Do you have any experience with SEO Freelancers?

[Jwan]

Hello Friends

We are still in the early stages of the business. We aren't making many sales and we've already put what money we had into buying stock for the business, setting up the eCommerce website, and getting things like packaging professionally designed ..etc

I would like more sales through our eCommerce site. 99% of sales at the moment are through eBay.

I was thinking about hiring the services of an SEO freelancer. Do any of you have experience with this? What should I be careful of? How expensive are they? Did they deliver on their promise of driving more organic traffic to the site?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[NewGardenStyle]

Is your website getting many visitors? What industry are you in?

 

[columbo]

In the early days of my business I used one. This was before SEO became mainstream. He worked wonders on my website taking it from a position of 9 or 10 in Google to a position of # 1 within around 6 months. All of this for around £100 a month.

What did I attribute has success to? Well, he was running a hosting company so was able to supply me loads of quality backlinks. (the days when backlinks carried alot of weight). Secondly, he only had only about a dozen other SEO clients to look after. So I was not client #124 who got 30 minutes of his time every week. Thirdly, he was very business savvy so he instinctively know what keywords to use.

The lessons for you? Hire a "less-busy" freelancer who is not trying to juggle 100 other clients. Hire a freelancer who is passionate about what they do (blogs and forum posts can be an indication of this). And lastly, hire a freelancer who is business savvy and does not need spoon feeding all the time.

 

[threenine]

Just had a look at your site, and I can honestly say SEO is not going to be your issue.

If 99% of your sales are still coming from ebay, then carry on there. Your focus should be on attempting to gain recurring purchases on Ebay,

Perusing your pages on Ebay, I seen you have taken the time to design them.

I see you have a blog on your site, but your content is still pretty low. You should definitely increase your content posting rate . It seems you had a spree back in March then updated them in May. However you need to be pretty regular, try aim for at least 2-3 posts a month.

Also YouTube Videos are a great boost. At the moment your blog content is all written, with no pictures. In your product category you are going to have to appeal to all the senses so pictures and videos are essential.

Personally I would focus on this aspect over, wasting cash on low value SEO

 

[Steve Alphabet]

Hi, I think your brand and concept is strong (I spent a few months in S America and remember seeing lots of people sucking away at their morning mate!), so any SEO should encompass content marketing/social media. That way you can build up your story and evoke feelings in people.

Consider using a pop-up that says "10% off your first order" and then you can collect email addresses and do remarketing, eg a monthly newsletter focusing on a different type of leaf every month, the region it's from etc. That way you build up your own customer base,without always having to dance to Google's tune and whatever SEO updates have come out.

So go for someone who has experience in this area, rather than just SEO. Especially because more and more ads are taking up the top spots in search results. I Googled "yerba mate" and half the organic results are for articles on yerba mate. Getting your brand featured in these sorts of articles is the way to go, rather than trying to rank your website there. So that's why I recommend finding someone who does content marketing.

 

[Jwan]

Just had a look at your site, and I can honestly say SEO is not going to be your issue.

If 99% of your sales are still coming from ebay, then carry on there. Your focus should be on attempting to gain recurring purchases on Ebay,

When I had my Google AdWords campaign running, the percentage was different. It was 65% to eBay and 35% to store.

 

[Jwan]

Thanks @Steve Alphabet that is some solid advice. I need to get back on top of writing and publishing blog post articles.

 

[Scott@KarmaContent]

I've never heard of Yerba Mate before, looks absolutely fascinating, I'll have to try some!

I'm currently working on a Tea website selling speciality teas and I've been looking for suppliers to work with on a dropship basis. If this is of interest pop me a message across on here or email info (@) karmacontent .co. uk.

 

[Rosy James]

yes i have experience in seo. i have work with clients from uk, usa and india. currently i am working with savingontyres who sell tyres in leicester and all over uk.

 

[NathanPayne]

@Jwan My company is agency SEO services at freelancer rates, in other words my company is just myself and I don't charge through the nose. I outsource some graphic design and content writing because its not what I am best at, but the SEO and PPC is done 100% by myself.

Do any of you have experience with this? I am one basically, so yeah haha!

What should I be careful of? Experience. All of my clients right now have had their fingers burnt by previous freelance SEOs Most simply had no experience or said they couldn't give examples of previous results because of NDA agreements, or privacy concerns. I share results I have during the consultation period. I have also in the past had a client ask if it was OK to contact on of my existing clients for essentially a reference. Your SEO should be 100% transparent.

Ever SEO will work differently but if he/she isn't in constant communication with you then that is a massive warning. Doesn't have to be every day but at least having emails replied to promptly. I always try and reply to emails daily but like everything, work gets in the way so I ensure it takes no longer than two working days at most.

How expensive are they? It depends on a a lot of factors, but basically the best ones are always going to be more expensive than the inexperienced.

For eCommerce though you would be looking at a fairly experienced SEO in order to get the results you need to ensure a reasonable ROI. If you speak to someone and they basically offer you a cost and tell you its a fixed fee or they push you into a SEO package then thats a bad sign also. Every SEO will have a base rate, I do too, so don't be surprised if they say they need a minimum investment from you.

Did they deliver on their promise of driving more organic traffic to the site? Unfortunately, every client I have had their fingers burnt so I can't tell you a clean cut answer here. I also know a lot of freelance SEOs that simply collect cash, do the bare minimum and then blame Google for algorithm updates. From my perspective I have a 90% success rate in getting clients to page one within 3 to 4 months for keywords that actually matter - not useless long tail keywords that get 2 search a month.

 

[NathanPayne]

Oh, and one last part... Your SEO shouldn't even mention getting you onto any sort of 3, 6 or 12 month contract.

SEOs that get results let the results do all of the talking!

 

[boring-friday]

At a guess I'd estimate:
50% of seo guys will just be out to rip you off
45% will mean well but just be clueless to the fact that you're highly unlikely to ever ROI on their fee for begging people for backlinks when nobody cares about your tiny business and has no incentive to give you the backlink
5% will make you money

You could consider taking all their paypal emails and saving them to mailchimp or similar then email them all. Technically illegal but should be fine if you have a unsubscribe link.
Should convert atleast 1% each email if you're in a nice niche and not selling iphone cases/usb chargers etc

 

[Rickeo]

Hey,

I run a Digital Marketing Agency and have an advanced diploma in SEO, it's my area of expertise if you will.

One thing I will say; is that SEO can easily be learnt by yourself. It's not very difficult, the difficult part is navigating through the hoard of information out there, a lot of which will be dated due to the fast moving pace of SEO.

Many people turn to an SEO consultant because SEO is a very time consuming task. What I'd advise is if time isn't an issue then learn it yourself as you will save a fortune and like I said, it's not that difficult!

If time is an issue then sure hire someone, just be cautious because there's a lot of sharks out there.

If you're willing to learn yourself I can point you in the direction of dozens of free resources, simply drop me a PM.

Good luck!