SEO Value for money

Shanley

I dont think I have done a great job with my SEO and am looking at companies who have packages for approx €100, is this too little to be spending on SEO?

D.W

Shanley wrote: »

I dont think I have done a great job with my SEO and am looking at companies who have packages for approx €100, is this too little to be spending on SEO?

Do you mean €100 all together, a week, a month or? Either way I couldn't see any seo worth their salt being interested for that sort of money-no offence.
Perhaps you should post the site address here and ask advise to give you a better idea on what you may have missed when implementing your onsite seo?

HandWS LTD

It all depends on how much work on your site needs to be done. If there is lots of work then seo can cost a good bit amount of money.

It can cost very little if you just want small things done like sitemaps, google analytics setup, robots and if you prefer search engine submission or not. Some people say that you can get better ranking from search engines by letting them find you via your linkbacks.

Nobody can know for sure how much it will cost unless they look at the code inside your website as well as the text you are using on your webpage. Other than those 2 the amount of backlinks you have.

Derek B

My company charges the equivalent of 120 euro AN HOUR for SEO consultancy services, so it really depends on what you're getting for your money.

link8r

If you wanted a successful online business, that would probably need to generate at least €2-3k per month or its just a sideline. How would someone build up a business that generates that kind of money for €100? Just saying that - I really would like to hear peoples thoughts on that - how do/why do people think its possible to build a web based business on a few hundred euro?

link8r

link8r wrote: »

If you wanted a successful online business, that would probably need to generate at least €2-3k per month or its just a sideline. How would someone build up a business that generates that kind of money for €100? Just saying that - I really would like to hear peoples thoughts on that - how do/why do people think its possible to build a web based business on a few hundred euro?

They have no concept of marketing - either online or offline and they simply don't understand the technologies or what they are capable of.

When you hear people say "Adwords is a rip off". I laugh. They don't understand click through rates and how it depends on the profit margin of your product.

But overall, most people have no idea what online marketing or SEO is. It's not studied in third level and there is only one course in Ireland that has a course accredited by AAI.

It's a lack of understanding.

link8r

Yeah, comments about adwords like that are clearly based on a misunderstanding / lack of experience. Obviously if you had a blog or website and wanted to buy random traffic who didn't buy anything, it would be cost-ineffective. But to call it a rip off when you have companies happy to spend €100k a month and more shows that some people are quicker to dispense advice on forums when they clearly should be listening to it.

About sums it up really.

Agree with you 100%

thebman

I think most of SEO is common sense when you think about how a search engine works.

Google have a lot of information available too so you can do a lot of work yourself on it and then get someone in to try to see what other changes they recommend.

zAbbo

thebman wrote: »

I think most of SEO is common sense when you think about how a search engine works.

Google have a lot of information available too so you can do a lot of work yourself on it and then get someone in to try to see what other changes they recommend.

You mean onsite SEO?, and these checklists that people purport to be killer tips?

SEO is such vastly huge expertise, much more than changing meta tags and aligning your keywords in header tags to the stage that the whole industry (especially Ireland) is a joke due to the number of cowboys and supposed experts who are doing 'SEO' for paying clients.

SEO package indeed.

RedMaxP

I agree with all your sentiments, proper SEO is a professional skill something that is hard to crack if it not your primary role in a company (I mean in a company who are trying to do all their own SEO internally). It may be possible to do the keyword and the meta tag stuff but the challenge we suffer on is inbound links.

My question to you guys is: Is it possible to outsource quality link building to external professionals, if so how much would a good link builder cost on a daily rate?

Shanley

My website isnt going to make money but the most I imagine I would make off adwords clicks and ads is €100 a month so I dont really want to be investing too much in these tough times, only have a part time job to fund it!

