Comments on: Paying for SEO Services

By: cross stitch kits

cross stitch kits — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 19:29:37 +0000

Well said! I spend 6 months waiting for my SEO “specialist” to get me into the high top positions. I specifically said I only wanted white hat SEO. Not only did he not get me into the top positions but he used black hat seo and my rankings decreased! Fortunately his services were pay on performance. He was paid nothing but I just lost 6 months of sales! I now read a lot about SEO and try to do this on my own. It is very hard but at least I am doing white hat SEO (to my knowledge) and I am positive I am doing the right thing.

By: Tim Nash

Tim Nash — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 20:55:24 +0000

I think SEO has a major problem in that we have no professional body or education program. Most SEO’s are self taught and while people like myself teach SEO to the next generation of Internet technologists we do so as part of a larger degree courses. I wish I could say that most SEO firms are responsible and worth the money but I can’t what I can offer is common sense approach which is…

Always ask for references (and follow them up)
Ask them what they are going to do (a good SEO will explain how they work what they are doing and explain every step)

Never ever work with people who will guarantee rankings their are no such things in SEO.

While this is total common sense I hope it helps remember search marketers are different to SEO I won’t make a comment about which is a better ROI.

By: Me

Me — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 20:11:49 +0000

I see SEO as a field like webmastering and content writing where everyone with a computer is suddenly an expert. I know there are SEO pros out there that are worth their weight in gold, the problem is that inexperienced webmasters are most likely not going to have the budget to afford them.

I agree 100% with you Tim, much of SEO is embedded in the code of each page of a site. I’ve always said SEO needs to be a part of any website *before* even the first line of code is written.

Keep in mind, many crafters and others use WYSIWYG editors to create their websites and have very little coding expertise. That is why I think that content is the easiest place for a site owner to begin their SEO efforts.

When they grow their sites and learn more, they will begin to tinker under the hood and work on their code too.

This entry was in response to a forum post where someone had hired one of these so-called pros to only see their traffic stop. They came to the forum asking for help and a quick look at the code told the story of what happened – the “pro” really made a mess of things.

I guess you could say I wrote this with a big bias and in a bad temper. I hate seeing the bottom feeders take advantage of small business owners who don’t understand the damage that can be done to their sites.

I know from your posts on other forums and your blog that you are someone who provides customers definite value for their investment. The problem is that you are sadly in the minority.

Thanks for the comments and welcome to my little piece of the Internet.