SEO help - problems with my SEO

[minerals]

Hi ive been using an SEO firm for one of my websites i am 6 months into a 12 month contract, paying £900 per month + vat for from what i can tell 1 keyword and im a getting concerned.

Im not an SEO expert but i feel i know quite a bit about it now,
Backlinks seem to be one of the main tricks - getting/buying links etc - in 6 months i seem to have gained around 30 links (only 3 of which seem to be ranked anywhere by google)

The sites linking to my site have no real relevant content either ie: they are not in my field - mainly blog sites

Ive spoken to a few people on this in the SEO field, ive been told i should be getting loads of links per month from my SEO firm, when i asked them this they said no they need a progressive amount of links as google would ignore most of them if the links came on 'too strong' or 'too many at once'

I suppose my question is Who is correct? from an SEO firm what should i be expecting 6 months in paying £900 per month

Im just getting frustrated as looking at the analytics all of the sales are coming from Google adwords - hardly any (if any) are organic - so for the past 6 months i feel ive essentially wasted £900 + vat - any help/guidance/advice would be greatly appreciated

Cheers

 

[MarkAndrews IMCopywriting]

Send me your website, lets have a look to see whats going on here.

Mark(at)IMCopywriting(dot)com

It certainly sounds from your description of the problem as though you are being ripped off.

£900 per month you say, you're paying?

What precisely is in the contract you signed, before work commenced?

What exactly did they promise to do for you, which you feel they're not delivering on your behalf?

 

[minerals]

Thanks for the reply - the contract goes on (at length) about the cancellation term and how i will be charged the full amount if i cancel, nothing really regarding - what i should expect from them, what they will guarnatee etc..

 

[MASSEY]

It depends what terms you are after. Without that no one can say weather it is expensive or not.

But the fact is backlinks are very crucial and you have been paying for a while now and have very little so it's not great from a quick overview.

 

[GreatSEO]

As an SEO I would be interested in looking at your site.

If you PM me the domain I will send you a well thought out report completely free.

I am a freelancer and happy to advise but I am not at the moment in a position to take on further work so it will purely be a review.

I hope this helps and please PM me if it is of interest.

Kindest Regards

Dave

 

[minerals]

Thank you all for the help - PM sent Dave

 

Thanks for the reply - the contract goes on (at length) about the cancellation term and how i will be charged the full amount if i cancel, nothing really regarding - what i should expect from them, what they will guarnatee etc..

Ask not what you can do for your SEO.

Ask what the SEO can do for you.

Dump them ,no decent SEO behaves like that.

Did you have recommendations for these people from someone.

As I would suggest that it is probably a good idea for no one to employ an SEO without some references or recommendations considering how many rip off SEO companies there seem to be out there.

Earl

 

[minerals]

Seemed reputable enough, to be honest as a business man it was 100% the worst bit of business i have ever done - going into a 12 month contract without much real thought - dont know what i was thinking honestly! i would love to Dump them but thats the thing im still only half way through a 12 month contract so dont want to get taken to court, im getting my lawyer to look over the contracts see what he thinks of them

 

Seemed reputable enough, to be honest as a business man it was 100% the worst bit of business i have ever done - going into a 12 month contract without much real thought - dont know what i was thinking honestly! i would love to Dump them but thats the thing im still only half way through a 12 month contract so dont want to get taken to court, im getting my lawyer to look over the contracts see what he thinks of them

OK Study the contract to see if they promise you some sort of results.

Don't know what your product is but £900 quid a month should buy you a bit of descent SEO.

Earl

 

[zomex]

Hello,

I'm also shocked that this company is charging you £900/month in the first place. For that price you should be getting a fair amount of attention on your website. Backlinks isn't the only factor of SEO but it's probably the biggest factor and 30 links in 6 months from un-relevant sites is very, very poor. Of course the quality of the links is very important but the fact they are on sites unrelated to yours is very bad on their part.

I'd be more than happy to take a look at your site to see what they have or haven't done.

I'm also very interested in hearing about what you should expect for £900/month in terms of backlinks/results/reports.

