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March 9, 2011 at 1:59 am #1055222Up::0ray_223, post: 67932 wrote:SEO is the business of generating traffic – not generating sales.
Good luck
I don’t agree with this. I think that Search Engine Optimisers have a responsibility to be generating traffic that has a high chance of converting. SEOs should also be analysing the website and the traffic and making suggestions on how to improve conversions. To just pump traffic to a website isn’t enough. SEO is about ROI. If it weren’t about ROI, why would any business owner buy it?
March 9, 2011 at 2:04 am #1055223Up::0See, hearing about sh*t like this is exactly why I no longer identify myself as an SEO. I’m a Web Guy, that can do SEO.
Lots said it just fine (ray_223 best perhaps) so I won’t belabour the point, but I can tell you, and everyone, this:
You absolutely DO NOT need monthly work to rank well. Anyone that says differently is full of it.
Remember that, and avoid. SO sorry you got the screwgie.
Good luck
-Judd
PS – Screw this, just decided I’m going to start making tutorials on DIY SEO. I’m going to espouse all my knowledge publicly on my site and educate folks so they don’t have to fall victim to the snake-oil salesmen.
March 9, 2011 at 2:05 am #1055224Up::0emilyk, post: 67931 wrote:HelloI was hoping to get some advice on an SEO campgain that I’ve been paying $350 mth to a Marketing Company for and haven’t gotten any results on.
My site is a jewellery on http://www.flavouroftheweek.com.au and I’m yet to generate any sales.
It’s definitely been a learning exercise, i.e. all of the strong words, i.e. silver jewellery the company wouldn’t work on for me, and even with less popular words, 80% still aren’t even coming up on google after a 6mth campaign.
Any advice? Or is it simply a case of I’m going to have to pay $5-$10k to get my site somewhere where it’ll actually be seen to make sales?
Thank you for any help!
Depending on how competitive the keywords are it can take up to 6 months before you see rankings. $350 per month isn’t that expensive. Are they providing you with a monthly report that tracks the rank of each keyword? Check to see if it the keywords have increased at all since the beginning. If they have, then your money isn’t wasted. The keywords just haven’t hit #1 yet. Also request to see a backlinking report. This is the main factor in increased rankings. If they are generating backlinks for you, nothing will happen. This is what I do for my clients. It shows them exactly what they are getting plus a record of the changes in rank every month. Nice and transparent that way.
In the end, just sounds like you need more communication with your agency. Your agreement should have some kind of minimum SLA. If they haven’t been building backlinks for you, request a refund.
March 9, 2011 at 2:30 am #1055225Up::0Daniel Duckworth, post: 68033 wrote:Depending on how competitive the keywords are it can take up to 6 months before you see rankings. $350 per month isn’t that expensive. Are they providing you with a monthly report that tracks the rank of each keyword? Check to see if it the keywords have increased at all since the beginning. If they have, then your money isn’t wasted. The keywords just haven’t hit #1 yet. Also request to see a backlinking report. This is the main factor in increased rankings. If they are generating backlinks for you, nothing will happen. This is what I do for my clients. It shows them exactly what they are getting plus a record of the changes in rank every month. Nice and transparent that way.In the end, just sounds like you need more communication with your agency. Your agreement should have some kind of minimum SLA. If they haven’t been building backlinks for you, request a refund.
Sorry Daniel but I think you are missing the point and that is you will never get that site to rank well as it is and $350 / month is very expensive if you don’t get a result. The keyword density is far too low as far as I can see, there are technical issues on the site, the content in the most part is non existent. If the SEO company was “professional” these issues would have been addressed.
Good SEO starts with good content. Not miracle formulas or automated software or back links to some dodgy Eastern European porn site; and it is not about reporting unless that reporting is around pre-agreed objectives and activities.
You can create pages of reports from SEO software and all that does is provide an excuse and mostly are a total waste of time.
In the end sounds like they need a NEW agency.
John
March 9, 2011 at 2:36 am #1055226Up::0Daniel Duckworth, post: 68033 wrote:Depending on how competitive the keywords are it can take up to 6 months before you see rankings. $350 per month isn’t that expensive.Daniel, don’t forget that this forum is for small businesses – I would think that $350 a month is more than most peoples entire marketing budget, not just SEO budget.
March 9, 2011 at 3:04 am #1055227Up::0Daniel – if they are paying $350pm and not getting instruction on changing their meta-data and page content (or having the SEO person do it for them (GULP!!) ) then they are NOT getting SEO in any shape or form.
Your sig like says you are a SEO consultant, I am surprised you have missed this part of what they did not get.
Everyone!! you don’t need to pay for SEO. Better spending money on great product images. You can soon learn SEO (put a weekend aside for it) and get as good a result as from maybe 90% of people in the market. If you want to pay for it, you still need to put a weekend aside to learn a good amount so you can properly evaluate what their offer is.
