SEO...

Pitbull

Pitbull

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Morning guys.

I have a question about this "Search engine optimization" some companies offer.

We had a guy here today stating that it would cost me R 2 000 a month to make sure said website is optimized every 2 weeks. This is R 24 000
for someone to do optimization once off (according to me) I mean once a website is optimized it's exactly that... Optimized. I asked the guy how much he'll charge us to have it done once off. He said: "I won't, and no one else will" I chased the little fool from my office.

He's one of these guys who sell pay per click things for Google.

Now was I wrong? According to him optimization needs to be done every 2 weeks as Google does something that deletes all their data and refreshes the listings. Which I can understand, but if my website is optimized it's optimized not so? If it was good enough to be the top page the last 2 weeks I can see it being around the same spot again the next two weeks. Or am I missing something?

Someone please explain this to me so I can understand it :o
 
Pitbull said:
Morning guys.

I have a question about this "Search engine optimization" some companies offer.

We had a guy here today stating that it would cost me R 2 000 a month to make sure said website is optimized every 2 weeks. This is R 24 000
for someone to do optimization once off (according to me) I mean once a website is optimized it's exactly that... Optimized. I asked the guy how much he'll charge us to have it done once off. He said: "I won't, and no one else will" I chased the little fool from my office.

He's one of these guys who sell pay per click things for Google.

Now was I wrong? According to him optimization needs to be done every 2 weeks as Google does something that deletes all their data and refreshes the listings. Which I can understand, but if my website is optimized it's optimized not so? If it was good enough to be the top page the last 2 weeks I can see it being around the same spot again the next two weeks. Or am I missing something?

Someone please explain this to me so I can understand it :o
Click to expand...

Question: Do you think other companies aren't using this sort of service as well? Your site will just get out-optimized, hence the continuous need for attention. I don't know about every two weeks, but it's certainly not a once off sort of thing.
 
SEO is pretty complex, Ive managed to get the rankings of sites of mine up, but it took loads of work.
 
Messugga said:
Question: Do you think other companies aren't using this sort of service as well? Your site will just get out-optimized, hence the continuous need for attention. I don't know about every two weeks, but it's certainly not a once off sort of thing.
Click to expand...

Wish the guy would have told me that :D

I just don't get it though. I mean, it would make business sense for someone to do it on a once off cycle. The owner of the site if he notices that he's dropping down a bit again can have this person come do a once off again. R 24 000 a year just seems like allot of money for what I see to be very little work (Might be very wrong)
 
Pitbull said:
Wish the guy would have told me that :D

I just don't get it though. I mean, it would make business sense for someone to do it on a once off cycle. The owner of the site if he notices that he's dropping down a bit again can have this person come do a once off again. R 24 000 a year just seems like allot of money for what I see to be very little work (Might be very wrong)
Click to expand...

It's not about the amount of work, it's about the knowledge required to get your site to that point. I used to work for a company that offered SEO packages and they also refused to do once off jobs. I suspect that's because sometimes the site would drop off the front page within a few days and then you'd have a client shouting at you that they just wasted Rxxxx.xx and basically got nothing to show for it, so it's simply not worth the effort.
 
So what actually happens when they "re-optimize"?
Do they just make the keywords etc better than the competitors, and if so why can't they just do that from the start?

p.s. I know absolutely nothing about SEO
 
roguemat said:
So what actually happens when they "re-optimize"?
Do they just make the keywords etc better than the competitors, and if so why can't they just do that from the start?

p.s. I know absolutely nothing about SEO
Click to expand...

This is what I want to know. The guy that was here was so "secretive". From what I could make out it's about changing key search words around, dotting all your i's and crossing all your t's and so on. But now all this is done. Later it starts dropping because more and more people are optimizing their sites. So mine needs to be re-done again. And so on. If mine is dropping it means either they (other sites) are using some new developments in the SEO department or whatever. I'm struggling to get the broader picture. I'm sure it's because of my lack of knowledge on this subject.
 
keywords are fairly negligible and have been for a long time in seo.
the actual visible content of the page and semantic structure is more important, as well as correlations between the repetition of the search term/s within the content of the page and its titles.
i don't know what ongoing reoptimisation means unless they are reworking the content of the site to better match search terms.
ads are a different story. search engine optimisation and search engine marketing are two different things.
 
Pitbull said:
This is what I want to know. The guy that was here was so "secretive". From what I could make out it's about changing key search words around, dotting all your i's and crossing all your t's and so on. But now all this is done. Later it starts dropping because more and more people are optimizing their sites. So mine needs to be re-done again. And so on. If mine is dropping it means either they (other sites) are using some new developments in the SEO department or whatever. I'm struggling to get the broader picture. I'm sure it's because of my lack of knowledge on this subject.
Click to expand...

competition is only a concern if you're operating within a highly competitive online space. if you're making rare widgets for a niche industry, chances are you don't need optimisation because of the nature of your business.
if someone types in "palladium jewellery manufacturers in sweden" and you have the only site offering it, you don't need to worry much.
but if you're selling cars in america, optimisation won't help you much either because there are literally millions for competitors in the market. in that case, it would make more sense to niche search ads to a particular audience depending on your business.
search is very complicated and it isn't. you need to understand the product and audience before you sell a one size fits all solution to a customer. what about other forms of e-marketing?
 