Jack

 

[Annoying Donkey]

Seems a lot for 1 keyword.

Where are you in the SERPs for that keyword? Has your position changed/improved since they started work?

 

[fisicx]

I suppose my question is Who is correct? from an SEO firm what should i be expecting 6 months in paying £900 per month

Well I would have expected them to carry out a full assessment of the site, analysed the products or services you offer, investigated the competition and suggested a range of keywords to target. Next up I would hope they work on the site before embarking on a link building campaign.

£900/months is a fair whack so I assume the keyword they are targetting is fairly compitive.

Note: if they haven't done any work on the site then it's likely all the link building they have done was pointless.

 

[GreatSEO]

Firstly it needs to be looked at before the SEO company can be ripped apart as nobody here is in the know yet.

It may be that minerals is actually ranking for a number of terms and may have had a huge amount of onsite work done. Speaking without seeing is of course a good thing as it informs the OP of what he should expect for his budget but flaming really should be kept aside until all facts have been looked at.

Coomunication from most bigger SEO companies is not one of the key selling points based on history online.

Until we have the facts though we need to be a bit more shall we say conservaitive with the tongue

Cheers

Dave

 

[minerals]

Thanks Guys, the only work on the site was content addtion, ie adding more text to the homepage and categry pages (there are around 25 category pages and they have added content to 5 of them)

All other work has been done by myself

This one keyword that seems to be getting all the attention we are ranking 5th out of 1.4m results (according to google) im not sure if this is a high search term or not? Ive got a meeting with them this week, i'll find out everything they've done and if there is anything they have done i dont know of for the $$

 

[GMH1982]

It is amazing the amount of these that are out there and interestingly enough I was just commenting on another post regarding these 12 month arrangements.

If any organisation worth its salt they should live and die by their own swords and not expect you to pay to die by yours!

Given, there are a lot of people/businesses out there that expect miracles from SEO agencies but there should be an expectation of ROI otherwise what is the point.

Within 6 months there should be results - one keyword is absolutely ridiculous!

In the outset, any good agency should conduct a full site audit which will out any technical and on-page issues that need resolving before the offsite work gets in to full swing

included in this report should be a full in depth keyword analysis and report showing exactly where you stand and exactly the priotitisation with reference to targeting. You should also have an indepth analysis of a number of main competitors (SWOT) in order to avoid the bad that they are doing and piggy back and target the good.

This report will look at headings, title tags, meta data, H1's/2's etc and pinpoint exactly what is needed.

Also - an absolute must is full in depth reporting, down to keyword movement, tech, onpage, visits, conversions etc etc (you determine what you want them to report on - you are the client, you are paying it is up to you!) Also exactly what you are getting for your money, the hours put in, doing what i.e. directory submissions, article writing, directories submitted to both paid and free - I am sure you get my point here in regard to everything via either a daily, weekly, monthly report ( again up to you) should be accounted for.

The other major one with these is also the contracting, if any company is confident of their own services and abilities then why tie people down - we do month by month and so should everyone else - if you choose not to be with us, for whatever reason, then that is your choice to make not ours!!

Sorry - but these get me in to a rant, because they dampen the image of a lot of good agencies and SEOers out there and it **removed** me off!!

 

[JMRidley]

GHM1982 - You sound like you know what you are talking about. What is your company called?

 

[harryboon]

£900 per month for 1 keyword - why are they only targeting 1 keyword as well?

Of course the above depends on the market you are in etc

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Month by month is the way I run also. Sadly you are tied into a 12 month contract, all you can do is put pressure on them as per the contract you entereed into. have they delivered everything according to contract? If not then you might have a case for breach,. which allows early termination by yourself.

 

[AdultF]

It does though depend on the keyword difficulty. If it a lucrative/competitive keyword/s then a 6 to 12 month contract has to be done as the progression takes much longer.

And if anyone knows there seo the first 1-3 month is more work intensive (again depending on the keywords and marketing area) so a month by month contract could be a waste of your valuable seo time and efforts.

Seo doesn't happen overnight...Though you should see progression and a transparent monthly seo report to prove works done so far.

