Thread: Do You Trust SEO Companies With Your Sites?

That so does sound like article spinning!
Just reading it is bad on the brain.

But the good news people?
SEO is only for those sucked into believing they need SEO to survive!
SEO is only for those who RELY 100% on google!

Face it, spend your time PROMOTING your site and not obsessing about SEO!
Duplicate Content Will Hurt You | Random Ramblings from Iowa

No ways. Because, one cannot judge whether what they are offering is right and do they have sufficient capability? Most of the SEO companies give fake assurances and never fulfill it.

Of course I'd trust a SEO company with my website. The question, of course, is what SEO company? There are a lot of factors to pay attention to when looking at who to hire that can help you to weed out who sucks and who doesn't. For example, anyone who guarantees you anything with SEO is scamming you...There are no guarantees. So, the second I see a guarantee, I walk away. I also walk away if the SEO says, "Okay, we're going to start by link building." I see three steps in SEO. First, there is the site audit. The SEO checks everything to see if there are any problems with the site. The second step is to put together a site project plan where you put, in detail, exactly what should be done and why it should be done. Finally, that plan is executed. If those three steps aren't taken, I question the reliability of the SEO company.

As for what iowadawg said about SEO. You couldn't be farthest from the truth. SEO is for those that understand that ranking in search engines can greatly increase the exposure of their business. By optimizing your website and producing content that people want to link to, you've effectively done SEO. So, it's not a waste of time. It's simply another step in the overall growth of your brand on the web.

The real problem with SEO companies is that you cannot track their work and it also costs more. Instead, hire an in-house SEO specialist which will give good run for your money.

Originally Posted by 5starpix

I was thinking of hiring someone from DP to do some search engine optimization on my site, and get it ranking higher in the serps. I then thought, what if after the deal, they plan to sabotage my site (ie: bring down my site in the rankings by pointing it from bad sites).

With any business engagement, you run the risk of being ripped off, sabotaged or cloned. You need to do plenty of due diligence before you hire someone.

Originally Posted by 5starpix

This is one of my biggest concerns when hiring someone to do work on my site. You never know who it really is, and they could easily perform some bl4ackh4t techniques on your site. They could even be your competitor.

That is possible, and the only way you can fix that is by "defining" what you need done and sending the different pieces to different vendors. It's also important that you constantly keep monitoring your rankings and links to see what's happening. IF you believe someone's faltering, fire them immediately!

Originally Posted by 5starpix

Wow, that sure does suck. $7000 is hell lotta money! We really have to be careful with who we deal with. I was also thinking of going with a local company in my city.

Local companies give you more of a trust factor since you can actually "see" them, and you know that they're real. But, knowing that you're from Canada, local SEO companies will charge you anywhere between $500 - $2000/mo to do SEO work.

Originally Posted by Natural Elements

Ironically after that, I did a better job myself. That's perhaps the most enjoyable part of my business to compete with SEO gurus

You're always your best SEO. It's only a question of whether you have the time to do everything yourself

Originally Posted by Mafiamaster

For example, anyone who guarantees you anything with SEO is scamming you...There are no guarantees. So, the second I see a guarantee, I walk away.

Not true. The SEO cannot guarantee rankings, but can predict to a large extent what kind of results he'll deliver. If an SEO promises nothing, guarantees nothing, he's off the hook and if he produces no results you lose all the money.

I would much rather prefer selecting my own keyphrases and asking my SEO vendor to give me a guarantee that at least 60% of those terms will be in page #1 six months from now. If I have the appropriate technology to track everything, this will work.

Originally Posted by Mafiamaster

I also walk away if the SEO says, "Okay, we're going to start by link building." I see three steps in SEO. First, there is the site audit. The SEO checks everything to see if there are any problems with the site. The second step is to put together a site project plan where you put, in detail, exactly what should be done and why it should be done. Finally, that plan is executed. If those three steps aren't taken, I question the reliability of the SEO company.

