I am looking for a professional link building service. This will be fore a couple of sites to begin with, but could be for 30 or more sites if it goes well But needs to be a very professional professional. i.e. Links will be permanent. Links will be do-follow. Link will be on pages with fewer than 15 other outbound links. Links will not be on text link sites, web directories, adult/gambling or casino sites. Your sites have at least 200+ backlinks according to Yahoo's Site Explorer. Or if any members have had good experiences using professional link builders, maybe you could recommend someone. Whoever I go with, I will do extensive reference checking, because my main site markets my own business and is my livelihood and that of a lot of other people. I don't want anyone screwing it up! Please do not PM me with generic or outlandish claims on your abilities. If you can, please provide information on: Your approach/techniques used. Cost/fee structure. Examples of sites you have worked with. I am looking for a long term professional relationship.
This is always a difficult question I think. I realise I will need to spend a reasonable budget, but not being an SEO expert it is hard to know how much is enough. I am a bit reluctant to state a budget at this stage, because: A. If it is too low, people will think I am not serious, or I might just attract link builders who offer poor quality services. or B. If my budget is too high. Suddenly lots of link builders can help me for my budget. And maybe I did not need to spend that much. Sorry, i am not trying to be evasive, it's just I really am not sure what I need to spend. I would rather see what can be provided at what cost first, then decide what sounds like it will of benefit and go with that. Perhaps another way of saying it is. Once I know what I need to pay to get different types of services, I can then work out a budget based on cost/benefit. Just a bit wary, sorry. Don't want to say my budget is $100, and then end up getting charged $100 for a $10 service if you get my meaning. I am sure you are more professional than that, but there are some dodgy people aroound.
I have received quite a few PMs already. Thank you for those who sent them. There are a wide range of services and costs involved, so it might take me a while to sort through them. Some offers included blog entries, sig links on forums etc. I am really not sure of the value of those. I have had a guy doing that for a few years and it never seems to result in many links. But I am no expert! Thanks again. I am reading through all the PMs now. What I might do, as I am not sure of the most effective link building strategy, is actually trial 3 or 4 different link building services. Maybe take one site each to start with. Try for 3 months and see which sites perform best? Just an idea. There seem to be so many different approaches to this. I don't mean a free trial! I'll pay the various service costs. It might just be a good way to test the results. I can then stick with the 1 or 2 link builders that got the best results.
Still working through the PMs. There are a lot! Thank you to all those who PM's me. Just some initial feedback from a potential customer. It is useful for a potential customer to get some idea of the costs involved. About half of the PMs required further information before a quote could be provided. Whilst I do understand this, some examples would have done the job. Quite a few gave examples of different packages on offer. Many of the PMs referred me to examples of their work. Great. Which were for sites with no PR? Is that a good example? Don't think so. Many of the PMs referred me to their own websites to see more detail of their services. Again, many of these sites (most) had very low PR. Did not make me feel confident that an SEO 'expert' had a low PR site. Some who PM's me only offer one type of link building, like forum profiles. That seems a bit narrow. I know there are reasons why you might disagree with this feedback. i.e. I need more detail to provide a quote, I reckon forum profiles are the best way etc etc. And you might be right. Just providing some honest feedback from someone who is looking for your services and is trying to work out the good guys from the bad. First impressions are important. Particularly when I got over 30 PMs and I need to pick 4, to trial. making the choice easy for the customer is what it's all about.
No more PMs please. I already have a lot to work through. All those who have PM'd so far I have replied to. It was so hard to pick 4 for a trial. So I picked 6. Details will be sent to those 6 shortly, each being given a different website to focus on for the trial. Thank you to all who responded. It was not an easy task to pick a short list. I will let you know how the trial went and who was selected for an ongoing business relationship.
As already stated earlier in the thread, I do not have a specific budget in mind. So I am conducting a trial first and then I will agree a budget with the selected winner. But all those participating in the trial are being paid their normal rates for this work. Sorry, but the trial has started and I have already selected more than I intended. It was hard to say No.
An interesting dilema has emerged. The trial is underway and in fact 7 people are participating. It was too hard to pick only 4. And one who was not included was very pursuasive, so I gave in. Each participant has been given a seperate website to trial on. As you may have seen from another thread, these sites are very keyword specific and act as marketing satelite sites for my main website. They have been up for about three years but get very little traffic. They are just one page sites, and have had no SEO work done on them. Some minor on page work, but nothing off page. A couple of the trial participants have remarked "but your site ranks #1 already for the main keyword". Indeed they do! I presume just because the keyword is the actual domain name. The interesting part, will be to see if we can get the sites ranking for the other 2 or 3 keywords. The same is true of my main site. The main keywords all rank top 3 on Google, but there are hundreds of other key words to work on and hundreds of specific pages to be promoted. That will be a big job I think.
