Have a couple hundred $s to spend on SEO - how to I pick a good company?

[TerryMason]

I've got a reputable Jeep forum that has fallen off for it's best keywords, and could use both on and off page seo work done. I'd like to hire someone to help me out with this, but I'm nervous.

I don't want to hire someone just to have them spam my site across my competitors.

So, how do you experts go about selecting a good SEO company? There are too many in the "warriors for hire" for me to successfully narrow it down.

Am I right to worry about a google penilty if I pick the wrong company?


* additional note - I've got a day job and a newborn son, so my time is limited. I'd prefer to outsource the dull portions of SEO to someone else.

[TerryMason]

BTW - this isn't a WTB thread. Instead I'd like to get tips on selecting a company, or suggestions if you've personally used a company.

[JohnBergmanReviews]

Have you ever looked at ODesk to outsource your SEO work? They have an extensive list of applicants that you can look at from around the world. You can read reviews and see the tests they've had to take in order to offer their services. You can also find someone in your price range to try. Give them a limited trial first.

I hope this helps.

[Brad Gosse]

A few hundred dollars is better spent on your own in house SEO time than a freelancer.

Spending a "few hundred" can easily get you a penalty if spent poorly. Be careful!

[Louise Green]

A couple of hundred won't get you far with SEO.. at least not with anyone worth their salt. A good SEO charges thousands.. because they know the value of the skills the offer. Many claim to be SEO experts, but in reality most won't have a good number of test pages out there monitoring search engine changes.

Find someone with at least 1000 active test pages.

[Wechito]

I agree with the last to comments. If your budget is just a couple of hundreds, you better invest them on in house SEO. Learn and apply yourself what you have learn.

[usearchme2]

Hi there

As someone said about couple of hundred dollers wont get you anywhere, but ripped off lol, as proper SEO takes a lot of leg work, which can take up a lot of time, which would cost.

Ask around if you find someone you think fits the bill, check the sites they have supposedly ranked and see where tehy are in Google before you hire them, you could even email the sites tehy have supposedly ranked to make sure.

But its not easy to find someone I must admit.

Woc

[TerryMason]

Between my day job and my newborn son I simply can't concentrate on link building. I believe that I've done a good job with onpage seo, but wouldn't mind a review. Hence my search for a seo company.

Has anyone here hired a SEO company before? If so, who did you use?

Originally Posted by Louise Evans

Find someone with at least 1000 active test pages.

What does this mean? Just that they have 1000 examples of their work?

[TerryMason]

Originally Posted by Wechito

you better invest them on in house SEO

What do you mean? The "in house" team is just me. Are you suggesting that I go to training? Not a bad idea, but probably more of a time investment than I'd like.

[jockpurtle]

If your site has less than 100 links then you are wasting your money on getting an seo company.

Same for the fact that you haven't done any seo on the site before.

Make sure that all your onpage optimisation is good.

Like only targetting two keywords per page.

And having all the title and descriptions on each page different.

Also remember that seo happens after time.

If you don't have 100 or so links, get them built using an outsourcer on odesk. blog comments, forum posting, rss submission, ping the site, articles

use linkvana.com (not aff link) for some good high powered pr links. or find someone to do some linkvana for you.

Excuse the fact that I will blatantly pitch a service that I use for my clients. it is at wholesale rate and they do an believable job but Don't use the service if you have not met the above criteria. seopartnered.com

[russells]

A few hundred dollars wont get you too far, to be honest. SEO companies, like myself, charge a monthly fee to maintain campaigns and I don't recommend a 'one-off' service and certainly wouldn't take your money in that way.

You are better off spending $37 per month on something like SEO Link Vine and pushing your site back up the rankings that way.

Good luck. If you need any pointers just PM me.

Russ.

[GuerrillaIM]

If you go ahead and spend a couple of hundred bucks on outsourcing SEO without learning SEO youself you are throwing your money away.

Successful SEO needs ALL of the following:

Carefully research keywords
Good onpage SEO
Good quality backlinks with correct anchor text

You can get this for a few hundred bucks if you know what to ask for. If you don't you will just be shooting in the dark. Well established reputable SEO consultants are not cheap and don't get out of bed for less than 4 figures for a reason, they make people a return on their investment.

If you are not willing to learn, make friends with someone who is really successful with SEO and get them to spend your money for you,

[Boris_yo]

TerryMason,

To know how to choose SEO Company, read this.

[bcryan]

Well as a general rule that will not go far but it does depend on what you are trying to rank for. That could actually get some good results for a very low competition keyword!

google seo india and there are some decent companies that could handle a 10 keyword campaign for around $200 a month.

[amujtabaa]

try one month of senuke.

[TerryMason]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. To people telling me to get 100 links, etc - here is alittle info about my site:

Google Indexed Pages : 9,170
Domain Age 10 years, 4 months, 21 days
Inbound Links : 1,671
Yahoo directory listed
Alexa rank 350,911

[Rocketguy]

Finding a good seo company is never easy. I have a client right now that has been through 5 different companies and it was real interesting hearing all of his stories and failures with each one of them.