I would have him do this before I pay him.

Most SEO folks have automated audit tools, and I would prefer them doing the actually on-site and link building work after I pay them.

Originally Posted by ciol

The real problem with SEO companies is that you cannot track their work and it also costs more. Instead, hire an in-house SEO specialist which will give good run for your money.

In my opinion, when you're hiring anyone to do anything, tracking is the most important thing. You're going to have to treat the SEO like an employee - micro-manage them if you have to.

With SEO, I'd think the benchmarks you'd like to look for are:

A. Rankings
B. Links

You can easily track rankings by utilizing a software like Ranktracker or Web CEO.

You can analyze link data by looking at Yahoo Site Explorer. If the SEO has made the changes he promised, is building links, and if the rankings are improving as a result of this, I'd assume that a good job is being done.

Anyone that's administered a blog or moderated a webmaster forum for a week knows 98% of the link builders give the other 2% a bad name. There are some good ones... But simply put, the majority build links that will be removed as spam and literally make your URL persona non grata at many of the venues where the link was unceremoniously dropped in ways that just pissed off the site owners.

Turning some bozo loose to "promote" your site with xrumer or scrapebox is like turning a chimp loose with a gun in your bedroom. That is not the way to build a brand. There's merit in building good back links, but you're better off doing it slowly yourself than doing it fast and cheap. If you know someone personally that you trust they may be an exception, but NOT a job to assign to "the cheapest bidder".

Originally Posted by 5starpix

I am really thinking of hiring someone, but I just can't trust someone on the other end who I never met.

Have you guys thought about this, or any opinions you would like to share?

I have turned down all offers from SEO services. I know from forum moderating that a lot of the link dropping is done by hired SEO companies and not the site owner. My biggest fear with hiring an SEO company is that they would just spam my site and I'd lose out and end up with a bad reputation. You also have a good point they could be your competitor, plus you never know who you're going to get at DP. One SEO company phone spammed me even though I'm on the U.S. federal "Do Not Call" list. That looks really bad and they can get fined by the FTC for that. Other SEO firms e-mail spam me about their services. The fact that they came off as spammers from the beginning is not promising. They would probably just spam promote my site.

Originally Posted by robjones

If you know someone personally that you trust they may be an exception, but NOT a job to assign to "the cheapest bidder".

I have my first 2 SEO customers now. One is a guy I've known for many years. The other is someone who works at a store I frequent and wants to start his own business. I'm not about to go offer SEO services as if it's my new business that I'm trying to start, but will do it for people who I know trust me. I also encouraged them to call SEO companies and listen to their gimmicky high-priced sales pitches and compare it to my reasonable rational sales pitch. I tell them I have achieved real results with search engines, but any company who guarantees top 10 rankings is lying, since there is no magical way to do that. I put them on monthly plans, minimum 3 months. I made the fees low for the first 3 months. That way I can show them results, then ask for more money for a more aggressive campaign. It builds more trust than these SEO companies who want $4,000 up front. It also adds regular income for me as the months go by.

Originally Posted by vectro

I have turned down all offers from SEO services. I know from forum moderating that a lot of the link dropping is done by hired SEO companies and not the site owner. My biggest fear with hiring an SEO company is that they would just spam my site and I'd lose out and end up with a bad reputation.

Exactly. Thanks to the power tools available, half-ass SEOs can destroy the clients rep faster and with greater efficiency than ever before.

Other SEO firms e-mail spam me about their services. The fact that they came off as spammers from the beginning is not promising. They would probably just spam promote my site.

If their sales approach for their own services is to send out spam... three guesses what they'll use to "help" your site.

I have my first 2 SEO customers now. One is a guy I've known for many years. The other is someone who works at a store I frequent and wants to start his own business. I'm not about to go offer SEO services as if it's my new business that I'm trying to start, but will do it for people who I know trust me.

Congrats. A sound way to go. So many biz owners get baffled with BS by the first guy that drops a few acronyms in conversation and asks for a few thousand $$. They get taken to the cleaners by SEO Professionals who are not even skilled amateurs.