This would probably have been better thought out earlier, but to be fair to the participants, there are 2 questions. What is a reasonable duration for the trial? Time for the effects to be noticable on the websites? 2 weeks, 4 weeks? Not that they should be working for 2 or 4 weeks, but time needs to be allowed, for the results of their work to show through. How best should the results be judged. Each of the sites currently has zero inbound links, all except one have no PR, all rank well for their major keyword (domain name) but not for the other 3-4 major keywords. I would have thought a good measure would be the number of inbound links, and the ranking of the keywords? But any better suggestions would be most appreciated.
Hi toplink, I can understand your dilemma and issues you face, perhaps I can offer a little help? As a reasonable timeframe I'd put this at around 6 weeks. it can take time for links to be picked up, and even once they are, Google sometimes waits to "credit" them to your site. I have a Pay for Results Only link building service where my fee is based on how much I can improve your SERPs over a six week period. ranking for multiple keywords: yes, this shouldn't be a problem, I have many sites that rank very highly for various different terms. Correct link building techniques will enable multiple keywords to be targeted. If the keywords are very different then I'd suggest adding a subpage to the site and using this page to target your other terms. It's easier to achieve results for a page which has been optimised for the keyword(s) it's targeting. Measuring results: Really there is only 1 metric that truely matters: SERP rankings. number of links, page rank increases and so on are all more or less irrelevant - they are only contributing factors towards the end result that you're really after, which is a better ranking in serach engines. As for which service is actually better, this is harder to judge. One service may achieve a greater jump in rankings, but stillend up ranking your site at #8 while another service might get less total movement but end up at #3. then there is the issue of where the site started off and who competitive the keyword is. the service that gets you position#1 for a particular keyword may not actually be better than the one that gets you #4 for another query if the second KW is much harder to conquer. I can speak from personal experience here - I've achieved great results for people with only moderate effort in some cases, while in other cases I've had to work VERY hard to get anywhere. It's not only the amount of competition for a KW that matters, but also the quality of that competition. My suggestion would be this: Anyone who achieves a significant (you need to decide what you consider significant, but I'd say any service that gets you to page 1 of a term that you weren't page 1 of before should be considered successful - it's much harder to get from #15 to #10 than it is to get form #200 to #30, the closer you get to #1 the harder it is to achieve an improvement) improvement should be short listed. From there it comes down to your confidence in the provider: How well do they communicate? Are they willing to offer a guarantee of their work? What is thier iTrader feedback like? Can they point you towards previous success stories or testimonials from other respected DP members? How forthcoming are they about their methods? Finally I'd suggest taking a look at some of their thread history. Look at threads they've started and see whats been said in them, both by them and about them - also look at what they're selling. One last factor to consider: Can they guarantee you that your site will hold it's position after they've finished and been paid? there's a bit of give and take here as even the best SEO can't guarantee you that another site won't push you down a couple of slots, or prevent a little Google dancing but some sort of guarantee is a good idea and a legit expert will offer this. One favoured technique of dodgy SEO sellers is to use huge amounts forum Sig links in their work - sure they work for you (you get heaps of KW targeted links, very quickly), but as soon as they have another client, they simply point all those links to their new client and your rankings vanish. something to think about and be cautious of - if lots of your links are coming from a handful of sources, this should ring alarm bells for you. Hope this helps, and all the best for your project. If you have any other questions, feel free to PM me and I'll help if I can. Cheers, when you're dealing with a site that you've spent a lot of time on you can't be too careful in picking someone to do SEO work. Many of the clients I'm working with currently have come to me because their previously well ranked site has fallen off the map after another SEO "Guru" did some work for them.
