How to find the best Optimizers from thousands of "SEO experts" from a market place
- SEO |
** Thinks that i will disclose here might shock you but that's the truth. All the facts that i have shared in this article is from my own experience. **
As you know Google is rolling out a new update on 23rd of this month. Which mainly puts importance on a website being mobile friendly. All though it has always been on the important ranking factor for Google and for site traffic as well; but thins just got a lot serious.
Recently my new SEO clients have expressed their bad experience with so called "SEO experts" from popular market places like odesk and freelancer. As there are millions of sites getting introduced to the market each day, i though why not give a brief guideline on how one can hire the best optimizer from the market.
** I have worked as a freelance SEO and writer on all the popular websites. And later shifted my concentration as a client and then as an independent affiliate marketer. So, i have experienced of both as a freelancer and client (best of both world :-) ). So everything that i am going to share with you now are from my experience and i believe that it will help you to minimize your effort to find the best optimizer for the job from any market. So, here it goes
1. Don't ask for proof, what!!
After you post your job on any marketplace to hire a solid and honest optimizer for your site- you will get overwhelmed with a rapid application of freelancers. And funny thing is all of them will claim themselves as an expert in SEO.
Many clients try to sort out the best ones by mentioning the fact that they need to show proof that the freelancer knows what he is up for. I have seen clients asking for website URLs for which the freelancer has worked as an SEO. But for legal reasons most of the SEOs will not disclose such fact as most clients don't want us to share their URL on public. So, if you are still doing such thing then it just stop it cause it will not bring you any good results.
Plus top marketplaces bans freelancers who share too much links or contact details on their application. So, there is a dilemma there as well. And can you be really sure about if the freelancer really worked for that site or not? I have gained a very few client from the marketplace by sending URLs to websites that are currently on top for a specific keywords. And guess what they believed. As now you might be thinking that i am a scammer, but that's something that is highly common in the market and i believe that i am the only one who has revealed this method of getting clients.
The best way to get legit proof about a freelancer is to perfectly specify the problem that you are having with your site right now and asking freelancers to tell you how they are planning to solve your problem. It is way better then going through tons of cover letters cause most of them are written using templates.
2. Don't go for the experience
There are lot's of freelancers out there who have thousands of work hours on their profile. Marketplaces know that most clients have shiny object syndrome from ratings and work hours, so it is easier for a market place to get clients using such signals. But have you ever wondered how much this signals really mean?
Let me give you an example: an SEO has 1000 working hours on his profile at .50/hr rate and another SEO has 100 hours of work experience at $5 per hours. Let's say both of them got 5 out of 5 rating. So which one are you going to choose? If you have ever built a single link for your website or have ever tried promoting your website on the internet, i'm sure you know how much dedication, patience and time it takes to find a valuable link that really matters. Everyone has the minimum benchmark for their work. So, do you think by hiring a freelancer at .50/hr will give you good quality links? If you pressure him/her too much then he/she will go to places like fiverr and will get links that will make you go wow.Everyone knows how good quality fiverr SEO gigs are ! Now you know why there are so many sites getting penalized by Google.
So, do take a look at their hourly rate and also read some of his reviews left by his past clients. If the reviews says stuffs like "Good work", "Great job" then there is a very good chance that this clients are just there to get some quick "give and get 5" ratings.
3. Fluency is important
If you hire a freelancer who does not have minimum fluency in writing and speaking in English then you are in big trouble. Why? Here they are:
5. What about the new ones?
In my experience i have got maximum value from new freelancer as they now all the new techniques and they are more eager to learn. Let's face it, we as a site owners will be needing an SEO for long terms. So, i believe that it is better to take time and find a quality freelancer who will work for you for long terms rather then going out their and finding an SEO for each new website. It is a time consuming process and in today's competitive market, you actually do not have that much luxury to do so.
So, do give the little and new ones a chance. I have optimizers who joined my team as a complete newbie and he is always eager to learn. He does exactly what is instruct him to do and i am highly satisfied with his services. I am all about getting traffic and making sells. My optimizer does exactly what i want. The best thing is that i have also helped him to learn SMM and paid marketing. So, now i do not have to think about promoting my sites at all as he takes care of all the promotional work for me. You wish that you have such optimizer on your team. Don't you? So, do give the little guys some chances. It will prove to be profitable for you in the long run.
