Hi everyone, I have hired someone on contract basis to write a web site for me a month ago. The web site is almost done but I am getting worried right now, as oppose to being happy, as I read on many forum that SEO is not going to be something that you can pay a certain amount of money and get the result in a month or so. Luckily I won't need a lot of traffic from the internet at the beginning because I have already had certain degree of business relationship with my local customers and the web site is simply going to provide more "value" to the customer. But I am definitely looking forward to getting new customers from the internet in long run. The problem I am facing is that my web site is designed by the web site design company and I really can't do much to change the "code" of the page except of the content. So now my question is, Should I hire some professional to do the SEO for my web site? (but that will cost a lot) or Should I ask my programmer to allow me changing some of the code in my web site? If so, what "items" or "field" is needed for the SEO stuff? My last question is, is it worth the time to actually learn this SEO stuff by myself (I can spend 1-2 hours a day to study this stuff) compare to those CCP or google adwords? Any idea?
If you can spend 2 hours a day doing SEO to promote your site, than you are probably better off learning and doing it yourself and could save yourself some money. If you are interested in getting started right away, you might be able to get someone to "coach" you through the beginner stuff - for a small fee.
It's well worth doing yourself if you can spare the time. It's better economy to outsource things like link building and directory submission and oversee the project yourself.
Hi It really depends on your technical knowledge, how fast you can learn, your time frame for your site and of course your budget. If you think you have the knowledge, fast learning and your site doesnt need to be optimize right away and you don't have enough budget. You can probably do it yourself. Good luck.
As I stated before, I am a newbie and know very little about SEO, but I am willing to learn it by myself. What is the best way to get started?
The best first step would probably be to find out what toolsets your web developer used to build your site and to become comfortable with those toolsets.
I am basically in the same boat as you. I had someone design my site so I only have access to a page editor to make changes. In my opinion, the best place to learn about seo are from forums such as this one. I do have a few books, but they really didn't help. It wasn't until I began posting on numerous forums that I began to understand the task at hand. Just make sure before you sign off on the site that you have your developer put good keywords in your meta tags because I don't think that is something you will have access to change later. Atleast I don't. I only started doing seo this past January and have managed to get great rankings in msn, decent rankings in yahoo and in google, let's just say that is a work in progress. But, I am making progress. This is all with a frame site. (I didn't now then what I know now regarding framed sites). Live and learn. What I have done is submit my site to lots of free directories with good anchor text (hundreds actually), seek out quality, relevant link exchange partners, put my link in all the forums I am active in, do some on-page seo including increasing the keyword density, bolding text, etc. and I am always trying to add more content to the site when possible. I plan to start writing some articles to submit soon as well. I have come along way, but still have a long way to go. However, I am having fun with it. Best of luck to you and I hope to see you around the forums!
Janet is right in that the forums (specifically SEO forums) are the best place to learn SEO. This field changes at an extremely rapid pace, and books are typically outdated within a few months - or less. I also think you're better off learning to do it yourself, rather than hiring someone else to do it. Once you've learned it, and provided you keep yourself updated, you can then make any necessary changes, or work with new sites, yourself - it's the gift that keeps on giving. If you pay for SEO services, you'll need to pay again each time you require work done in this area. Just my two cents... Sam