What would you say was the best route to go for a new online business regarding seo, nobody in company has any seo experience, and from what I have heard the structure it seo change regarding what the search engines do. Is learning it yourself the best way, if so where can you learn about it, how difficult, costly doing it this way, any advantages, disadvantages. Is hiring a proffesional company the best way to go, who to trust and who not to trust, what cost is reasonable, what to expect, any advantages, disadvantages If anyone has any opinions please share, try and not do a few word answers if possible like, yup doing it yourself is the way to go. As that aint really helping anything
bacardirum, -- What would you say was the best route to go for a new online business regarding seo, nobody in company has any seo experience, and from what I have heard the structure it seo change regarding what the search engines do. -- Honestly your question is not that easy to answer as it depends upon the learning ability of your current staff, what kind of budget for Marketing and Promotion you have available, and what kind of product you are going to sell online. If you have a strong web designer who completely understands html and all of the finer details, ( basically can code it, without a wyswig) then that person should be able to visit a few websites and do some reading and get a basic understanding of what is involved with search engine optimization and begin the long process. However, if there is no such person on staff, then it would be a very difficult road to learn and implement search friendly pages. In addition, if you an adequate budget to hire a freelance, they would be able to jump right in and you should see an increase in traffic within 60 days. ( Hopefully sooner, it would depend on the site and work involved). The more competitve the product/service you are selling than the more difficult (more work involved) to gain decent placement. Choosing a SEO company these days is difficult, as there are too many scammers out there, especially in an industry that is unregulated. Your best bet is to find someone who you cna have a relationship with , and can provide you with references. This way you can talk to others who they have done some work with. NOTE: You should not hire anyone who promises you Top Placement in any Search Engine. No one can ever make that kind of guarantee. When I work for my clients, I let them know up front that I do NOT guarantee placement of any keywords. My only goal is to increase their traffic and improve their overall Search Engine Visibility. I work with them long-term, minimum 6 months, usually longer, and take a very gradual approach. I work on a contracted per project basis, instead of hourly, this way my clients know exactly what it is going to cost them. There is no set rates within the industry. The Rates vary from a few hundred to tens of thousands. It just depends on what tasks they will perform (anything from PPC, link building, data feeds, press releases, etc.) and what you are willing to pay. If you have deep pockets, which very few small businesses do, then the sky is the limit as to what can be accomplished. I hope I answered all of your questions and didnt forget to mention anything. If you have very specific questions, then I might be able to help further. By the way, what kind of products/services are you selling? Steve
I wouldn't try to learn it now. There are so many other variables to the game then there were 5 years ago. I'd recommend checking out http://www.seomoz.org . He's got a good list of reputable SEO companies. He's become very well-known in the SEO space.
Seomoz.org - definitely a great place to start learning some stuff. A good comprehensive list of things is this page from their site: http://www.seomoz.org/articles/search-ranking-factors.php If you can read and understand that page, you may have it in you to take on SEO by yourself. However, if you do your own SEO, you must appreciate you will have a learning curve. Another option might be to hire an SEO that will get you started on the path to good rankings and also bring you up to speed so that eventually you can take over the SEO work yourself. i offer these types of services - so, I'll PM you also.
It totally depends on what type of site you have. If its a great site that can earn a lot of money online then you need to hire somebody good and be prepared to pay a few thousand $$'s minimum. Alternatively if your site isn't likely to make much money then you can probably learn it yourself or pay somebody who will only charge a couple of hundred $$'s but not get good results. Its all a question of getting value for money. You could pay $100 and make $200 profit in 6 months or you could pay $10k and make $50k. If you want me to take a look at your site I can offer some good advice for free!
SEO is common sense. Do it yourself. Spend an hour a day to read SEO articles. After a week the suggestions all talk about the same things. Get some backlinks to your site and invest in PPC ads in the meantime. The backlinks will get your site listed in 6 months to a year from now, while PPC ads gets you the traffic while your site is in the sandbox. You are welcome to join our link exchange network where many links page have attained high PR starting from PR0. link exchange