I’m talking to a local SEO company that’s going to help me with my SEO. They’re going to help me get locally optimized, have access to Digital Marketing Advantage, set up and stay on top of Google+, FB, and Twitter, have a portal for customer reviews, and fix/ increase my overall online reputation score. They are going to charge me $299 on a monthly basis so I’m curious if anyone uses an SEO company and if so, how it is working out for you.
Be very careful who you sign up with, and for how long. Make sure there is an “out” in the contract if you aren’t happy.
It’s also a good idea to search Google for any of the company’s reviews…this can be VERY informative. There are a lot of ripoff artists out there.
Personally, I will never use an SEO company again. I’ve done better on my own, for a lot less.
Once you get your site up and running, submit it to Google. That will probably get you the same results as a great many so called SEO “experts”.
If you’re going to spend that kind of money, get in touch with @Anya
She is specific to this industry, in VERY good standing, and doesn’t have to call and hard sell you over the phone.
I guarantee within about 10 minutes you get some good replies, why or why not to use them
Let me preface this next part by saying, I am generalizing, and have good intention.
some people don’t have the time, tools, experience to ‘go it alone.’
with that in mind, I’d agree with TrippleC.
I don’t use her, but know enough people who DO, to have no issue with the endorsement.
There is a lot to be said for ‘forum endorsement’ here.
Believe it or not reputation matters for some of us.
Yeah, I may say alot of stupid things.
But I would be CRUSHED to hear “Hey JfromD screwed me!”
(I don’t think I’ve ever hear that phrase form anyone in my life,
I sure don’t want to start now, but you see my point)
That’s my usual reaction when contemplating taking on any substantial recurring payments. I don’t want to come up with that $300 in February when my pretty site is sitting at the top of search results for keywords that [I]no one is searching[/I].
WINTER IS COMING!
And that’s my reaction when I contemplate hiring someone to do something that I can easily teach myself to do in just a couple of months from now, when things slow down to a crawl. Re-letter the vehicle? Yeah, I’ll go ahead and order the vinyl, and install it myself when I have spare time. If I don’t have any spare time, then do I really need the lettering right now?
Of course, I’m grossly over-simplifying issues here. And I’m already punching holes in my own logic, in my head. But I think it’s still a valuable thought exercise to ask:
“do I really need this?”
“do I really need this right now?”
“is there an alternative that will work nearly or just as good, for much less?”
I work as a web designer, and I rarely advise my clients to use SEO services because I’ve seen first hand how many are scams.
My advice:
If they contacted you, don’t hire them - only consider it if you found them because their site ranks high in Google
If they promise you 1st place rankings, don’t hire them (Only Google can make this promise)
Make sure you know what actions they will perform each month for that fee
Make sure all those actions are safe (Link spamming for example give short term rankings boost, but can leave your site blacklisted when search engines realise whats happening)
Make sure their actions don’t damage your organic ranking - you could disappear completely if you stop paying
Make sure you can verify their stats via a 3rd party analytics system - don’t believe any analytics they provide
If the stats are amazing but the phone isn’t ringing - then the stats are lies,… don’t be shy to cancel.
I personally would avoid SEO providers unless they come personally recommended,… over 75% of the companies I’ve dealt with are scam artists.
Its usually much better (If a little slower to take effect) and cheaper to spend your time/money on content creation and social media management - content is king, and a site with good quality, fresh, unique & relevant content will almost always get better long term organic rankings for much less investment.
Yes! That’s who I was talking to. I guess I owe you $2! I decided to research them and also, what’s available out there to learn more about SEO on my own. It didn’t end up being the price that turned me off about them but the services that they offer. Not anything that anyone can’t do or doesn’t do on their own for free.
Bryan Mahoney
Scottsdale Window Cleaning Company
(480) 789-3078
Google webmaster section is an invaluable section for SEO especially since it’s for Google!
I do all my own seo myself - my site ranks very highly via organic rankings, and i have a bit of competition, and i dont have to pay high rates for a SEO company to put my details on Google AdWords - which is probably what a lot of SEO companies charge for to claim they get 1st page (I can do that myself!)
Ive also had a lot of SEO companies call/email me and say they found my details via my website - so my own SEO is working…lol
Excellent point! I use the telemarketing calls I get as one metric for how well my SEO is doing. If I don’t receive at least a couple of these calls a day, I start to get a little worried, lol. [MENTION=3209]SqueegeeNinjaNJ[/MENTION] has made similar comments before.
