Why would you sites get banned if you hire an SEO? If you dont research the company before hand and employ some cowboy black hat SEO then yeah maybe. I personally only use white hate techniques on any client site that we use and never have had a problem with any of our sites
voasi wrote: Interesting what you say here because i tend to believe that is more leaning towards Marketing and not SEO. This marketing will result in extra backlinks (oneway) and hopefully provide a better SE placement. It's the same as building backlinks for a site to get more popular in the SE for specific keywords. I am not fully disputting that Marketing doesn't have any SEO value because surely it has regarding the potential to gain more backlinks but i can't see how conversion rates as well as PPC management can be related to SEO since neither of these two have any influence of the rankings in SE for specific keywords. I am surely missing something here and am interested what this is so i can view the whole picture but at this point i don't see any truth behind this. I would love to hear more about this Vaois if you care to share more information about this. And of course others as well
it is a passion of mind. try computer networking los angeles...mine is the first site. Los Angeles Singles Service #1 on google so you have to love and be in it for the long term to make any money
Are you saying that the best strategy to support yourself full-time with SEO work is to continually build your own personal sites until they produce enough revenue to support you? Is that what you are saying?
I think SEO is becoming more SEM (search engine marketing). Let me put this scenario at ya - You're a MOM and POP shop and you go to an SEO and they get your site great rankings for all your pages. They're happy and the SEO is satisfied he's knows his shit. Weeks go by and the MOM and POP realize that they got all these great rankings, but their conversions are less then 1% per page. They thought SEO was the key (and spent a lot of money on it too). Let's say this same MOM and POP shop went to a SEO/M who not only works with getting links, on-page optimization, etc.. but also works on site structure, usability, accessibility, etc... This SEO/M gets great rankings for the MOM and POP shop and they're converting visitors from search engines at 15% on impression! Also, the SEO/M recommend they start a newsletter and gather emails for email marketing and "drip" email marketing. What SEO/M would you rather go to as the MOM and POP shop? That's where I feel SEO/M is going today. It's not longer checking Title attributes, ALT tags, keyword density, incoming links, meta tags, Title tags, outbound links, etc... it's that and so much more. And if you know how to do all that and more, your chances of success are greater then just your average "S.E.O". IMO
I with you all the way on that concept Voasi. When i say SEO i mean to include a broader SEM approach. It seems that a good SEO/SEM consultant should offer a more comprehensive method of marketing a client's site. Traffic with no conversion is useless and an SEO would not have a client very long if they did not help them see results and ROI. I'd still like to hear from scott659 to respond to my Q above. You still out ther scott?
I see what you mean Voasi. Only search engine optimalisation stands by itself and it's goals are different from making a website attractive regarding sales. It's more about presentation and user friendlyness in that case. This is also based on the design principle and in my oppinion not related to SEO. Perhaps i am wrong here but after your clear explanation i see no contributions from SEM for search engine rankings. SEM (Search Engine Marketing) is for making a website user friendly and pointing out marketing strategies. Only marketing that is search engine related is for instance Adwords and the like and other efforts to promote a website and enhancing the experience of a website to convert is not related to SEO. So i can't agree that SEM is of any influence of SEO apart from gaining potential backlinks of campaigns such as Adwords. I do agree that clients will prefer a company or individual that are proficient in SEM and SEO. Nokia made a good point and i can't see that SEM would make such a big difference in search engine rankings. I can only see one benefit and that is balancing the two against each other such as SEM and SEO and to make both comply with each other as best as possible. Perhaps this is also what you meant
I consider SEO to be purely related to on-site work: key phrase research, changing page titles, adding content, proper page coding, good linking structure, etc. I consider SEM to encompass all of that as well as any other activities intended to get visitors to the website, including link exchanges, paid advertising on the engines (but not on third party sites), reporting competitors fraudulent practices, directory submissions, etc. I charge a standard flat rate for my time. I chose an hourly number that I felt comfortable with, and as I become more effective I raise that number. I gain new customers through referrals (e.g. doing a good job for existing customers), and by ranking well for phrases related to my business (e.g. Vancouver Web Design). I'm really busy right now - too busy to keep up this pace. According to advice I've received, this means I should raise my rates until the amount of work I'm asked to do becomes more manageable again. I don't have a specific business vertical that I work for, so my work in this area is focused on the fundamentals.
Thanks for that Leif. Can you tell me a bit about how you started out working for yourself. Perhaps some advice of how to get the ball rolling. And maybe some pricing that your clients find reasonable. And description of included services that you offer. If you are uncomfortable disclosing pricing and such i understand. But, some general advice would be appreciated.
Hi, I am also doing as a SEO in internet marketing field. I like this job because it sounds like a research job. Do a research and the develop a strategy and go for it. It look good and interesting job. Never Stop Dreaming about the website which you want to be on up in search engines.
I work as a full time SEO expert for a Travel company also do freelance work. I usually get new clinets via my website promotion website and I do some paid advertisment.
For those of you that are full-time SEOers, how many sites/clients are you able to service effectively in a month? What does that entail? Do you have a limit on how many keyphrases you will target and monitor for them?
The last company I worked for was a pretty well respected White Hat firm (Yeah I couldn't believe they took me either ) They used to charge clients £25k for 20 phrases across the board... I left that company, because I *really* don't think you can actually quantify the work like that, and they didn't want to change... Just work on getting the site indexed, and don't concentrate on 'trophy' phrases, unless the client insists... Deliver *lots* of traffic, from a lot of phrases.
Yeah i work for a relatively small company and we only use white hate techniques. It costs £300 a day with most clients needing a couple of days per month. Ill research thier industry and add content each month focusing on one or 2 keywords etc. Normally my selling point is that most companies earn a hell of a lot more than £600 a month. Lets say they earn £6000, which still aint a lot, but using 10% of that money in SEO will return greater than a 10% increase in profits
In reponse to peanut, What is included with the 300/day? Do you just add a few keyword focuses pages? Do you also build links? Do you post articles to articles submission sites? What all do you do for that 300?
Well when i came into the company a few months ago, i was a little dubious how the previous promotions manager approached things, non of the sites had been validated, not a lot of content had been added. It looked like he had just focused on buidling up links and doing blogs etc. So for the past few months i have focuesed on validating the sites cleaning up the code. Adding new content to the sites with useful information etc. It is quite a slow process really because if a client has 1 days worht of work there is only so much you can get done. Id normally write 2-3 articles, probably add the best one to the client site, then just submit the others to 2-3 article directories. Then i normally go through some more of the websites trying to clean up more of the code, change the titles, research new keywords and alter any text to focus on a more appropriate keyword etc. I am still quite new to the business but so far all the work i have done has had positive results on all the sites so i guess i am not doing everything completely wrong. I try and approach the site as if it were my own and just add a bit at a time. Though it can be hard when you have to write about something completely inane that you have no idea about
What do you proivde to the client once the work is complete? Do you give them a report of what articles you added and links you created and basically say, "here is what we did for the money you spent with us" Do you also give them a report of their rankings? What i really want to know is: what do you put on paper to show the client what their money was spent on? and how do you show progress and value in your services?
Once a month i provide a report, of the key words that they are doing well with, the traffic to their site, what i have done during the month, what i am going to be doing during the next month. I find monthly communication to be very important as they know what they are paying for then