Shanley

Another thing id like to add about my site is if I search google for 'atm locations galway' its coming up as second on the list but when i search the more important terms such as I havent a clue where I am, (not in top 10 pages anyways)

Just found myself on page 14, the website is only active since Oct 2nd, will this get any better by itself?

zAbbo

Shanley wrote: »

My website isnt going to make money but the most I imagine I would make off adwords clicks and ads is €100 a month so I dont really want to be investing too much in these tough times, only have a part time job to fund it!

Do you mind me asking how you've calculated that?

Assume that an average Adsense eCPM would be $0.30, you'd need to do around 350,000 impressions per month to make $100, are you doing that or anywhere near it?

If not, that's a lot of additional revenue to make up via direst sales.

Shanley

If I put enough time into it I would be making about €5k a year on advertising between promotional material and the website and the promotional material would cost me about €3k

RedCardinal

>>> If I put enough time into it

What's the opportunity cost of your time? Is that time more valuable than the €2k profit your figures predict? Can you easily scale this to 50 websites to make a decent living?

Shanley

Without getting into too many details estimated time for this would be approx 10-20 hours a week for a year so figures wouldnt add up, I have a lot of contacts within this industry going as far as marketing directors for big brewery companies so I dont think I could make 50websites to make it worth my while (6 or 7 websites maybe) A lot of it would come down to not having the capital to turn around that amount of websites, marketing (would have to go nationwide)

WoodaleDesigns

I have been working on my website for the last couple of years and only recently has it come up trumps for me regarding ROI. My advice to anyone is to get professional SEO. If I was to add up the effort and time that I have invested in my site I would say its worth it now but would have been far easier pay someone. The issue I had was trying to find the right company. I paid certain people for SEO and got f all results... They talked the talk so I was sold on them. Finding the right SEO company takes a lot more than just Googling and finding them. What I would say is why pay for adword when you can get the results for a one off fee. I would say the average spend on Google adword for a small company could be €400 upwards. Why not find a company that can do this for you for a one off fee even if its to cost 2k - its only a couple of months spend with adword.
Learn from other peoples mistakes is probably the key I have made so many and will probably continue to do so.

link8r

Shanley wrote: »

Without getting into too many details estimated time for this would be approx 10-20 hours a week for a year so figures wouldnt add up, I have a lot of contacts within this industry going as far as marketing directors for big brewery companies so I dont think I could make 50websites to make it worth my while (6 or 7 websites maybe) A lot of it would come down to not having the capital to turn around that amount of websites, marketing (would have to go nationwide)

This sounds more like a hobby or a sideline or a really badly thought out idea/board post. A business is usually based around a repeatable model (product or service or commission) that one can can do-sell-market-repeat. I think you missed RedC's real question: if your site can only make, say €2k a year, is it possible that someone could roll out 50 such sites and therefore make €100k - in other words is there €100k business in this or not? Your answer, in as much your question actually pinpoints this, is that you possibly haven't thought out your business nor how to market it nor why or what it is.

@thebman - Yes SEO is common sense. So is being healthy. Actually, pacemakers make a lot of sense. Nuclear power stations are common sense to some. Others might say flight is really easy and common sense. Doesn't mean you can just read a few web pages and do it yourself. Someone rang me last week and said their search phrase was low competition. In fairness, there were probably only 50 companies in Dublin competing but there were 118million pages indexed. don't you think it takes a bit more than common sense to outrank/outsmart 118million pages?

Why would your site do better on its own ? are you looking for a "free" business maybe? Why would you spend so much time and effort on something you've clearly decided isn't a business? Does spending money on your business bother you? Often businesses spend money to make money - its a really common concept - the detail differs from 2 months to 10 years or €1000 to €100million.

Wait. What?

badinfleunce

I can have a look at your site for you and produce a free site audit. I run an seo business <snip -- No Spam> and can advise you on the best methods to get to market. There are plenty of ways to get to market without spending too much money. If you have a lot of contacts we can utilise the likes of social media marketing to drive traffic to your site. There are also possibilities of monetising the site with affiliates that will bring in extra revenue. Plenty of avenues to investigate and ways to build juicy links.