 

[merky587]

Hi

In my opinion 30 links a month is poor. It will depend on the quality of the links; that is the authority of the sites linking to your website. As im sure your aware the relevance of the sites linking in is a major factor. There are many others however I have sites indexed on page 1 of Google within a month using my techniques.

IMO - STOP paying the money as your being ripped off. Seek an alternative more appropriate SEO man.

 

[GMH1982]

It does though depend on the keyword difficulty. If it a lucrative/competitive keyword/s then a 6 to 12 month contract has to be done as the progression takes much longer.

And if anyone knows there seo the first 1-3 month is more work intensive (again depending on the keywords and marketing area) so a month by month contract could be a waste of your valuable seo time and efforts.

Seo doesn't happen overnight...Though you should see progression and a transparent monthly seo report to prove works done so far.

In part I agree - but as the SEOer you bill for the work you do on a month by month basis, this will generally be higher month one as you are strategising, auditing and issuing tech/onsite/offsite solutions, advice and data, then move in to monthly deliverables - in the main based around off site.

You highlight in month one plus prior to any contracts the likely needs and timescales in a 3 month strategy plan and therefore the client is well aware and is up to them to agree with you.

So yes sometimes it can take 1-3, 3-6 or 6-12 either way you are paid so irrelevant of the length of time it takes you should still not tie the client in as long as you are confident on what you can acheive (the value of your seo time and efforts are not wasted as you are paid - it may be a waste to the client if they decide not to continue but that is up to them not you)

As stated previously all companies (not just in digital marketing) should live and die by their swords - if you belive in what you do and more importantly your ability to deliver then why tie people in to lengthy contracts??

 

[Annoying Donkey]

this will generally be higher month one as you are strategising, auditing and issuing tech/onsite/offsite solutions, advice and data, then move in to monthly deliverables - in the main based around off site.

This can be covered by a setup fee. Also discourages those who sign up and then change their mind... There's plenty of people out there who want this service, there's certainly no reason to tie someone in for a long period... And who wants to get involved in legal action (to enforce a contract against an unwilling participant) anyway...?

 

[FreelanceSoftwareDeveloper]

Quite a few things to consider:

1. It's about results not backlink count, have you checked all the other pages for deep links for example. You say your 5th in Google, look at who is above you and work out honestly if you think they deserve to be there or higher. It's not always easy to judge but look at the site/businesses are they a lot bigger than yours, are they potentially putting more work into that keyword than you?

2. Ask the SEO company for a breakdown of what is Organic SEO work and what is AdWord spend/management.

3. If you are spending a lot on AdWords are you making a profit from it, if not why not? AdWords is often considered a quick way to dip your toe in the water for a keyword, if it doesn't get sales are you targeting the right keyword.

4. How much are the company charging per hour, if they charge £50/hour then you are only getting 18 hours work/month, one person for 2 1/2 days. That may put a bit more context on what you should expect.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Now I don't see how the 'per hour' thing works, as I have software written for me that allows me to acomplish tasks in 1 hour that might take someone without it 5 hours. Also the level of experience means that a well experienced consultant can acomplish much more in less time while charging what would essentially be a far higher hourly rate.

 

[Vacman2000]

SEO field, they always blow up
I aske the question here is anyone was willing to work on a perfomance basics. One guy replied and got me to no 1 for three keywords I wanted all for £1700 which was 30% up frount 20% on getting me on page 10 30% when I was on first page and 20% when I had been on the first page for 10 days
Now been at no1 for the last month
Took most of the risk out seo

See how I see it, everyone is on a performance pay, if you do not preform you are out, if I do not deliver someones leaflets properly, no next order
= performance pay
Why shouldnt seo be the same

 

[GMH1982]

SEO field, they always blow up
I aske the question here is anyone was willing to work on a perfomance basics. One guy replied and got me to no 1 for three keywords I wanted all for £1700 which was 30% up frount 20% on getting me on page 10 30% when I was on first page and 20% when I had been on the first page for 10 days
Now been at no1 for the last month
Took most of the risk out seo

See how I see it, everyone is on a performance pay, if you do not preform you are out, if I do not deliver someones leaflets properly, no next order
= performance pay
Why shouldnt seo be the same

You will find that a lot of agencies will work on performance deals but this will depend on the work that needs to take place and the aim of the SEO.