Thanks for the feedback. All good comments. This last comment really rings home. Because our main website was so poorly ranked, I have spent the last 3 years of my life evenings and weekends, maintaining it myself. Dumb I know, but I actually got quite into it. But I just don't have the time anymore, I have a business to run. Hence I need help. I need to focus on business sales, not SEO as a hobby! But there is no way I am letting anyone loose on that main site yet. It ranks well for lots of major keywords but it can do better. Hell, if I gas an amateur got it to that ranking, an expert should make it fly! As for the assessment criteria. That is really hard. One of those participating in the trial just PM'd me to say the site I have given him does not rank at all, whereas some of the other sites already rank #1 for the main keyword. He thought it might take 1.5 months for the results to appear, and he is not getting paid for 1.5 months of work. My response to him was: Yes, I understand what you are saying. It is hard to make a fair comparison. But I am not expecting 1.5 months work for $x. Just $x worth of work, then we wait to see what the results are. I agree that rankings for the site keywords should probably be the best measure. For those sites that already rank #1 for the main keyword, I will place less importance on that main keyword. It's already there. They may be measured on the sucess of the other keywords more. It is also about how professional the guys are, the approach they use to their work etc. One guy for example has written blog entries that are in quite poor English. That will not be so good when he is working on my main site in the future. So there are a lot of factors that come into play when judging the winner I think. You might have a hard site to work with, but if the results you get show improvement (maybe not #1), then that shows me you are good at the job. At the end of the day I am looking for someone that I can work with long term. For the next 10 years or more. Someone I can trust, who is professional, who knows how to get results, who is easy to work with, etc etc. You have already proved alot with your attitude and approach. In terms of approach and attitude: On the other hand, some people have just sent me a wish list of information they want. Half of which I don't understand and half of which I just don't have the time to prepare, and most of which I would have expected them to do! Others have just said fine, got the url and keywords, I'll send you a report in a week. All very different. It will be interesting to see the results. But to the original question about trial length. I am thinking maybe 4-6 weeks might be best. But let me stress, I don't expect people to work for 4-6 weeks. Maybe one week of work, then we wait for the results to start flowing through. This is not some kind of trick to get lots of work done cheaply. I am looking for a very long term relationship, that can almost be a full time job for someone. Because I am short of time and SEO experience myself, I thought this trial might be a good way to work with some people, see how we work together, see some of their results, and try to find the right 'fit'. As examples. The guy who builds my websites lives in Thailand. We have worked together for over 7 years now. We work well together, he does good work. No reason to change. Another guy does really technical backend database work for another website we have. He is based in Australia and has been suporting us for over 12 years. Good relationship and does great work. Another guy is Russian, and helped me in the early days with some of the on-page SEO work. Helps out part time and really taught me the basics of SEO. We have worked together for over 5 years. So I am looking for someone long term. Get the picture Sorry, now back to my day job :-( So might not be posting here much during the week. But Heidrek, I really appreciate your time and thoughts to give feedback. Very helpful.
No worries Toplink, I was going to get in contact with you yesterday about possibly working with you when I sqw your post that you already had more than enough help! It's always refreshing to find people who are serious about their sites and are invested in getting quality work done. Best of luck and I'm sure you'll make a good decision.
We already have a trial underway thanks. Let's see how that works out. But thank you for your interest.
OK. I think this is how we will measure the trial. We now have 7 participants, although one has to reply to the invitation to participate and has not yet asked for payment. So maybe we only have 6? Please read the posts above to get a flavour of what I am looking for here, but in summary, the winner will have demonstrated: Success at boosting the SERPS ranking of the keywords provided on the website provided. A professional approach and attitude to the work. That they are easy to deal with. They are pro active in offering solutions, not just coming to me with questions and requests for information that they should be able to provide themselves. That they can communicate effectively and in English. A good track record of posts and feedback here on DP. An innovative approach to their work. An approach that does not rely too much on one particular method. The SERPS ranking for each of the keywords was measured before the trial. A measure will then be taken after the trial, and the 2 compared. The winner may not be the participant who got the highest SERPS ranking. The fact that a ranking has moved from #100 to #25 is probably more impressive, than a ranking that moved from #5 to #1 for example. Also, the SERPS ranking alone will not determine the winner. It shows they know what they are doing, sure, but the result will also be based on all of the above factors, because this will I hope be a long term working relationship. The trial will end at 9am Sydney time on Sat 4th September. This will give time for the results of the work to filter through. I will spend that day reviewing the results and will announce the results by 9pm Sydney time on Sunday 5th September. If a clear winner does not stand out for some reason, I will reserve the right to not announce a winner, but seek services from elsewhere. I will of course provide general feedback on how the trial went here on DP. If on the other hand there is more than one participant that has done a great job, I may offer a long term work agreement to more than one. Perhaps because they focus on different types of services, or by splitting the websites between them. I will anounce the winners names here. I am sure they will not mind the PR! (Please tell me if you do not want your username announced as the winer) I will not announce or disclose to anyone the names of those who did not win. Thank you to all those participating, there has been some good feedback and communication so far. And once again, can I stress, I do not expect 4 weeks work for 1 weeks pay! One week of work, then we wait another 3 weeks for the magic to happen, before we check the results.
Hey toplink, Sounds like you have things well in hand, never an easy job this sort of thing. How you do your measurements is entirely up to you, but with regards to your above statement, from my own persoanl experience I've found the opposite to be true. It's much EASIER to get from 100 to 25 than to get from 5 to 1. Think of SERP rankings like a graph that rises exponentially or like an asymptotoe (sp?), the closer you get to #1 the harder it gets to take a step. thats been my experience anyway.