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How to quantify SEO effort?

by jkiley
14 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Every now and then I get a call from some seo expert who wants to do SEO for my site. I know that there is a lot of potential on my site, so I do listen to them.

They all want to either signup a 6 month contract or ask for a huge setup fees, and they all say that it will take 4-6 months to see the result.

Well my question is then should I just sign the contract, pay for 6 months and pray that they didn't fool me?

They all tell you that they will be doing link building and such, but how? where? - no answer.

I have now another guy who will give me presentation (I am already sold - I know I need it), but I just don't know how to pick the guy and how much to pay or how to see the real effort behind the money?

Any ideas?
#effort #quantify #seo
  • Profile picture of the author Brad Gosse
    As long as your dude can prove results you should be cool. Make sure they provide reports on progress and work done. Negotiate a certain campaign of optimization, backlinking and submission to directories.

    PM me if you need more tips.
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  • Profile picture of the author acrasial
    BEST SOLUTION= DO it yourself! Honestly, you never know what ventures you will go into in the future, and if you learn it all yourself, you cannot be scammed. There are loads of tips and information for website SEO online, and even in this forum!


    These people go to ALL The websites and say this, and they will try and convince you that your website always needs upgrading... it is their type of marketing..


    just like how weight loss people always try and convince you that you need to lose a few pounds to look better, feel better etc....


    It's a guilt trip... but honestly, if you were clever, you would take all of these calls and do some reverse psychology on them and ask them what kinds of tips they can offer...

    say you already know of this or that... and ask them what else they can offer beyond that...

    I have seen people able to get tips out of these guys, without paying- and hey... why not try out the service that way, before buying! LOL... but seriously...


    they are just trying to get money out of you, and I HONESTLY do not think it takes 6 months either- and NO person can guarantee rankings! DId you know that?

    So really you can be throwing yourself blindly into a creepy old back alley... and certainly it is illegal to claim that they can get you rankings and all that good stuff within 6 months... as google heavily has the policy that you are not to reveal any of their secrets, algorithms etc etc....

    Thus, they are really taking you around for a good one, and as said... really just do it yourself- and maintain it after that, then you know it and then you don't feel so gullible either.
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  • Profile picture of the author debra
    Originally Posted by jkiley View Post

    Every now and then I get a call from some seo expert who wants to do SEO for my site. I know that there is a lot of potential on my site, so I do listen to them.

    They all want to either signup a 6 month contract or ask for a huge setup fees, and they all say that it will take 4-6 months to see the result.

    Well my question is then should I just sign the contract, pay for 6 months and pray that they didn't fool me?

    They all tell you that they will be doing link building and such, but how? where? - no answer.

    I have now another guy who will give me presentation (I am already sold - I know I need it), but I just don't know how to pick the guy and how much to pay or how to see the real effort behind the money?

    Any ideas?
    I really ought to get into doing the contract thing. I've been to laxed about that stuff.

    When I do onsite seo...I just go by how much time it took me to do it.

    If it took me a week to get you where you wanted to be and I wanted to make 500 for the week...I just charged you for what time I put into it.

    If it just took me a day to optimize your wp blog on the template level then I only charged for that day.

    I'm telling you that it doesn't take a staff to work on your site non-stop to get to the top of the search engines. And...those that want to argue the point...don't know what they are doing anyway.

    I'd LOVE to get a contact saying it's worth big bucks and sit on my a$$ 90 % of the time pickin my nose to watch you climb the serps latter for a couple days work.
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  • Profile picture of the author GuerrillaIM
    This is what you need:

    Keyword research
    Onpage SEO
    Link building with correct keywords in anchor text

    If you look around this forum you will find these things cheaper than any cold caller can offer you and you can also see warrior feedback on if they work well.
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  • Profile picture of the author JNFerree
    Originally Posted by jkiley View Post

    Every now and then I get a call from some seo expert who wants to do SEO for my site. I know that there is a lot of potential on my site, so I do listen to them.

    They all want to either signup a 6 month contract or ask for a huge setup fees, and they all say that it will take 4-6 months to see the result.

    Well my question is then should I just sign the contract, pay for 6 months and pray that they didn't fool me?

    Any ideas?
    1st thing I'd do is pop over to websitegrader and run their (free) report. Make note of the areas where they say you are OK v. where your site needs work.

    2nd thing I'd do is pop over to SEO-Medic and run their (free) report and compare the two.

    Then, once you know where your site it strong v. needs work, you can quiz your new SEO pro and ask him to tell you precisely how he can fix the "needs work" areas and you'll have a better feel for what you should pay.

    When I first ran the websitegrader report, I got a 92% so I thought I was doing OK. What I didn't know was that not all SEO pros and approaches are created equal. My advice is get yourself a good educated 2nd opinion before you let the 1st doc do open heart surgery :rolleyes:
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    • Profile picture of the author islander1
      Originally Posted by JNFerree View Post

      1st thing I'd do is pop over to websitegrader and run their (free) report. Make note of the areas where they say you are OK v. where your site needs work.