For example, although a fair amount (generally over 60%) of the focus and success of an SEO campaign is from the offsite optimisation (i.e. link building), it becomes a redundant task if your site is in flash - this means that the technical element of SEO takes 99% of the focus (where usually if sound in the first instance would account for about 10-15%) and what will iron out to be the success.

My point here is that a lot of SEOers are extremely reliant on clents getting things done and in turn their technical teams - so if we were managing a performance deal where we have given the client and their tech team advice and recommendations on improving title tags, redirects etc etc and they dont get done then it is hampering the SEO hugely and in turn the performance pay - which by no fault of our own, is low because the recommendations have not been carried out.

I am all for a performance deal, but a full site audit needs to take place in the first instance with an agreement put in place for timescales on recommendations to be carried out - if this is the case then bring them on!!

 

[Vacman2000]

30 a month, you can do that with signature links

 

[Vacman2000]

Yes he looked at the site first and gave me a cost of £1700 for the three main keywords I wanted

 

[dagaul101]

I felt a sharp pain, hearing you are paying a grand for one keyword for SEO, I personally that money would have been well spent on an Adwords campaign, even if via trial and error, I am sure you would have learnt a greal deal about SEO directly from that, and possibly made a profit too

 

[webstore]

Like everybody else we are shocked at the audacity somebody has had to charge you - £900 pm on a 12-month contract for SEO - unless you are seeing stunning results - which does not sound to be the case from what you say - in which case this sort of thing gives our industry a bad name.

In our opinion you need to be looking at where the SEO company has not fulfilled their contractual obligations. If you would like to PM us your web address we will study your all important inbound links and get back to you with a FOC report - that you might be able to use - if we find what we are looking for - so you can get out of the contract. - Rgds - Web-Store Ltd

 

[minerals]

I feel like crying - just put up a huge post the biggest ive ever written and its all dispareared!!!1 Dam you internet!!!!

ok im going to have to keep this brief now

In a nut shell, i need to figure out of i am being shafted or they are indeed doing a decent job, there was one part of the contrct missing called the strategy. I have this now - the main focus of this is

Link building

building relaevant industry related links

forums posts

Posting on forums related to your site

Article submissions

Copywrighters will write articles directed towards my site

- after speaking with the SEO firm the last two things on that list have not been done as the email states:

These will come at a later date, any soon may hinder the SEO progress

- How would submitting articles/linking on a few indutry related forums hinder my SEO?

The email i have had back from them today after i asked to see the work they have done has

Link Building

there are actually 11 links - 7 of which are blogrolls from unrelated websites, the other 3 are industry related but nowhere near the top sites in my field

Directory submissions

there are around 2000 links here, all from very random sites pearbag.com, c1c.org, bulklinx.com etc

Social bookmarking

Around 200 links in this category frrom sites sch as onestopbookmarking.com news.bramptonregister.com 24by7bookmarks.com - alot of these linksall have user/roland01p after them which i am guessing is one specific user hitting a load of sites at once

So being 6 months in spending £900 per month i have 11 links a list of bookmarks and directory submissions, that seems to be it.

What i have found though is the keywords that where inistially targeted there are 2 not one - i am sitting in 3rd and 4th on google which has come from being on the 2nd page - so i am moving up - buuuut ive also been doing loads of work myself getting links from related sites myself - re-writing meta tags/page titles as loads of them where left undone by the this seo firm so i really dont know if it is there work or mine, i do know i have jumped 2 places though since i started work on the site

So does it sound like im being ripped off?

sorry once again for the all over the placeness of this post, after typing a huge post only to be kicked out my patience has worn thin haha

 

[GMH1982]

I feel like crying - just put up a huge post the biggest ive ever written and its all dispareared!!!1 Dam you internet!!!!

ok im going to have to keep this brief now

In a nut shell, i need to figure out of i am being shafted or they are indeed doing a decent job, there was one part of the contrct missing called the strategy. I have this now - the main focus of this is

Link building

building relaevant industry related links

forums posts

Posting on forums related to your site

Article submissions

Copywrighters will write articles directed towards my site

- after speaking with the SEO firm the last two things on that list have not been done as the email states:

These will come at a later date, any soon may hinder the SEO progress

- How would submitting articles/linking on a few indutry related forums hinder my SEO?

