Hiring an SEO from ELANCE

[Eric Dick]

Hey Elancers and SEO's,

I am hiring a firm to do SEO on a few low competition words in a consulting niche where there is not a lot of competition on PPC or SEO.

I would think that if they have good feedback I can work with anyone I get a good feeling for no??

Does anyone have advice on hiring SEO's from elance, who are either advanced Elance users or SEO's??

Thanks in advance

[Voasi]

Typically, you get what you pay for with hiring from Elance, Rentacoder, Odesk, etc... They might submit a few article directories, do some blog commenting, do forum "signatures" for links, use pinging services and maybe a few RSS feed submission sites...but at the end of the day, do all those "activities" amount to rankings? ...sadly, no. Usually, it takes a lot more creativity and knowledge on building quality incoming links.

[TheGoogleGuy]

I agree totally with the above response. Seems 90% will give you the same canned response and not a single one will employ any new methodologies or techniques to help you rank. Some questions to ask the firm especially if they are abroad:

1) Do you use white hat or black hat techniques? (if they do not know.....RUN)
2) Are you available during normal working hours?
3) Do they require more than a 10-20% deposit upfront or are they willing to prove their worth?
4) What are some terms they have ranked for?
5) Do they have current references?

This should be a good start - let me know if you have any more questions.

[Eric Dick]

Originally Posted by TheGoogleGuy

I agree totally with the above response. Seems 90% will give you the same canned response and not a single one will employ any new methodologies or techniques to help you rank. Some questions to ask the firm especially if they are abroad:

1) Do you use white hat or black hat techniques? (if they do not know.....RUN)
2) Are you available during normal working hours?
3) Do they require more than a 10-20% deposit upfront or are they willing to prove their worth?
4) What are some terms they have ranked for?
5) Do they have current references?

This should be a good start - let me know if you have any more questions.

Thanks for this, many of the providers do have a list of customers and keywords they have ranked for, they are willing to provide support, within reason which I have no problem with, and I believe one of them had a pay per ranking program and obviously that can range depending on the keyword.

[MarkAse]

I think, if I was going to outsource I'd break the task up into smaller, more manageable parts. Stuff like 25 articles, then find someone to submit them separately. Hire someone for blog comments, etc etc.

I wouldn't want to put all of my eggs in one basket so to speak.

[thomasr]

I would say to hire an SEO company with experience in your niche. I offer my company as we have clients ranging from Ditech to Real Estate to car dealers

Online Advertisng Agency, Internet Marketing, Pay Per Click, Banner Ads, Website Design, Interactive Ad Services

If the project is big I would look somewhere other than Elance

[LindseyRainwater]

Being an SEO writer, I just have to put in my two cents on Elance.

You can get good workers from there. But at the same time, you have to watch who you are getting to work for you.

If you aren't strictly price shopping (taking the lowest bidder) then there is a good chance you will get someone good.

My personal experience trying to get work on there though is that people who have no business being freelancers will undercut everyone just so they can get jobs. Then they end up doing crummy work.

I've stopped trying to get work on Elance because I'm not going to work for free. Any other freelance writer I know also refuses to "play the bidding game."

So, if you are going to use Elance, please just find someone with a fair price and good credentials. You'll be happier with the results.

Sorry if that seemed off-subject. I've just seen too many freelancers AND buyers get burned on sites like that.