 

[HFE Signs]

If you're just starting with SEO, avoid trying to rank for highly competitive keywords straight away. Broad search terms like "car insurance" or "personal injury lawyer" are dominated by large, well-established websites that have built authority over many years. The more competitive a keyword is, the longer and more difficult it becomes to rank well in search results. Highly competitive keywords can take many months or even years of consistent SEO work—including creating high-quality content, earning authoritative backlinks, and continually optimising your website—before you have a realistic chance of reaching the first page of Google.

Instead, focus on less competitive, long-tail keywords that are more specific, such as "affordable car insurance for new drivers" or "personal injury lawyer for workplace accidents in Manchester." These keywords are easier to rank for, attract visitors with a clearer search intent, and are more likely to lead to enquiries or sales. As your website gains authority through consistent, high-quality content and backlinks, you can gradually target more competitive keywords and expand your SEO strategy.

 

[Data Swami]

In other words: exactly the same as normal SEO (if done properly).

well the txts are new

 

[geek84]

Thanks very much for your responses, folks.

I may get back to you if I need further advice.

Thank You.

 

[HFE Signs]

SEO is a slow burn. You rarely see results overnight because search engines need time to crawl, index and trust changes. Keep plodding on

 

[fisicx]

SEO is a slow burn. You rarely see results overnight because search engines need time to crawl, index and trust changes. Keep plodding on

Doesn’t have to be. Find the right niche and you can be indexed and ranking in less than 24 hours. Hundreds of long tail keywords can be very easy to rank and be earning you money almost straight away.

 

[HFE Signs]

Doesn’t have to be. Find the right niche and you can be indexed and ranking in less than 24 hours. Hundreds of long tail keywords can be very easy to rank and be earning you money almost straight away.

Absolutely—low-competition long-tail keywords can rank surprisingly quickly. My comment was more about long-term SEO. Building authority for competitive keywords and maintaining consistent organic growth is where the slow burn comes in.

 

[antropy]

I am thinking of getting someone to apply search engine optimisation to my website, so that when someone does a 'Google search' it appears on (say) the first page.

What qualifications/experience should I look for when selecting that individual?

Be very careful indeed, there are a million companies/freelancers who will take your money and not deliver.

Best thing you could do would be to read a good book about it or do a course about it first, and then use the knowledge to select someone who seems to know what they're doing.

Paul.

 

[gpietersz]

In other words: exactly the same as normal SEO (if done properly).

Some things are the same, others are not. Good practice applies to both.

You can add an explanation of your site - the llms.txt. How important it is is not clear, and most AI crawlers do not even check for its existence. On the other hand Anthropic have one on their documentation site: https://platform.claude.com/llms.txt

Some AI bots seem to handle some things differently: not respect robots.txt, not run Javascript, and possibly other things. Its possible they might use markup more than search engines do (people do claim that, and its plausible, no idea how much evidence there is).

 

[Karimbo]

OP is in for a very long journey full of learning lessons

 

[Karimbo]

To clarify what I mean. I self seo all my sites and I built up my seo knowledge over 2 decades probably.

To someone not in the know I can't even begin to tell them what are the red flags, what method is best etc.

There really isn't any structred way of teaching SEO. It's thousands of different best practices that make up SEO.

For someone new, looking into SEO. WIth no web developing experience, no html or any tech experience. they are really far out of their depth with SEO. I just think they will get ripped off, missold, many many times over. And perhaps PPC is just better option for them, because they will throw a lot of money into dodgy seo services that wont give them any results.

Seen so many mates in business, who hired seo firms who did jack all. Just bought them rubbish farm links and spent a lot of money paying for silling outdated practices like self linking between pages with copy written for search enhines (not people). Tied into 12 month contracts paying £600+ a month for a whole year, when I could buy the same services renders from fiverr for a fraction.

 

[gpietersz]

Tied into 12 month contracts paying £600+ a month for a whole year, when I could buy the same services renders from fiverr for a fraction.

You can actually get someone good for that much though. The problem being how to identify someone good.

Just bought them rubbish farm links and spent a lot of money paying for silling outdated practices like self linking between pages with copy written for search enhines (not people).

That could actually be not merely a waste of money, but actually harmful.

 

[Shopclicks]

What qualifications/experience should I look for when selecting that individual?

The major problem site owners face, is not knowing what evidence of previous successes to ask about.

If you can get answers and evidence to these questions, you'll have a good understanding of what you can expect:
1. Please provide two examples of websites you have worked on which now rank better than they did before you were commissioned for high volume search terms.
2. Provide evidence of before and after serp results.
3. Show gains for search terms with high search volume and/or high difficulty.
4. Proof that it was the work you carried out which resulted in the gains and why.
5. Arrange a call with two of your clients to verify these results.

Anything less than this and you're going in blind.

Is SEO expensive?

It's only expensive if it doesn't work. See above.

 

[Joseph Bartosiewicz]

When I picked an SEO agency for my website, I mostly looked for transparency in their process and real-world success stories, rather than big promises of instant results. I asked them for proof of work, like actual increases in traffic and more leads from previous clients, and how they communicated during projects. It’s easy to waste money on flashy-sounding SEO, so it pays to look for someone who’s upfront about expected timelines, what tasks they’ll actually do, and how they measure success. Pricing really depends on your goals and market, but the cheapest options usually cut corners or use shady tactics that can hurt you long-term.

 

[fisicx]

You may not even need seo. You may just need better marketing.