SEO, snake oil? Or does it really upscale your business?

[Talktime]

I have a small consultancy business and I find clients through several websites.

I am constantly getting junk emails offering SEO for varying monthly fees. Some monthlies enough to buy a car!.

I am all in favour of upscaling my sales.

Does anyone have first and experience in buying SEO. How much did it cost, and how much did it increase your sales orders?

 

[japancool]

If they need to send you spam emails, their SEO obviously isn't good enough for their website to attract sufficient business.

 

[Adam448]

I've been learning about SEO for a few years now, and from my experience, it's a mixed bag. A content strategy and an improved backlink profile would be at the core of SEO. They will both boost your organic rank, and when combined, they are extremely effective.

SEO services may offer services to build backlinks to your website. But what kind of backlinks are they creating? They can have the opposite effect if the backlinks are irrelevant to your business, or worse, toxic backlinks that send negative signals to Google.

The same is true for content. Are they spinning content from third-party sources or using AI content software to create the content?

Or do they spend time researching the website's exact specifications in order to SHOW Google that your company is an authority?

 

[Solve My Problem]

Proper SEO works but expect at least 1500 a month plus as its a very time intensive process. Google is also changing the goal posts all the time. Anyone charing less is not putting the time in correctly.

That's why people support it with ads or just go down the ad route from day one.

 

[fisicx]

I have a small consultancy business and I find clients through several websites.

How many more clients can you accommodate? Could you cope with 10 requests per day? What if you ended up with 100 new leads every morning in your inbox?

SEO isn't the right answer for everyone. Sometimes if you just need a couple more clients Google ads can deliver this for a lot less outlay.

That being said, there are some simple things you can do to boost your website.

1. Make it fast, easy to use and mobile friendly (note: being responsive =/= mobile friendly).

2. Demonstrate expertise, authority and trust (case studies and participation in discussions on other sites help with this).

3. Get reviews, referrals and citations.

4. Take Ray's excellent SEO course: https://www.freshbananas.co.uk/

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

Proper SEO works but expect at least 1500 a month plus as its a very time intensive process. Google is also changing the goal posts all the time. Anyone charing less is not putting the time in correctly.

That's why people support it with ads or just go down the ad route from day one.

I agree I know nothing about SEO but have the oldest courier site in the industry
One of the advantages that we have is the fact that our competitors in the South West dont want to spend the money . So I already have a head start !

I would say to anybody selecting a new SEO supplier . Find one in the UK and make sure they let you see the work

 

[Solve My Problem]

David at Adgrow.com has a partner who can help with SEO but it's a premium service with real world results.

People underestimate how much real skills cost and often go the cheap option and either gat bad results or get quick results that end up getting them penalised with Google later down the road.

 

[fisicx]

If your business is able to expand on a massive scale it’s worth spending the money on seo.

If you just want to make a few more quid each month it’s not.

For example, a plumber can only do one boiler install each day. So in theory they only need one lead each day. They can get this with a google profile. They could invest in SEO but would have to start employing people to service all the leads. Great if that’s your business plan but not if you prefer a healthy work life balance.

Decide what you want to achieve and choose the best method to do this. Which may or may not mean SEO.

 

[Mark T Jones]

What everyone is looking for is a magic marketing bullet.

Which in turn makes it very attractive to snake-oil sellers, who will convince you that you can't market a business without SEO/website/magazine ads/networking / social media (the list goes on)

The reality is that each medium can potentially be effective, and all can be a huge waste of money if used without context and strategy.

When buying or working with anyone in marketing, its always a good idea to pay heed to the questions they ask about your business, your target market etc whilst ignoring the claims they make. The focus on your business rather than their product will eliminate most snake oil vendors

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

I would say to anybody selecting a new SEO supplier . Find one in the UK and make sure they let you see the work

That should say the work they have already done

 

[UKSBD]

I’ve been doing seo for 20 years now but rarely do it for others unless very local to me, people I already know, people who listen, people who I think it is worth doing it for.

The thing about seo is the better the client is the easier it is to rank their site.

Get someone who thinks they can have a site built, optimised as built and they expect it to rank high straight away and not have to do or pay for ongoing work and it is tough (doable when not competitive and few local rivals).

Get someone who appreciates having the site built is just the start, they appreciate the more they put in the more they get out, they are enthusiastic, they want to be involved, they are the best at what they do, they are known for what they do, they network, they want to be involved with the site, they are prepared to pay for good photos, prepared to pay the time to edit photos, edit videos, research, write content, etc., etc. It makes the SEO far easier as they are effectively the people who should rank higher.

There are different types of SEO’s.
Those who will just work for anyone, make as much money as they can in a short period of time but not really care if the site doesn’t rank.

Those who will work for anyone but try to rank.
Without the client providing what they need though, they will find it difficult, the client thinks they are either carp or conning them.

The type that are more picky who they work with.
Know that they will be provided with thee tools they need and will do a good job, but are more expensive and the business needs to generate the work to cover that expense, like @fisicx says, no point paying an SEO to double your workload if you can’t cover it.

The type who only work for people who will rank
These can be just good talkers, no better than others but just know who is going to rank, only get involved with businesses/websites that deserve to be number 1

A good seo working on a bad site can be seen as a bad seo

An average seo working on a average site becomes an average seo

A bad seo working on a good site becomes a good seo

A good talker (doesn’t even do seo) who provides seo to an excellent site becomes a guru

All a very long way of saying most important thing is to be the best at what you do, best at your own self promotion, most trustworthy, most recommended, etc. so that google would rank you well *despite* what your seo does.

 

[Talktime]

Thanks for your replies.