The email i have had back from them today after i asked to see the work they have done has

Link Building

there are actually 11 links - 7 of which are blogrolls from unrelated websites, the other 3 are industry related but nowhere near the top sites in my field

Directory submissions

there are around 2000 links here, all from very random sites pearbag.com, c1c.org, bulklinx.com etc

Social bookmarking

Around 200 links in this category frrom sites sch as onestopbookmarking.com news.bramptonregister.com 24by7bookmarks.com - alot of these linksall have user/roland01p after them which i am guessing is one specific user hitting a load of sites at once

So being 6 months in spending £900 per month i have 11 links a list of bookmarks and directory submissions, that seems to be it.

What i have found though is the keywords that where inistially targeted there are 2 not one - i am sitting in 3rd and 4th on google which has come from being on the 2nd page - so i am moving up - buuuut ive also been doing loads of work myself getting links from related sites myself - re-writing meta tags/page titles as loads of them where left undone by the this seo firm so i really dont know if it is there work or mine, i do know i have jumped 2 places though since i started work on the site

So does it sound like im being ripped off?

sorry once again for the all over the placeness of this post, after typing a huge post only to be kicked out my patience has worn thin haha

In one word YES!!

They are clearly cowboys - 6 months in and they are stating that creating and distributing articles will hinder your SEO results, this is the most ridiculous comment I think I have heard on these forums so far - where is the justification for this?? absolute rubbish.

I would love to have a look at your backlink profile - if they are sending multiple links from single directories it is neither use nor ornament!

Also even the 11 decent links that have been created (I say decent very loosely as I am comparing to these directory submissions) seem to be crap.

The one element you dont seem to have within the quote is volume - but I am sure there are multiple opportunities you can use to get out of that agreement - and if there is one thing you take from this forum its, do not pay these idiots another penny.

The reason I say that is due to the fact that the movement you will have experienced, I will almost guarantee, is nown to the things you have done yourself as I am assuming you are not chasing terms such as "Secured Loans" or "No win no fee" otherwise I would consider them magicians!!

By all means PM me your web address and I will have a look at your backlink profile - and whther there is actually any value there at all!

P.S. Why are they only optimising 2 words - surely they will have done a ranking report and keyword analysis beforehand to decipher keyword groupings and level of focus - I am getting carried away now, of course they didnt! They should be dissolved!!

 

[Annoying Donkey]

I'd say it's looking like you are being ripped off, but it's still hard to judge without seeing the site and what niche you're in.

Submitting articles 'at an early stage' will not 'hinder your SEO'.

 

[Birmingham]

any activism can hinder your potential organic appeal in SEO. they're not 100% certainly cowboys. if you'd like to give me the relevant details, i can offer a free, objective, specialist opinion

 

[nade]

Read this article with great interest. Ive been thinking for working on my own CEO but it just seems too complicated and my time is probably left best to something more worth while. The only thing that puts me off is peoples experences like this one !

Can anyone provide me with someone who is simply fair and can do me a good SEO ?

Thanks

 

[Birmingham]

Can anyone provide me with someone who is simply fair and can do me a good SEO ?

i'm sure you'll be bombarded by offers now, the better and the worser

 

[nade]

i'm sure you'll be bombarded by offers now, the better and the worser

Hopefully some kind person on here would back an offer up with a recomendation

 

[Birmingham]

i recommend massey, he's been in the game for years

 

[MASSEY]

Hopefully some kind person on here would back an offer up with a recomendation

From my own observations from time spent on here i would recommend Ali

 

[nade]

Thank you both. Massey, you got the capacity ?