HandWS LTD

badinfleunce wrote: »

I can have a look at your site for you and produce a free site audit. I run an seo business <snip - no spam> and can advise you on the best methods to get to market. There are plenty of ways to get to market without spending too much money. If you have a lot of contacts we can utilise the likes of social media marketing to drive traffic to your site. There are also possibilities of monetising the site with affiliates that will bring in extra revenue. Plenty of avenues to investigate and ways to build juicy links.

Ok....a new company. Yet to be proven. It sounds like your forum name says it all. Then again....your not allowed to advertise your own link like that on boards.ie.

link8r

Social Media is social media - using it to build links and as a platform for SEO sounds very spammy. Why would we want social media full of free advertising? It just doesnt sound like a good programme?

Thats not to say that businesses shouldn't be listed or discussed in social media - I just dont think that social media should be (ab)used for the purposes of selling ones services.

For example, the post by the interestingly named "badinfluence", served no other purpose other than to freely advertise his business.

For anyone considering the "link juice" that is being offered, it might be interesting to note that the domains listed have surprisingly, almost no inlinks and social media is free. You can build and develop your own online profile (twitter, boards, IGO People) for free - many more in fact than "SEO Dublin" seems to have tried their hand at.

I think that post/user should be bannd

Sully

Mod Note:
If you would like to advertise your fantastic SEO business which achieves the worlds greatest results or whatever, please contact sales@boards.ie and the fantastic Boards.ie Sales Team will be delighted to discuss this great opportunity with you further.

Thanking you.

badinfleunce

link8r wrote: »

Social Media is social media - using it to build links and as a platform for SEO sounds very spammy. Why would we want social media full of free advertising? It just doesnt sound like a good programme?

Thats not to say that businesses shouldn't be listed or discussed in social media - I just dont think that social media should be (ab)used for the purposes of selling ones services.

For example, the post by the interestingly named "badinfluence", served no other purpose other than to freely advertise his business.

For anyone considering the "link juice" that is being offered, it might be interesting to note that the domains listed have surprisingly, almost no inlinks and social media is free. You can build and develop your own online profile (twitter, boards, IGO People) for free - many more in fact than "SEO Dublin" seems to have tried their hand at.

I think that post/user should be bannd

Attack Attack Attack ! May God bless your efforts. You seem like your a distracted, stressed individual. I dont see you offering any free assistance to the poster apart from following on with your inexperienced knowitall attitude. Link juice from Social Media networks are very valuable and many people dont know how to utilise these for business. Its free of course - but the knowledge to maximise your exposure in social media networks is paramount.

By the way Facebook has a page facility for businesses where you can build brand, promote products or services, engage with customers and more. This is hugely valuable in the Internet Marketing Sphere and should not be overlooked.

Submitting content from your site to places like Digg or Reddit gives you links on those sites and, if your article becomes popular, it can get you hundreds more links as other sites pick up, link to and discuss content they found on Digg or Reddit. This is refererred to as "viral content". Yes its Free too.

NOW BEFORE YOU ATTACK ME OR MY BUSINESS AGAIN CONSIDER YOUR TONE AND CHOICE OF WORDS.

I was simply offering a free site audit. FREE! - So get back in your box, relax and enjoy your life.

By the way what does "Social Media is Social Media" mean. Get a grip on yourself. I detest people with this negative attitude. Its like saying "eating your dinner is eating your dinner".............. its just senseless.

Dell (Dell) says it has surpassed $3 million in sales attributed to Twitter, and the online social network, which has yet to make a profit, is watching closely.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/desktop/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=217801030


Oh and to let you know if you type the key words "Seo Dublin" and "Search engine optimisation dublin" into google you will see we have first page organic indexing after 3 weeks and our linkbuilding which you have been very quick to observe has yet to kick in. Seo as you know takes time and we take time to get it right for ourselves and our clients. It pays off hugely and the longterm ROI(return on investment) is greater than any other form of advertising.

With your attitude its no wonder this country is in the state we're in.