6. Paying less and getting more
Every time Google comes up with an update their is a major shift in the marketplaces. Thousands of optimizer loose their job as the clients blame them for getting their website penalized. But the think is that it is the clients fault too. Each day we find so called clients who are mostly middle man(yes we understand the difference). We know that the client is just hiring freelancers from third world countries to provide Native first class SEO service that they have promised to their clients from tier 1 countries. Most such clients offer payments like $.50/hr and $1/hr rate to a freelancer who can work for 40 hours per week. Do you think that is reasonable? Do you think it is really worth the effort and time? Many of my fellow IM friends have told me that SEO he hired got his site penalized for good. But when he hired his optimizer at $.50/hr for 60 hour per week in first place he personally massaged me saying "Got a very good catch". But if you are a client just thing, now when your site got penalized by Google, do you think saving that money was worth the effort? Do you know the rate of penalty removers and needed tools in the market? If not just search for them on Google and i assure you that you are going to get a shock of your lifetime. But, now you are desperate. Cause your site is not penalized and you have to do something to get your site live.
It is said that it is always better to pay good price to buy good things rather then paying money again and again to repair a mediocre shit. So, do give some credit to your optimizer and do realize that he has some demands too. Of course you will have your say too. It will be outrageous to hire a freelance optimizer from a market at $10-$50 per hour cause that is not what this sites are for. Go for an optimizer who does a very good job at a reasonable price. Trust me, you will acquire an asset that will serve you for life.
Did i miss something?
The reason behind writing this article was not to hurt anyone. With a good intention i tried my best to help all the internet marketers on WF, specially members of this SEO section to get an indepth look on how SEO in today's marketplace works.
Until next time,
Sajjad
Signing off
As you know Google is rolling out a new update on 23rd of this month. Which mainly puts importance on a website being mobile friendly. All though it has always been on the important ranking factor for Google and for site traffic as well; but thins just got a lot serious.
Recently my new SEO clients have expressed their bad experience with so called "SEO experts" from popular market places like odesk and freelancer. As there are millions of sites getting introduced to the market each day, i though why not give a brief guideline on how one can hire the best optimizer from the market.
** I have worked as a freelance SEO and writer on all the popular websites. And later shifted my concentration as a client and then as an independent affiliate marketer. So, i have experienced of both as a freelancer and client (best of both world :-) ). So everything that i am going to share with you now are from my experience and i believe that it will help you to minimize your effort to find the best optimizer for the job from any market. So, here it goes
1. Don't ask for proof, what!!
After you post your job on any marketplace to hire a solid and honest optimizer for your site- you will get overwhelmed with a rapid application of freelancers. And funny thing is all of them will claim themselves as an expert in SEO.
Many clients try to sort out the best ones by mentioning the fact that they need to show proof that the freelancer knows what he is up for. I have seen clients asking for website URLs for which the freelancer has worked as an SEO. But for legal reasons most of the SEOs will not disclose such fact as most clients don't want us to share their URL on public. So, if you are still doing such thing then it just stop it cause it will not bring you any good results.
Plus top marketplaces bans freelancers who share too much links or contact details on their application. So, there is a dilemma there as well. And can you be really sure about if the freelancer really worked for that site or not? I have gained a very few client from the marketplace by sending URLs to websites that are currently on top for a specific keywords. And guess what they believed. As now you might be thinking that i am a scammer, but that's something that is highly common in the market and i believe that i am the only one who has revealed this method of getting clients.
The best way to get legit proof about a freelancer is to perfectly specify the problem that you are having with your site right now and asking freelancers to tell you how they are planning to solve your problem. It is way better then going through tons of cover letters cause most of them are written using templates.
2. Don't go for the experience
There are lot's of freelancers out there who have thousands of work hours on their profile. Marketplaces know that most clients have shiny object syndrome from ratings and work hours, so it is easier for a market place to get clients using such signals. But have you ever wondered how much this signals really mean?
