Finding a SEO Guru

[hotjoolz]

Has anyone used a SEO expert that is reasonably priced and is actually effective. I have had the 'pleasure' of 2 'experts' and found that nothing has happened since hiring them. I want someone who will deliver what is promised and actually is honorable and not just out to make a quick buck.

The person needs to understand costume jewellery and sterling silver jewellery to help us get up the Google ranking.

Any recommendations and personal experiences would be gratefully received.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Ali-v-8]

What you looking at doing? Just SEO or complete marketing?

 

[Mystro]

I have had the 'pleasure' of 2 'experts' and found that nothing has happened since hiring them.



Thanks in advance.

Maybe you are wanting too much too soon for too little,

Seo takes time, and going through 2 so called experts already is not a good sign, jewelery is not the easiest to rank for on a budget.

any how back to your question do a quick search of the forum and you will find this subject asked so many times already you will find your answer in no time

Ps you will find it very hard to rank a Flash site with no text , so investing a few pounds there may pay more dividends than a seo in the first instance

 

[hotjoolz]

I am looking for SEO Expert who can initially get things moving i.e. the link building as it is such a big task and then provide training so that I can take over. Submitting articles, spinning (or not to spin) articles etc.

 

[SteveHippel]

Hi there.
There is a lot to consider before you begin to embark on an SEO project.

It would be helpful to know if you are targeting a local, national or global market.

What search terms people are most likely to type if they are looking for your product or service.

How many people are typing those terms each month.

Exactly who your target customers are.

Are the people that you are hiring understanding your needs and are they asking you all the above questions and more.?

I just had a quick look at your website. It's very nice but a couple of things that might not be helping.
1. It lacks content and the search engines love content. You have great images of your products but a little description would help the search engines identify what each page is about.

You have quite a few non relevant and low ranking links coming into the site and it's just a little slow loading up.
Please don't take this the wrong way, just observations that may not be helping.

My best advice really, is to take a little time to learn some basic SEO and web marketing before you hire someone else.

It's mostly common sense made to sound scary with big words and acronyms. It will make a big difference if you can understand and relate your needs to your consultant. What's more you will be able to spot a chancer a mile away.

Hope this helps.

 

[fisicx]

So you want an expert SEO person who also knows all about jewellery and is cheap. The chances of finding someone to meet your exacting criteria is about zero.

You would be much better off working on the actual site as it needs a lot of TLC. No point in paying for link building if the target fails to meet expectations.

 

[SearchBlogger]

My advice would be not to hire anyone who calls themselves an 'SEO Guru' - that's for others to judge!

You may also find my post useful on 10 questions to ask when hiring an SEO agency

As has already been mentioned I wouldn't get too caught up in finding someone with a great jewellery knowledge. The most important thing is their track record in getting results.

 

[david8765]

I have had the 'pleasure' of 2 'experts' and found that nothing has happened since hiring them. I want someone who will deliver what is promised and actually is honorable and not just out to make a quick buck.

What did they promise you and how long did keep them on before you ended the relationships?

 

[stephan42]

I think you need to set out clear and achievable goals and have the consultant "Guru" provide you with a list of actions on how this will be achieve.
Generally i believe you get what you pay for when it comes to SEO. You will very rarely get any return on a cheap solution, I would suggest to go with an agency that has a proven track record.

 

[MASSEY]

I hate the word GURU.

 

[hotjoolz]

Thank you all for all your helpful suggestions.
I have already noted the flash issue and currently am in the process of changing that by adding more photos and content to the home page.

The 2 people I hired intially discussed on page SEO and once they started doing things i found them to back track and not do what they had said they would achieve within the month. When I have asked questions they have changed the script and said that things need to be done slowly, which I accept but find it hard as I don't actually see any results. Surely after 3 months I should see some change in my position.

R

 

[WebSensei]

Too many people are obsessed with SEO (not directing this at you hotjoolz).

Too many people believe the hype that being on page one will guarantee success.

You survival/success depends on CONVERSIONS not being on 'top spot'. Why pay to be on page one, if your customer's will bounce right off. Concentrate on making your site engaging, interesting, informative and then have it SEO'd as much as you want. You won't alway's be on page 1, but your customer's will want to find you.

Like in football - 'Form is temporary, Class is permanent'.

 

[JamesM]

I noticed you mentioned article spinning... it's not a good idea.

Google launched a new update to deal (partly) with spun articles.

Think of SEO just like any other area of your business and provide valuable content that people want to share.

Network - this is essential for anyone trying to make it online.

Get to know people, help them, let them help you, build a solid network of people in your niche and work WITH them.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

I noticed you mentioned article spinning... it's not a good idea.

Google launched a new update to deal (partly) with spun articles.

Think of SEO just like any other area of your business and provide valuable content that people want to share.

Network - this is essential for anyone trying to make it online.

Get to know people, help them, let them help you, build a solid network of people in your niche and work WITH them.

And why can this not be achieved using high quality spun content?
And why is it it not possible to achieve this via spun content of a high standard?

The above two statements can be produced using Spintax. so what is wrong with that? Like many things in life, people blame the tool, not the person using it

 

[JamesM]

I don't think it's a good idea but that's just me, if you're into that, cool enough.

I'd like to see an example of content spun to a high standard if you have any, like 500 word articles.. to compare the seed to the spun?

