Hi! I just got a new customer that wants a new web page design for his hotel. The same customer also wants to rank among the first 3 results at google for the phrases: hotel crete hotel iraklio hotel heraklion He asked me if i can do this and i replied that i will have to check with the competition for the particular keywords before i get back to him. I have never optimized a web site for google again. I know the theory behind it (keywords in url, keywords in the page text, keywords in title and meta, high value incoming links, alt attributes etc...) but have never tested to see if the theory really works nor how hard it is. What i would like to know is the competitiveness of the phrases above, and your opinions on whether a newbie like me can manage to do the job. I really want to do this, but i am very hesitant.
Results from yahoo Searches done in May 2006 3030 crete hotel 214 crete hotel accommodation 119 chania crete hotel 109 hotel crete greece 108 cheap crete greece hotel Second 1: shows no results Last 1: 380 mirabello hotel heraklion 375 heraklion holiday hotel 374 bay golden heraklion hotel 374 heraklion hotel renia 184 heraklion hotel 71 hotel in heraklion 50 heraklion hotel crete 31 lato hotel heraklion I'm sure you can do the work. It's not a very competitive market (you have a nich there) and so I believe that a good SEO work can easily do the trick...well...easily never, but achievable
Does he have a domain online at the moment? If not then it will take around 12 months of hard seo work to get to the first page of those phrases on google. You can see how competitive the phrases are by the number of adverts being shown.
He does have a domain like www.name-hotel.tld with a PR4. Are two months a realistic estimation? Thanks, you made me feel better. Will the optimisation procedure involve spending a considerable amount of money for buying incoming links. If yes, will how much (rough rough rough estimation) Finally, how much should I charge for this, if I decide to do it?
Now there's something I really can't answer, nor the ammount of money it'll cost nor the ammount you should charge, but if it was I, I'd put things clear to him and charge whatever $$$ + expenses (link buying, etc.) No guaranteed results...
I am no SEO expert, but I guess hotel is a competitive keyword and the other part of the phase also fairly popular. IMHO it would not be easy to get to top 3 without an already established site.
Go to SeoMoz.org and run the phrases through thier kewyword difficulty tool. It's free and will tell you how competitive the kws are and how much seo/link building you'll need to do. http://www.seomoz.org/tools/kwtool.php
donnareed: Thanks for the link, seems like a helpful tool. He wants guaranteed results. He made clear that if I can not do the seo thing, he does not want the web site develeopment. It is an all or nothing deal. Are there any seo experts here that could give me a helping hand, or guide me throught the seo procedure? I realy realy need to do this job.
Just make sure you don't get in over your head. You would be better off to pass on the job than make yourself look bad.
Well that should be your answer If you have to come to a forum and ask if you can handle a job, you are probably not ready to take on a paying client.
My advice would be walk away from this client as he will only be a pain in the arse when things dont go his way. Imagine you do get onto the top three results on Google and the next day the site has vanished from their index after an update? Would you be prepared to deal with the pressure from the client? You really need to sit him down and explain nobody can give guaranteed results when it comes to high listings in Search Engines. You can explain to him that you'll work hard in getting him there. Also trip advisor would be one your rivals and I would suspect they have a team of SEO folks working on their site. They are my rivals and its not easy.