But the bottom line is you are better only getting 100 visitors a week of 15% of those convert, than 1000 if only 0.5% convert.
March 9, 2011 at 3:14 am #1055228Up::0King, post: 68048 wrote:Daniel – if they are paying $350pm and not getting instruction on changing their meta-data and page content (or having the SEO person do it for them (GULP!!) ) then they are NOT getting SEO in any shape or form.Your sig like says you are a SEO consultant, I am surprised you have missed this part of what they did not get.
Everyone!! you don’t need to pay for SEO. Better spending money on great product images. You can soon learn SEO (put a weekend aside for it) and get as good a result as from maybe 90% of people in the market. If you want to pay for it, you still need to put a weekend aside to learn a good amount so you can properly evaluate what their offer is.
But the bottom line is you are better only getting 100 visitors a week of 15% of those convert, than 1000 if only 0.5% convert.
I think this discussion is definitely producing a few great points:
- SEO shouldn’t cost as much as it seems to, particularly when it seems that those charging for it are doing so unscrupulously.
- There are LOTS of other factors that go into making a website “successful” and they ALL need equal time. Not rankings and traffic volume and “Top of Google” and all that other bullshit.
So, to recap on my feelings:
- Don’t pay what you can’t afford, and KNOW what you’re paying for.
- Get an overview of what your site needs to be successful FIRST, then budget accordingly.
Good luck, and have a good website.
March 9, 2011 at 3:37 am #1055229Up::0King, post: 68048 wrote:Everyone!! you don’t need to pay for SEO. Better spending money on great product images. You can soon learn SEO (put a weekend aside for it) and get as good a result as from maybe 90% of people in the market. If you want to pay for it, you still need to put a weekend aside to learn a good amount so you can properly evaluate what their offer is.I agree with this to a certain degree, mainly because I’m a DIY kind of guy in most areas of my life, but just because you CAN do something yourself, doesn’t mean you SHOULD do it! SEO, like many other things that need to be done in a small business, can be time consuming. Paying someone else to do it for you while you focus on the areas of your business that you do best, is often a better investment of your time (and therefore money).
The same argument could be made for the following tasks as well:
Everyone!! you don’t need to pay for gardeningEveryone!! you don’t need to pay for cleaningEveryone!! you don’t need to pay for bookeepingEveryone!! you don’t need to pay for child careetc, etc…
Learning enough about SEO so that you can evaluate their offer and then their work is vitally important. You could also employ another professional to do this evaluation for you – a web designer perhaps? It all comes back to the old idea of putting together a team of trusted professionals, rather than trying to do it all ourselves. I know I try to do too much myself at times, as I often think it’s easy to do, or it would take just as long to find someone to do it, but on evaluation I know that often the job done by a specialist is done in a fraction of the time and to a higher level of quality than I can do myself, and I would have been much better off financially using that time to find new customers.
I think the important take home message from this thread is that it’s not easy for a lay person to know whether they are getting good value for money from a company claiming to provide “SEO services”. Value for money could be had at $10 flat, or $5000 per month, but knowing what you’re getting for that money is vital. I think that things will get a bit clearer in time, as people start to understand this black art, but in the time being unfortunately some people will get burned – just like some will continue to be burned by fraudulent roof repair salesman, and house painters etc, who take people’s money and then do a runner, or water down the paint so it only lasts 2 or 3 months. It’s not a new problem, just the same old scams and tricks applied to a new industry. Let’s not let a few bad apples tarnish the whole industry!
Jexley’s idea of supplying free info to people needing SEO services is a great one – most business people will still employ a pro to get the work done when they realise it’s something they’re not good at, don’t have the time or don’t enjoy doing it – but at least they will be in a positition to make informed decisions.
By the way King – I wasn’t having a go at you. Just using your post to make a point. I think your point of view is very valid and I agree with most of it entirely.
Cheers,
JohnMarch 9, 2011 at 3:42 am #1055230Up::0ONSITE – no grief taken…I see your approach and concur – but any business owner needs to have some sort of a handle on everything in the business, even if only to know enough to make a decision.
March 9, 2011 at 3:44 am #1055231Up::0AgentMail, post: 67966 wrote:Is it possible the $350 per month is actually Adwords money, and they have just sold it to you in the wrong manner?This is a good point as Adwords can be highly targeted. SEO alone doesn’t guarantee sales.
March 9, 2011 at 3:50 am #1055232Up::0All of this SEO stuff confuses the hell out me – I was excited that I was able to build my own website (which obviously needs some tidying up) at the beginning but now slightly overwhelmed by where to go to.
I have obviously been ripped on the SEO campaign – the joys of not understanding what you’re buying…..