Adam448. You gave some good advice to look out for regarding the integrity of third-party sourced backlinks and content.

Your backlinks advice is a good heads-up. The web content is all my own work and I prefer to keep it that way. I know my own subject and I can write passionately and authoritatively about it. That does help in keeping me on the front page of Google. I didn't know that dodgy backlinks can be detrimental. I always use gov.uk or similar authority as my source.


Solve my Problem. I think £1500 a month for SEO is well outside the scope of many who work in our niche. Maybe for a large multi-national corporation who can bring the SEO inhouse.

I've never done ads. I did research it extensively some years ago, (subject for another time) but it wouldn't work for my niche. Ads are best for getting a brand or product pushed into a target market.


fisicx. It is not whether I can upscale the business. I'm really looking for first-hand experience of sales increase after hiring an SEO service. I did like Ray's ad for his SEO course. I don't want to go DIY with SEO. I'm looking to hear from someone who hired SEO and how it improved their sales orders.


JEREMY HAWKE I also have competitors, and I agree an SEO expert must be UK focused.


Mark T Jones. An SEO email offering the holy-grail to unlimited sales orders! I can relate to your advice. I get plenty of them and as someone earlier commented, their SEO cant be much use if they use spam email marketing.


UKSBD In your 20 years in the SEO industry, did your clients come back to you with improved sales orders? And what did you actually do with their websites to SEO them?

I did find your last comment interesting. Your advice suggests that quality and informative site content doesn't need SEO.

That probably answers my question. If Google ranks by the site content, that £15000 a month SEO might be snake oil after all.

 

[fisicx]

As has already been said. It depends on your business and what you want to achieve.

SEO won’t get you more sales. What it does is generate new leads. It’s now up to your marketing skills to convert those leads.

But to answer your question, SEO can and does result in more business. If done really well for the right business it can make you a millionaire. On the other hand, so can social media marketing for the right product.

So the answer as always is: it depends.

 

[UKSBD]

UKSBD In your 20 years in the SEO industry, did your clients come back to you with improved sales orders? And what did you actually do with their websites to SEO them?

I've rarely done it for others.
Started off optimising my own site, then started affiliate marketing, then made money from AdSense and now just have a small passive income that means I can pick who I do it for.

In the few cases I've done it for others, most I've just helped out small businesses who never intended getting bigger so it gets to a stage where it's not worth them paying for optimising, just a little tweak every now and then

A few bigger cases, someone better has come along, I don't mean better SEO but a growing company prepared to pay for SEO, marketing, advertising, everything needed to be seen as the best (where as the people I worked for weren't prepared to)

Other cases, a top 5 ranking becomes almost worthless when it's a product where lead generators target with Shopping, AdWords, Maps, Videos, etc. thus making paying for optimising pointless.

I did find your last comment interesting. Your advice suggests that quality and informative site content doesn't need SEO.

It needs optimising, but optimising is just part of it.

Without the site owner being prepared to do all that is required, SEO can be an expensive waste of time.

SEO isn't just about trying to get good rankings for specific words or phrases anymore, it has to be a part of the whole package.

It also has to be worth doing, little point being number 1 in Google if you are selling a product for £100 when the sites in 2 and 3 are selling the exact same product for £80 (and it's also available on Amazon for £80) especially when you have multiple affiliates and lead generators ads above and alongside your ranking.

 

[Chris Hanson]

As we are super busy we can't do marketing ourselves so we have to trust someone to do the work. We have tried an agency but the amount of time they can fit in is usually a few hours per week, if that, as they have so many clients its hard to get them to do anything. Through our work we found someone who was prepared to help us out on a trial basis and has now been with us for 5 years.

There are many SEO software packages which can be used to create reports so get a report and set some goals. We have doubled in size and quadrupled the turnover. Expect to pay someone from £20/hour.

 

[Alan]

Your advice suggests that quality and informative site content doesn't need SEO.

quality and informative site content is ( the best part of ) SEO ( in 2022)

 

[Lucan Unlordly]

Apologies for slight thread hijack...

Out of curiosity, would SEO be best considered if one wants to appeal to their existing customer base?

We have in excess of 1000 customers, pretty much saturation coverage, who use our software on a daily basis. When they put on events the person/s using our software may hand responsibility for purchasing necessary items - that we can supply - to a 3rd party, the secretary, the treasurer, the wife etc.,! If they don't, they often stick with same supplier, despite costs, range, quality being much worse than we can offer.
Can SEO improve engagement from within?

 

[tony84]

SEO is a good thing. I invested in SEO a while back, it takes maybe 6 months to start to see any return and maybe 12 months before it starts to pay for itself.

However, it becomes a never ending cycle. Your site improves and moves up. People below you notice a drop or want to increase, so they start investing in SEO. All of the top players are then investing in SEO and if one of you stops, you start to drop down the list.

I would recommend it. But at the same time, I would recommend doing your research on the firm and not just picking someone who emails you.

 

[Adam448]

Lucan Unlordly​

Apologies for slight thread hijack...

Out of curiosity, would SEO be best considered if one wants to appeal to their existing customer base?

We have in excess of 1000 customers, pretty much saturation coverage, who use our software on a daily basis. When they put on events the person/s using our software may hand responsibility for purchasing necessary items - that we can supply - to a 3rd party, the secretary, the treasurer, the wife etc.,! If they don't, they often stick with same supplier, despite costs, range, quality being much worse than we can offer.
Can SEO improve engagement from within?

SEO is more about ranking your site at the top of a search engine so new customers will find you

Do you mean like email marketing? Having the customers on an email list and sending out helpful emails on a regular basis to keep your customer base engaged.