SEO Companies

[joeymaze]

Do any of you guys have experience with SEO companies. I talked to one today about optimizing my site. They had a local package that ran $1000 a month for a 12 month commitment. I am starting to understand the importance of website marketing just don't know about the price tag. What do you guys think? What are you guys doing to optimize your sites?

[Rex Mann]

Seems VERY VERY HIGH to me. We optimize our site in several ways, which are all free. We twitter and use certain key words in each tweet. We use photobucket , which tags and details all our photos with certain key words, too. All these words help us get found from searches on google. We come up organicly on the first page on just about any way you can search for an paver installer in Phoenix or Arizona.

We used to use adwords. The service you pay per click. Was spending maybe 300-500 per month at the end. Since we stopped that, we also come up higher. And, that was before we stated tweeting and tagging photos.

Google and yahoo search the company your looking at. Where do they come up in the organic searches? If they are any good they should be in the middle or higher on the first page

I'd say, save your cash on the SEO. You could use google adwords for a lot less.

Peace,

Rex

http://PaversInstalled.Com

[joeymaze]

Thanks Rex I am going to look into that photobucket.

[SCgreenscapes]

i don't care for either of those tacktics. there are ways of doing things with out pay per click and other things like that. I don't know the technology behind everything, but the guy who does my site charges about 3k every 6months if I keep going back to him. really, the first work he did for $3k did wonders and has gotten me many hits from customers, but yoiu don't have to keep going back. once it is done, it is done. there is a need to maintain what was done, but not at that level. we are working on another round of seo with my site now, but i have not had the time to write the copy needed to get it off the ground. here is his info if you want to check into it. he won't let yoiu do anything that will get you dropped by the search engines. http://atierone.com/

[GreenBoy]

I found this site to be very useful when I made my site last year. I got to the top of many google searches. I will be redoing the site again over the winter and SEO will be a top priority. Without search engine results your site is not reaching its full potential. Our Website generates a large percentage of our leads so I will do whatever I can to get it up there on searches, even if that means spending a few hours reading some pretty boring material lol

http://www.keyword.com/SearchEngineOptimization.htm

[JimLewis]

If you're totally busy and have no time on your hands and have no clue how to change anything on your website, I guess hiring an SEO expert might be worth it. But even then $1000 per month is a little excessive. If you look around you can find good SEO guys for half that. Unless you're clueless on how to change your website though - DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY!

You can learn it all yourself. It just takes time. I started learning about SEO last winter and within 3 months my site was #1 for several dozen key terms on Google (e.g. "landscaping Portland Oregon"). I was also on the first page of Google (top 10) for another 50 terms or so. I didn't really work on SEO much past March as we were so stinkin' busy with calls from our website that I literally had no time. We finally slowed down and finished all of our jobs in the beginning of December and now I'm spending a little more time on polishing up my site, making it more SEO friendly, adding more back-links, etc. But my site is now #1 for over 50 different search terms and in the top 10 for over 150 others.

It's not that stinkin' hard and I never paid anyone a dime. I just started reading everything I could get my hands on and making the changes those sites and books recommended to my website. After all this time and countless hours studying this, there are only a few websites I would recommend to you where you can pretty much learn everything you will ever need to know about SEO stuff.

Obviously, not wise for me to give out all my secrets in an open forum because I got contractors all over my area trying to figure out how we've done what we've done. But if you're interested, PM me and I'll get you started in the right direction.

[JimLewis]

By the way, SCGreenscapes - those photos on the flash section on the top of your home page - all those all projects you did???

That's some seriously nice work!

[custom patios]

If you're totally busy and have no time on your hands and have no clue how to change anything on your website, I guess hiring an SEO expert might be worth it. But even then $1000 per month is a little excessive. If you look around you can find good SEO guys for half that. Unless you're clueless on how to change your website though - DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY!

You can learn it all yourself. It just takes time. I started learning about SEO last winter and within 3 months my site was #1 for several dozen key terms on Google (e.g. "landscaping Portland Oregon"). I was also on the first page of Google (top 10) for another 50 terms or so. I didn't really work on SEO much past March as we were so stinkin' busy with calls from our website that I literally had no time. We finally slowed down and finished all of our jobs in the beginning of December and now I'm spending a little more time on polishing up my site, making it more SEO friendly, adding more back-links, etc. But my site is now #1 for over 50 different search terms and in the top 10 for over 150 others.

It's not that stinkin' hard and I never paid anyone a dime. I just started reading everything I could get my hands on and making the changes those sites and books recommended to my website. After all this time and countless hours studying this, there are only a few websites I would recommend to you where you can pretty much learn everything you will ever need to know about SEO stuff.

Obviously, not wise for me to give out all my secrets in an open forum because I got contractors all over my area trying to figure out how we've done what we've done. But if you're interested, PM me and I'll get you started in the right direction.

good info Jim. Thank you. I will defineately pm.

[stoneguy]

DO NOT DO IT.

I have avid web experience, but I also have a very successful hardscape company. Since I was very busy in 2008, I hired a SEO company to do what I don't have time to do. WRONG MOVE. It was like throwing money out the window. I got absolutely nothing out of it other than some hits on my site.

For your information, a company like than can only do so much. They are dependent on you website copyright (they way the words are laid out). If they state they can get you traffic, what good is it if your copyright is not set up in a way to convert them to potential customers.

For example if they use a tactic that will get people to come to your site. Lets say 100 people a day (wow). If they are routed to your home page and the site is no easy to navigate, what makes you think you will be getting a phone call. Some of those companies want to overcome that hurdle by installing a landing page on your site that will help to convert them. Those landing pages are ugly looking and do not jive with your existing website.

If you are eager to learn or have some extra cash to invest. I would highly recommend Jill Whalen. She is highly revered in the web optimization industry. She and her company are brutally honest. They will NOT take your money and apply it to a program that might not work. Yes she can do SEO, but more importantly she can be a FREE guide for writing copyright for your website. DO NOT SPEND MONEY UNTIL YOU ARE CLEAR ON SEO.

Her website is www.highrankings.com
WOW, all i did was go to google a type "jill seo" and her site popped up #1. DAMN SHE IS GOOD

If you must, I would go the route of Google Adwords or Yahoo Marketing. There are many video tutorials on youtube.

GOOD LUCK

[JimLewis]

Joey, sorry to have taken so long to get back to your email. But I did email you this evening with a bunch of SEO info. Check your email.