It's probably going to take some tweaking here and there to get up the ranking, so it's certainly not a once off kind of thing if you want to continuously improve... but for the most part these guys are looking for an ongoing revenue stream. I'd tell him you'd settle for a 3 month probation, with detailed billing. If he can't tell you what he's doing to your website, don't allow the fool near it. No secrets... as that's how you get wool pulled over your eyes. Nothing is magic. It's not like you want to waste the time doing it yourself when they can... you just don't want to be lied to.
 
my dad runs 2 websites for his business and one an e-commerce site. We are looking at getting the site SEO optimized as we spend like R20000 a month on google advertising. Some of the things the company said they do is manage the social media side such as twitter, build a word press blog. Get more links to your site from other sites. Get it listed in many company directories such as hotfrog.co.za they also do check the code, but fortunately they have dealt with my web developer before and apparently his code is pretty decent.
 
Pitbull said:
Morning guys.

I have a question about this "Search engine optimization" some companies offer.

We had a guy here today stating that it would cost me R 2 000 a month to make sure said website is optimized every 2 weeks. This is R 24 000
for someone to do optimization once off (according to me) I mean once a website is optimized it's exactly that... Optimized. I asked the guy how much he'll charge us to have it done once off. He said: "I won't, and no one else will" I chased the little fool from my office.

He's one of these guys who sell pay per click things for Google.

Now was I wrong? According to him optimization needs to be done every 2 weeks as Google does something that deletes all their data and refreshes the listings. Which I can understand, but if my website is optimized it's optimized not so? If it was good enough to be the top page the last 2 weeks I can see it being around the same spot again the next two weeks. Or am I missing something?

Someone please explain this to me so I can understand it :o
Click to expand...

Sorry dude, not correct there. SEO is an ongoing and continuing process. I work as a web developer and SEO for our company's 3 websites happens all the time. It definitely is not a once off thing...and there you go...optimized.

There is soooo much to SEO, to explain it all would be a huge reply. So many things make up SEO...lemme know if you need some help / detailed explanations ;)
 
Quirk eMarketing text is definitely a good start for beginners!
SEO/SEM is like web design/development - you get what you pay for. There are however no 'templates' to fool clients with, if you don't know your **** the client won't get results.

And yes, it's definitely not once-off - you pay monthly - yearly.
 
Pitbull said:
Morning guys.

I have a question about this "Search engine optimization" some companies offer.

We had a guy here today stating that it would cost me R 2 000 a month to make sure said website is optimized every 2 weeks. This is R 24 000
for someone to do optimization once off (according to me) I mean once a website is optimized it's exactly that... Optimized. I asked the guy how much he'll charge us to have it done once off. He said: "I won't, and no one else will" I chased the little fool from my office.

He's one of these guys who sell pay per click things for Google.

Now was I wrong? According to him optimization needs to be done every 2 weeks as Google does something that deletes all their data and refreshes the listings. Which I can understand, but if my website is optimized it's optimized not so? If it was good enough to be the top page the last 2 weeks I can see it being around the same spot again the next two weeks. Or am I missing something?

Someone please explain this to me so I can understand it :o
Click to expand...

Let say total monthly cost: R2000

Spend R1000 on adwords a month
Balance is payable for SEO Work done

The above is a good deal :)

If your site is not constantly looked after you will never stay in the top 10 search results

SEO is like web development now everyone thinks they can do it, but I would say prove what you are worth

Show a track record and some satisfied customers
 
byron_spy said:
Show a track record and some satisfied customers
Click to expand...

Google SEO, the oke who's page ranks first in the organic results is the oke you should pay.... Simple as that!

@OP, SEO is a serious topic but he should tell you exactly what he plans on doing to your site. I spend around 3 hours of my day reading op on SEO and have been busy for the last month or so, managed to get some first page rankings for certain keywords within a month of registering my domain but it took a serious amount of work...

Thing with SEO is, don't look at the total thos oke wants to charge you, look at the potential revenue decent SEO can generate. All my effort seemed pointless till common keywords started poping up in my awstats.

I'm pretty much in the same boat though, I've got a quote for 10k worth of Adwords setup and deployment sitting on my desk as just can't seem to justify it....

Ps regardless if you pay him or not, things like linking to your website in your sig will need to be done by you.... One of the many free tips you'll find online.
 
I would spend that on Adwords. Much better value for money. This coming from someone who did his own SEO, and now does his own Adwords campaigns.
 
if you want some alternative views, Google "is SEO dead" some of the reading will give you an indication of how the landscape around SEO is changing
 
Well my company does SEO and PPC(I'm actually the adwords guy).

SEO is an ongoing process. You need to have an optimized site yes, but that's just a part of it. When it comes to link building and the rest it's not so easy. Our shortest SEO contract is a year and our SEO specialist says it should really be two years.

PPC though is much more immediate. You can spend as much or as little as you want for whatever time period you want.

To get the most benefit of online marketing you really need to do both at the same time.
 
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