I have an Auto Detailing business in Houston, Texas. I check almost every keyword I can think of and am always on the 2nd or 3rd page, and sometimes the first page on some keywords. When I started this business I was a referral only business, no internet. I am very new to the Internet period, so to get this far on Google must mean there's not much competition so I don't see why with a few tweaks I couldn't be in the top 3 on first page. I've used one SEO company before, but I think all they did was add some Meta tags. My question is paying for someone to optimize my site a good idea. I saw a package from a company, and for $109/month they guarantee top 10 results. Is this to good to be true. Sorry, I'm very new but am very capable of learning from the best. Thanks, any help with my site would be a huge asset.
Try SEOMOZ company. Well, they have been trusted by various brands and website owners.. You can also advertise on my blog if you want to or try to find weaknesses of your competitors such as Honda, Toyota or the used-car retailer Carmax, Inc. or AutoNation, Inc.
I am in Houston and we can meet and decide on a plan. I dont think you can guarantee any results like top 10. In my opinion its all a scam. I currently have a wrecker service in town I am doing and you can call him and he will tell you the results. PM ME
Why not just provide a link and see if anyone has a suggestion or two? edit: The link is going to have to be broken as you;re new here but wouldn't hurt to try.
We can help you out.... Any company or individual that guarantees your website a certain search engine position is pulling your leg. It's 100% impossible to guarantee a search engine position because they do not own the search engines. No SEO company or individual has control over Google, Yahoo or any other search engine for that matter. The search engine algorithm has the last word on determining where to rank your site. Shoot me a PM if you're interested...
As you move closer to the first page and then up the first page rankings it gets exponentially harder. And I agree with the above poster, almost all SEO's that guarantee a certain ranking are trying to swindle you in some way. Check my blog out in my signature and I have a section for 'SEO Scams' it details some of these shady folks.
Unless they offer a top 10 guarantee or your money back then don't bother. And even if they do offer this service, be cautious that they do not damage your current page position, as with a small amount of tweaking your content and adding a few more quality back links could get you on page 1 yourself
If you are already ranking on page 2 or 3 at Google, it should be relatively simple to get to the 1st page for terms like "auto detailing houston", "auto detailing houston tx", "auto detailing houston texas", "car wash houston", "car wash houston tx", "car wash houston texas", etc. Most all of these phrases only have about 500,000 results returned at Google. That is NOT a very competitive market and should be relatively simple to dominate. The key will be getting backlinks from relevant sites with the keyword phrases you want to rank for as the link text. Personally I wouldn't bother trying to rank for head phrases like "auto detailing". I would concentrate on keyword phrases that include some auto detailing, car wash, car care type keyword phrase in addition to the keywords "houston", "houston tx", and "houston texas". If you haven't already you should also work on getting a Google Local Listing for your company. Look for relevant sites (not competitor sites but complementary sites) to link to your site. I would try to find local used car dealerships, etc. who might link to you. Perhaps you can cut them a deal on detailing cars that have just arrived on their lots in exchange for them linking to your site from theirs. If you have businesses around Houston that you go to on a regular basis to detail employee cars while they are at work (not sure if this is a mobile detailing business or not) then as those businesses to give your a link maybe on the employee benefits section of the job listing section of their site pointing out that you do onsite detailing for their employees. Also, you can look for auto forums that allow FOLLOWed signature links, submit your site to auto related directories, submit articles about detailing to article submission sites, etc. to get some relevant backlinks. The way to get from page 2-3 to page 1 is likely going to require getting backlinks, but it shouldn't really take that many since your niche is not very competitive.
Meta tags are fine, but remember that offsite SEO (backlinks, etc.) is more important than onsite SEO. Any competent SEO firm will know this.
I could get you first page with little trouble, but for what it'd cost to hire me, it'd be easier (and more beneficial) to just do it yourself. I have a free eBook which covers some new techniques for increasing rankings (some new, some old ones revitalized with new energy) -- see signature link to reserve yourself a copy. It's completely free.
Thanks for all the input guys. I need to keep studying this forum because with just reading on here a little I already have learned and gained some great advice. My auto detailling company is doing well, and my web traffic is increasing. It gets a little frustrating at times because I'll punch in "houston auto detailing and I'll be 6th on the first page and two hours later I'll be 1st on the second page. I went with an SEO company that seems to be on the up and up. I'm starting to get emails with company's in the "Auto" field saying they put my link on their site. What do you guys think about that? It doesn't seem shady because there are some very popular car enthusiast sites on there such as "Autopia", which is like this forum but for auto enthusiast. I don't think I can put my link on my signature yet, but my homepage does have all the keywords I can think of without over doing it. I'll put my address up, but if the moderators have a problem with this feel free to take it off. Thanks again everybody, hope to learn alot from everybody here. The web address is http://www.ShowroomMobileDetailing.com (I know I need to work on the layout, but I did this myself, and keep in mind before I made it, all my business was referrals and I didn't know anything about how the web worked much less SEO. I used godaddy and the template was already laid out. I do need somebody to design me a banner and logo if anybody has any suggestions feel free to give me all the info. you can. I cater to a very high end market and my website needs to reflect my professionalism.)