I've done a little freebie consulting for friends, and we've gotten good results. It isn't brain surgery, especially where competitors weren't doing the right things. Often as simple as on-site tweaks to not shoot themself in the foot, a handful of submissions to the right places, and a time investment in linkbuilding they can do themsef to increase visibility.

A lotta rookie onsite mistakes are easy fixes. A guy with a saddle and tack operation sold Western clothing at his store and site. His index page was chock full clothing names related to card games. Looking at the site thru SEO tools it was clear Google wouldve considered it a gambling site. Had him take that product to a subpage, de-emphasize the clothing names, then build a simple index page clearly about his primary products (including better site nav and an address w/map, important if you want folks to a brick and mortar retail shop). Got him into some *good* general and local directories, added a few reviews.

SERPs rocketed past his competitors, all of whom were making the same mistakes he'd made.

Didnt charge him, but could easily have gotten him to refer me to paying clients IF that's the field I wanted to enter. Still since most wont spend time in here learning.. those that do can charge for staying up with how to get good rankings.

Shortcuts like paying a stranger $$$ for a zillion links package is lazy, and costs more than the small fee. If a site owner wants to utilize junklink pros posting generic blog comments and spamming the hell outta forums... he oughta build his own serps by solid methods first. Then when competitors ask how he did it...

"Hey, I know where you can get 10,000 forum profiles & blog comments with anchor text for $50! You can thank me later."

Originally Posted by Ash

Not true. The SEO cannot guarantee rankings, but can predict to a large extent what kind of results he'll deliver. If an SEO promises nothing, guarantees nothing, he's off the hook and if he produces no results you lose all the money.

I would much rather prefer selecting my own keyphrases and asking my SEO vendor to give me a guarantee that at least 60% of those terms will be in page #1 six months from now. If I have the appropriate technology to track everything, this will work.

That's why you pick a SEO who has had success. There's no such thing as a guarantee in the SEO world. We can try our darndest, but going up against Google is impossible. If an SEO says, "I promise I can get this keyword to the front page," be weary. How can he possibly know that? How can he possibly know what Google's algorithm will look like tomorrow? If he takes the natural SEO approach, over time, you'll achieve it. But, there are no promises or guarantees in SEO. There are simply goals to try to achieve. That's why it's so important to be weary who you hire. Pick someone who actually knows what they're doing and the risk for you is severely decreased. SEO is like any other marketing; it's not full proof.

Originally Posted by Ash

I would have him do this before I pay him.

Most SEO folks have automated audit tools, and I would prefer them doing the actually on-site and link building work after I pay them.

An automated audit tool is never as good as a true audit. That's why I only do true audits. However, I'd never do an audit without being compensated first. So, you want to get the audit and the action plan, see them, and then pay me? How does that make sense to me? It goes back to the whole principle of hiring the right SEO. If you hire someone who is reputable or knows what they're talking about, the audit and action plan are worth paying for in advance...Or, at least working out a 50/50 agreement.

The idea of an SEO in the webmaster world is very different than what a true SEO is. We've got people who clamor around DP offering their "SEO Expertise" when they know nothing. There's a reason true SEOs don't advertise on those sites...Their work is precious and their time is even more precious. You want good SEO? Expect to pay for it. Or, watch people spam the fuck out of the Internet to 'get you links.' But, that's juts my opinion.

As for micromanaging and "you're always your best SEO." That's as far from the truth as possible. I leave a client if he micromanages me. The reason he hired me was because I know SEO. The reason I was hired in the first place was to help them achieve rankings. If you micromanage me, it gets in the way of me doing my job and my time is precious. And, the same about you being your own best SEO. Someone who specializes in SEO is always better than someone who is a jack of all trades. But hey, we have differing opinions. That's okay.

I hire Va for small Seo project, I haven't yet given any big SEO projects to the service provider.