So, it anyone wants to take on getting me listed more effectively, driving customers and conversions to the site whether it be SEO and/or PPC or whatever else, coupled with a website clean up give me a bell as I’m serious about this and want to make it work. Or teach me how to SEO if that’s the best way I’m more than happy to invest.
March 9, 2011 at 3:52 am #1055233Up::0onsiteTECHS, post: 68064 wrote:…most business people will still employ a pro to get the work done when they realise it’s something they’re not good at, don’t have the time or don’t enjoy doing it – but at least they will be in a positition to make informed decisions.
Precisely why I’m doing it mate, thank you so much for that.I’ve always been completely transparent about what I do and how I do it, even going so far as losing clients because I’ve said “if you’re in this for a #1 ranking for a particular keyword, you’ve got the wrong guy. I’m going to first page rankings for all kinds of keywords, and then convert that traffic.”
I had a personal trainer/nutritionist client that actually asked me to stop explaining what I was doing and just do it. “I know what to do, I just don’t have time to do it. You know how to eat and how work out, but when you want to do it better, you’ll ring me.”
We’re all professionals on this forum, and it’s not a terrible place to start by finding somebody reputable for certain services. There are a LOT of shysters out there purporting their SEO skills, and not a fair few of them chiming in every time somebody posts about SEO, but I think a thread like this really identifies the folks concerned with value and helping a fellow soloist rather than the self-touting blowhards.
Well done you guys, I’m really quite proud of how this discussion is going.
March 9, 2011 at 4:11 am #1055234Up::0King, post: 68069 wrote:ONSITE – no grief taken…I see your approach and concur – but any business owner needs to have some sort of a handle on everything in the business, even if only to know enough to make a decision.Absolutely – it is very important that you know enough about every part of your business that you can tell when someone is trying to pull the wool over your eyes. Unfortunately it’s easier said than done for many people who have no previous experience or knowledge in the online world, and only a very small budget to work with.
I think that this forum is one of the most valuable resources I’ve found since starting my business. Hopefully threads like this won’t be needed in the future, but for now at least they help some soloists make educated decisions.
March 9, 2011 at 4:41 am #1055235Up::0AgentMail, post: 68040 wrote:Daniel, don’t forget that this forum is for small businesses – I would think that $350 a month is more than most peoples entire marketing budget, not just SEO budget.Exactly, and it’s all about perception – I consider a Rolex watch to be expensive but to Richard Branson it’s not much money at all…
And despite whether something is cheap or expensive, if $350 is being paid for SEO then that’s what should be done… SEO!
March 9, 2011 at 4:47 am #1055236Up::0Jexley, post: 68074 wrote:Precisely why I’m doing it mate, thank you so much for that.I’ve always been completely transparent about what I do and how I do it, even going so far as losing clients because I’ve said “if you’re in this for a #1 ranking for a particular keyword, you’ve got the wrong guy. I’m going to first page rankings for all kinds of keywords, and then convert that traffic.”
I had a personal trainer/nutritionist client that actually asked me to stop explaining what I was doing and just do it. “I know what to do, I just don’t have time to do it. You know how to eat and how work out, but when you want to do it better, you’ll ring me.”
We’re all professionals on this forum, and it’s not a terrible place to start by finding somebody reputable for certain services. There are a LOT of shysters out there purporting their SEO skills, and not a fair few of them chiming in every time somebody posts about SEO, but I think a thread like this really identifies the folks concerned with value and helping a fellow soloist rather than the self-touting blowhards.
Well done you guys, I’m really quite proud of how this discussion is going.
My pleasure.
I also believe in transparancy, and often turn away clients if I think they require a higher level of expertise than I’m able to offer. I like to think that I point them in the right direction when that is the case.
I’ve had several customers over the years (not specifically website or SEO related, just IT in general), who’s eyes have glazed over and have told me that they don’t care how it works, as long as I know what I’m doing. That’s the sort of blind faith that most people used to give their Doctors and Pharmacists years ago – now, though, with all the information on health conditions and medications that is available online, in books and on TV, most people visit their Doctor with a list of possible ailments and ask their Doctor to confirm or explain the specifics – the nature of that industry has changed. Some Doctors hate the fact that their patients have so much information at their disposal (because it’s so easy to misinterpret something you get on the internet), but most I’ve spoken to embrace the change and have learned to manage it through better communication with their clients (I worked in a hospital for 10 years, so asked many Doctors what they thought about this topic!)
I think that the online industry – SEO specifically – will go through that same cultural change very soon… as soon as the general population learns enough about the topic to search for the information in Google. At the moment there is such a low level of understanding of how it all works, not because the information is not out there, but because people don’t even know what questions to ask, or what keywords they should search for (ask a typical business person what the difference is between Adwords and Adsense, as an example).
It’s an exciting time to be involved in IT and the online world. Change can be scary for many of us too, and does result in some mistakes made along the way, but in the end the quality operators and good information will float to the top.
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