Need to hire a SEO specialist: how much should I pay?

I know the algo of G is such that no one can predict any results but over the years doing the same thing for many clients you tend to get the hang of it and can fairly guess the results as to how 2-3 months down the line you will perform.

Also you should have confidence on your seo techniques that can be substantiated over a period of time.

 

If you want to do some SEO on your site but are short of time and you have a bit of cash to spend why not project mangage it yourself. You could hire people individually on sites like getafreelancer.com to submit to directories and to exchange links for you. This would be a hell of a lot cheaper than paying someone to do the whole deal for you. The biggest part of your job would be keyword research and on-page optimisation, all of which can be done by spending a bit of time reading the forums.

 

I would also like to add that many of the most sophisticated technique, of course not all of them, give only a slight benefit, therefore you can do most of the effective and simple things by yourself, reading these forums and asking for advice. Only after maybe looking for more.
Do have an idea of the help you can get all you have to do is check how many replies you got in this thread.

 

I would really suggest that you try your hand at SEO yourself. It's a great learning experience and there are lots of resources available. In the end you have nothing to lose, at the worse you'll learn something new, and at best you'll get a high ranking without paying a large amount for it.

If it doesn't work you can always hire someone later.

 

Hold on!

There is a chance of doing some damage, remember that a common mistake is overoptimization.
Nevertheless it means you might have to modify what you did after making such a mistake or even others.
Just keep your eyes open in the forums and learn from other people's mistakes.
Do you know that a lot of people here, if not most, do SEO just because it's fun and only after a while maybe started to look at it as a chance of increasing their earnings? Maybe started with their personal website and then found excuses for building others to tweak them and then in turn start making some money out of them? Some then thought it could be done in a very profitable way for others...

You might be a future SEO pro!

(But not if you completely outsource)

 

Hi

I m qualified google adwords professional (passed the test, awaiting certificate from google).

I can manage google adwords campaign. To begin with, I m ready to manage google adword campaigns for as low as US$400 for upto 10 project per week. This comes to Only US$40 per campaign per week.

And important - No upfront payment required. Pay at end of week once I m done entire week's work for you. So, pay ONLY AFTER you get your work done. Is it ok?

I m just wondering and seeking all of yours help on only one issue - How and from where to get these projects through net? Any help? Ideas?

http://www.yesiwillbuy.com/certifie...ow-cost-trial-services-for-google-adwords.htm

 

Love it - who needs all those books and websites . If the secret gets out, some people are going to be experiencing a serious drop in income .

 

ferret77: On-page optimization is just as important... that is the reason I got owned by disgusts in the big keywords we are competing for, despite me having more backlinks and content than him.

As for SEO, yeah, you should try it yourself... it is really fun and it will make you extremely happy to see the green color number at the keyword you are targetting for (using DP Keyword analysis tool).

If you still insist on getting someone to do the SEO job for you... then I recommend people like disgusts or Shawn (priceless). Pricing is not fixed, so it is better to pay base on the result.

 

One suggestion I haven't seen anyone make, is paying someone to show you the ropes of SEO. Don't outsorce your SEO to someone but rather pay them to SEO your site nad teach you what they are doing at the same time. That way you can keep up the SEO when they are done with thier work.

 

Here's my reply, a good 8 months or so late

Analysis reports again range broadly. In my case, I'm pretty darn busy so as a matter of supply and demand, I raise my prices until demand levels out. That said, I still believe I offer a tremendous ROI. I'm not here to sell you services though, as frankly I hate sales and thus find other ways to get work that don't involve me having to pitch to a client I've just met.

Regardless, you wanted general figures. I won't post that in a forum, but suffice it to say you'd be paying a professional fee for maybe 20 hours of research and writing. Not as much as a real expensive lawyer, but I do charge more than a teenager working at McDonald's. Others may charge more or less, they may deliver more or less. Understand that in no case should you take anything produced as a document of "what to expect". From me, here's what you can expect:

A spider-friendly, search engine-friendly website that adheres to Google's webmaster guidelines. I promote sites by - get this - actually making them better! I won't do reciprocal link building campaigns or cloaking or any of that business. If we actually make your site better than guess what - it'll build links on its own and it'll get better rankings, more traffic, etc. You need to focus one deeper than just the criteria in rankings - links and content. Focus deeper. SE's want to find good sites. Spend time, effort and money making your site a good site!

 

I have found very few sites can be made to gain natural links on their own unless they offer a free service like Shawns web tools.

Personally very seldon do i think when designing a site that an external site is useful for visitors so I will put a link to it, I want visitors to stay on my site not visit other peoples. Other webmasters might think, thats sites nice, lets put a link to it using the rel="no follow" tag so we save PR. Finally you will get the webmasters who will add a link but the fact that they have not used the correct anchor text your rankings dont improve.

 

what are the steps in onpage optimization

 

I agree with ferret77 that doing it yourself is the best solution.

A while ago, I had spoken with self-claimed SEO experts who are usually non-programmers, and simply proposed to change some metatags and insert keywords into the body. The rest of the time is spent trying to get links or buy links at a markup. The result is not seen for a few months, and you would wonder if any result was due to the effort you put in yourself.

getting quality links is a good strategy especially 3-way links.

 

SEO is not rocket science. Doing it right the first time though does take experience as using anything against SE guidlines may cost the website rankings for a long time. You can do as much damage as good.

Pretty much it boils down to having unique content that describes what your page is about, with of course good keywords. Focusing on only 1 keyword phrase per page is a good idea. Use the page title, h1, 2, 3 tags to your advantage along with strong and italic without being spammy. Alt tags on your images, once again without being spammy. Good site crosslinking to relevant pages. Link condoms on non-content pages or irrelevant stuff. Keywords in those internal links. Get the content as high near the top of the page as possible, try to get the links in the source to the right side of the page (it's the new cool thing to do also), strip at least the formatting into css - tables are still fine if that's your preference but at least unload some extra size into an external file. Use a good linking structure with your site, in that your money pages are around 3 clicks deep other than through your sitemap - that way to ensure your content is focused as possible and it also helps build PR to your homepage internally.

Finally, build links to internal pages and to your homepage with an array of link anchors to your homepage. The more the merrier, your really high paying or overture content pages need backlinks too.

Theirs of course more to it than that, but theirs a start. Word to the wise, don't start pouring backlinks to a page (or site) until it's been cached. Might prevent you from getting indexed at all if you build links to quickly.

That's my $.02

 

I agree with all that. I think its better to do it yourself. Remeber, SEO's will take your money and never put the amount of effort in that you will because it is you who stand to gain from it and not them. Pay per click is good for generating short term traffic (if your site is really good you will gain some long term return visitors) but you need to spend all the time to gain users.