 

[RedEvo]

Like many things in life, people blame the tool, not the person using it

When in fact it's often the case that the person using it IS a tool.

d

 

[OldWelshGuy]

I don't think it's a good idea but that's just me, if you're into that, cool enough.

I'd like to see an example of content spun to a high standard if you have any, like 500 word articles.. to compare the seed to the spun?

Why would you need to se an example? I have just given an example, you are an SEO and literate, so surely you can see that it is possible?

Maybe we are talking about different things. I should make it clear that I am absolutely not talking about producing spun articles for 1500 sites all perfect. I am talking about a small number of sites, but the content is spun. I am talking about nested spinning, spinning complete paragraphs etc.

If done properly spun content is absolutely no different to unique content. Examples are not really needed are they?

 

[JamesM]

Yes if done correctly there's no difference, when done on the scale you're talking about.

But when done on large articles, it's easy to spot.

The OP asked about article spinning.. I still don't think article spinning is a good idea in large volumes.

 

[blue0510]

the guru's tend to be the people who sit on their hands

 

[MASSEY]

If you write a cracking peice of linkable content, the last thing you would do is post it on an article site. It will end up everywhere and with the recent update it's supposed to cut this content out isn't it?

Which is why you should just spam crappy article everywhere for a few links.
​

 

[MASSEY]

Yes if done correctly there's no difference, when done on the scale you're talking about.

But when done on large articles, it's easy to spot.

The OP asked about article spinning.. I still don't think article spinning is a good idea in large volumes.

A member on here spun me a right load, none of it was readable. What does this mean?

 

[JamesM]

It really is one of my pet hates Massey.

One of the communities I moderate on ban people for spinning articles / selling / giving away spun articles. It's a rule that I enjoy enforcing.

I think you should get your money back, or at least get the quality that you were promised.

 

[lanceuppercut]

SEO is a long term project but I would expect some results after 3 months and only some much on page SEO you can do. I would have a few questions though

1. Are they providing you with a report of work done? If not, why not?
2. What keywords are they targetting. If any good they would be targetting keywords with low competition and a reasonable amount of searches. Of course they could target high competition keywords but then it is harder to rank and sometimes nearly impossible
3. What is happening with off page seo whilst they are concentrating on page? They can do all the on page they want but if the neglect off page then you will struggle

 

[MASSEY]

It really is one of my pet hates Massey.

One of the communities I moderate on ban people for spinning articles / selling spun articles. It's a rule that I enjoy enforcing.

I have no issue with your feelings towards it. But i find it irritating when people claim it's useless because it's not.

To be honest most of the sites the spun content ends up sticking on really don't seem to give a **** .

This is seo were talking about, im not sure where the morals book sits for this sort of stuff.

 

[JamesM]

Never said it was useless.. I just don't like it, as a content publisher, and as an SEO I don't think it's the best choice for a business. I really, really dislike the term "white hat" (don't get me started), but I'll use it anyway.

If others want to use spun articles on their sites, who am I to tell them not to (unless they come into the communities I moderate and sell it).

And as a content publisher I won't deal with it, but I'm sure I've been caught out by some in the past considering the scale of articles we publish. And guess what.. yep we were still hit by Panda. 100% original content.

I was speaking to Christopher Knight about this, he said he never expected the Panda update to hit his site as hard as it did either. But then I'm one of the few people who supports the Panda update, that was meant to deal with this stuff. Of course it won't really deal with it, but at least they recognise a problem and will continue to fight spun content.

In all, if it's working for some people today then theres no reason for them to think it won't work tomorrow. And I can't blame them for that really.

If it's working for you right now, cool and well done.

 

[RadiusBPO]

*Sigh* I look after a few sites which rank higher now than pre panda which only have spun articles as links, these are in the Personal Injury market with pretty tough keywords. Even their content is spun heavily.

I wish people would stop making bold claims that panda devalues all links from all article / content sites, and I wish people would stop arguing against evidence based FACT that this helps rankings with their throw away comments about how it won't last forever and building sites to fail. NEWSFLASH all SEO is temporary. All your competitors will eventually out rank you if you stop working on it and if you stop being smart. Being smart means not just building using one method, not being spammy.

BTW most opinions about Panda were that excessive ads were a massive factor, from Matt Cutts himself he stated it's about trustworthiness - Nothing about poor content, in fact unreadable bable was dealt with a year ago in the Mayday update.

Is article spinning and subs the only off page SEO anyone needs to do? Of course not, there needs to be a variety. Do articles allow us to easily vary anchor texts and get some holy grail relevant links? Hell yeah.

IMO and from experience talking to a lot of people, the types of SEO which are against list, throw up black hat scare stories are the types which steal peoples money in exchange for broken promises.

 

[trebor8]

I hate the word GURU.

GURU GURU GURU

 

[logicfusion]

I'd like to see an example of content spun to a high standard if you have any, like 500 word articles.. to compare the seed to the spun?

Look no further than an article (not all, but some are definitely rewritten from news feeds I.e reuters ) on a authority news site such as BBC or sky. People totally don't get the concept of spun articles.

 

[Ali-v-8]

The unfortunate thing is thats todays white hat becomes tomorrows black hat. Even i am begining to be pulled over to the darkside lol.

 

[Ali-v-8]

The spun content issue is now un avoidable.

take for example any service or product. lets say SEO. the main homepage factor is metas titles keyword content links. now you get 100 seo companies and no matter who they are they will have to mention the same facts.
the content may slightly be differing but the key points are what the spider looks for.