Let me give you an example: an SEO has 1000 working hours on his profile at .50/hr rate and another SEO has 100 hours of work experience at $5 per hours. Let's say both of them got 5 out of 5 rating. So which one are you going to choose? If you have ever built a single link for your website or have ever tried promoting your website on the internet, i'm sure you know how much dedication, patience and time it takes to find a valuable link that really matters. Everyone has the minimum benchmark for their work. So, do you think by hiring a freelancer at .50/hr will give you good quality links? If you pressure him/her too much then he/she will go to places like fiverr and will get links that will make you go wow.Everyone knows how good quality fiverr SEO gigs are ! Now you know why there are so many sites getting penalized by Google.
So, do take a look at their hourly rate and also read some of his reviews left by his past clients. If the reviews says stuffs like "Good work", "Great job" then there is a very good chance that this clients are just there to get some quick "give and get 5" ratings.
3. Fluency is important
If you hire a freelancer who does not have minimum fluency in writing and speaking in English then you are in big trouble. Why? Here they are:
- He will not be able to write good content for building links
- He/she will charge you later for hiring another article writer to get "Quality articles""
- He/she will do link building with unrelated link building content that will make the site owner/ forum members say "What!!"
- He/she will do so called link building other general stuff as he/she is not clear about what you are actually looking for
- There is a huge chance that you will not get service as you wanted and there is a huge potential of facing a dispute problem
- He/she will not be able to give you content or will not do any link building outreach to niche site owners
5. What about the new ones?
In my experience i have got maximum value from new freelancer as they now all the new techniques and they are more eager to learn. Let's face it, we as a site owners will be needing an SEO for long terms. So, i believe that it is better to take time and find a quality freelancer who will work for you for long terms rather then going out their and finding an SEO for each new website. It is a time consuming process and in today's competitive market, you actually do not have that much luxury to do so.
So, do give the little and new ones a chance. I have optimizers who joined my team as a complete newbie and he is always eager to learn. He does exactly what is instruct him to do and i am highly satisfied with his services. I am all about getting traffic and making sells. My optimizer does exactly what i want. The best thing is that i have also helped him to learn SMM and paid marketing. So, now i do not have to think about promoting my sites at all as he takes care of all the promotional work for me. You wish that you have such optimizer on your team. Don't you? So, do give the little guys some chances. It will prove to be profitable for you in the long run.
6. Paying less and getting more
Every time Google comes up with an update their is a major shift in the marketplaces. Thousands of optimizer loose their job as the clients blame them for getting their website penalized. But the think is that it is the clients fault too. Each day we find so called clients who are mostly middle man(yes we understand the difference). We know that the client is just hiring freelancers from third world countries to provide Native first class SEO service that they have promised to their clients from tier 1 countries. Most such clients offer payments like $.50/hr and $1/hr rate to a freelancer who can work for 40 hours per week. Do you think that is reasonable? Do you think it is really worth the effort and time? Many of my fellow IM friends have told me that SEO he hired got his site penalized for good. But when he hired his optimizer at $.50/hr for 60 hour per week in first place he personally massaged me saying "Got a very good catch". But if you are a client just thing, now when your site got penalized by Google, do you think saving that money was worth the effort? Do you know the rate of penalty removers and needed tools in the market? If not just search for them on Google and i assure you that you are going to get a shock of your lifetime. But, now you are desperate. Cause your site is not penalized and you have to do something to get your site live.
It is said that it is always better to pay good price to buy good things rather then paying money again and again to repair a mediocre shit. So, do give some credit to your optimizer and do realize that he has some demands too. Of course you will have your say too. It will be outrageous to hire a freelance optimizer from a market at $10-$50 per hour cause that is not what this sites are for. Go for an optimizer who does a very good job at a reasonable price. Trust me, you will acquire an asset that will serve you for life.
Did i miss something?
The reason behind writing this article was not to hurt anyone. With a good intention i tried my best to help all the internet marketers on WF, specially members of this SEO section to get an indepth look on how SEO in today's marketplace works.
Until next time,
Sajjad
Signing off