      2nd thing I'd do is pop over to SEO-Medic and run their (free) report and compare the two.

      Then, once you know where your site it strong v. needs work, you can quiz your new SEO pro and ask him to tell you precisely how he can fix the "needs work" areas and you'll have a better feel for what you should pay.

      When I first ran the websitegrader report, I got a 92% so I thought I was doing OK. What I didn't know was that not all SEO pros and approaches are created equal. My advice is get yourself a good educated 2nd opinion before you let the 1st doc do open heart surgery :rolleyes:
      I agree whole-heartedly with this. If you don't have the time to do SEO yourself, GET EDUCATED as much as possible about your own SEO needs and make sure the person doing it for you

      a. Knows what he/she is doing

      b. understands what you need
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  • Profile picture of the author BurgerBoy
    You don't need to pay anyone to do SEO for you.

    All you have to do is go to Google and do searches for the keywords you want to come up for. Look at the first 4 or 5 pages in the search results. Do a view source and look at their title, description, and keywords in their html.

    You want to study their pages and do the same thing with your pages that they did with their pages.
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    • Profile picture of the author jkiley
      Originally Posted by BurgerBoy View Post

      You don't need to pay anyone to do SEO for you.

      All you have to do is go to Google and do searches for the keywords you want to come up for. Look at the first 4 or 5 pages in the search results. Do a view source and look at their title, description, and keywords in their html.

      You want to study their pages and do the same thing with your pages that they did with their pages.
      Thank you, this is a good advice. There is a website in my niche that shows up at top for lot more keywords then I do, and when I look at his page, there is hardly any html on it...

      According to yahoo site explorer, he has 714 links coming in to his site, and I have 2668 links coming in to mine. He gets lot more traffic then I do. His alexa ranking is around 39K, mine is around 280K. Big difference.

      I have 106,000 pages on my site, he has just 95 pages. Big difference.

      So, from what I know about SEO...I should be getting more traffic (based on number pages on the site, links, reviews), but that's not the case. What am I missing?
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      • Profile picture of the author ildarius
        I'd ask to see their portfolio, how many web-sites do they have that have been ranking for a while. If the sites hold ranking and their link building doesn't appear to be coming from bunch of linkfarms they're probably worth considering. As another warrior mentioned, getting weekly reports of somekind is also important.

        I know a smart guy who opened an SEO company, got a bunch of clients, then came to ask me "So dude, how do you do SEO?"... hopefully he's not the one who contacted you The only way you could weed out a fella like that is by asking for proof that they can get you rankings.
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        • Profile picture of the author jkiley
          Originally Posted by ildarius View Post

          I'd ask to see their portfolio, how many web-sites do they have that have been ranking for a while. If the sites hold ranking and their link building doesn't appear to be coming from bunch of linkfarms they're probably worth considering. As another warrior mentioned, getting weekly reports of somekind is also important.

          I know a smart guy who opened an SEO company, got a bunch of clients, then came to ask me "So dude, how do you do SEO?"... hopefully he's not the one who contacted you The only way you could weed out a fella like that is by asking for proof that they can get you rankings.
          It's these guys www.nationalpositions.com
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      • Profile picture of the author debra
        Originally Posted by jkiley View Post

        Thank you, this is a good advice. There is a website in my niche that shows up at top for lot more keywords then I do, and when I look at his page, there is hardly any html on it...

        According to yahoo site explorer, he has 714 links coming in to his site, and I have 2668 links coming in to mine. He gets lot more traffic then I do. His alexa ranking is around 39K, mine is around 280K. Big difference.

        I have 106,000 pages on my site, he has just 95 pages. Big difference.

        So, from what I know about SEO...I should be getting more traffic (based on number pages on the site, links, reviews), but that's not the case. What am I missing?
        It's not about PR(that's a benefit not a feature) and it's not about the number of links.

        With offpage seo(that's what they call link building now), it's about your focus on targeted market reach.

        In laymen terms...getting in front of your demographic target that will give you the most attention(mainly human eyeballs). The rest is just a token result that comes from your effert of reaching your target.
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  • Profile picture of the author Raphael1
    If I were you I would read some more advanced threads of this and other forums - SEO is not that hard, if you know how to do it. However you have to have a system and the right tools for it.

    If you are optimzing 1 domain / its sites then do the right ON page SEO and get more hightquality links, add video and improve usability.... - this will get you far
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  • Profile picture of the author devilishsaint
    Turn it into a contract.
    Like 1000 backlinks
    My site need to be at first page against certain keywords etc.
    after optimization i need PR5 or something you want.
    There should be some other conditions too. so that at the end you can realize what your SEO position was before the campaign and after it.
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  • Profile picture of the author LookItsMeTerryG
    Don't sign a contract. There are tons of legitimately good SEO's that work without them. Myself included..

    Also, I'd never work with anyone who called me out of the blue. Work solely on personal references and so forth.

    As far as the guys recommending weekly reports, I know a lot of good companies don't do them... myself included.

    Showing past results? - Maybe this is particular to me because I deal with mainly big brands/fortune 500's, but MOST of my clients are NDA...
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