Over and out.

kdaly100

Search engine optimisation dublin has traffic of 170 from my quick search on Google Keywords. I can rank for that myself if I spend a few hours on a blog. In fact I rank number one for banana picking on Google (really I do check!) - but sadly there is no banana traffic for that (one day one day)

You need to understand what the poster said when he said "Social Media is Social Media". He meant (or at least I think he meant) that it is a Social and networking type of deal for building relationships.

Summary of what I have read so far.

• Pay an SEO
• Make sure that they are reputable
• What you put in is what you will get out (effort, commitment, money) - once the above steps are done especially second.
• Final point if you do need to rank for bananas talk to someone on a banana plantation - as I only eat them and I really don't pick them

DaveyByrne

I thought link building and Page Rank has been depreciated by Google recently??? Is it not all about 'content' now? What are your experiences?

Sorry if this post is in the wrong place, but it seems like there are some good people chatting here...

link8r

badinfleunce wrote: »

Attack Attack Attack ! May God bless your efforts. You seem like your a distracted, stressed individual. I dont see you offering any free assistance to the poster apart from following on with your inexperienced knowitall attitude. Link juice from Social Media networks are very valuable and many people dont know how to utilise these for business. Its free of course - but the knowledge to maximise your exposure in social media networks is paramount.

By the way Facebook has a page facility for businesses where you can build brand, promote products or services, engage with customers and more. This is hugely valuable in the Internet Marketing Sphere and should not be overlooked.

Submitting content from your site to places like Digg or Reddit gives you links on those sites and, if your article becomes popular, it can get you hundreds more links as other sites pick up, link to and discuss content they found on Digg or Reddit. This is refererred to as "viral content". Yes its Free too.

NOW BEFORE YOU ATTACK ME OR MY BUSINESS AGAIN CONSIDER YOUR TONE AND CHOICE OF WORDS.

I was simply offering a free site audit. FREE! - So get back in your box, relax and enjoy your life.

By the way what does "Social Media is Social Media" mean. Get a grip on yourself. I detest people with this negative attitude. Its like saying "eating your dinner is eating your dinner".............. its just senseless.

Dell (Dell) says it has surpassed $3 million in sales attributed to Twitter, and the online social network, which has yet to make a profit, is watching closely.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/desktop/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=217801030


Oh and to let you know if you type the key words "Seo Dublin" and "Search engine optimisation dublin" into google you will see we have first page organic indexing after 3 weeks and our linkbuilding which you have been very quick to observe has yet to kick in. Seo as you know takes time and we take time to get it right for ourselves and our clients. It pays off hugely and the longterm ROI(return on investment) is greater than any other form of advertising.

With your attitude its no wonder this country is in the state we're in.

Firstly, apologies to the boards, users and mods. I feel that there is a lot of misinformation in this users post and I would like to defend my post.

I will set the record straight please. There is no attitude - I saw something I feel very strongly about and I voiced a very experienced opinion on it. I have been working in SEO for a very long time. I stand by what I said and my opinion. I dont have to offer anything "for free" - its a forum for open discussion, not a charity site. I dont care what free audits you offer, my point was about the way in which you claim to work in SEO.

If you want to start a ranking competition, I rank for SEO, Search Engine Optimisation and SEO Ireland. You own SEO-Dublin.com - not really too hard to explain why you're on the first page. Compare the traffic search volumes for SEO to SEO Dublin...Don't call me inexeperience when I've had Primary Position at the top for SEarch Engine Optimisation for longer than you've had that domain name

If you think that you can just use Social Media for Link Juice you're very much mistaken - that completely misses the point of what social media is and to use it for merely creating links is nothing short of spam. You may think that just because its easy to create links there, that you should just use it to create "link juice". What relevance to the social forum or the website will it have? what about that? So we will just have social media sites full of link juice for organic rankings? How is that going to produce a good, content internet?

I understand social media, I use it well. I'm @primaryposition on twitter, I'm a partner in site ranked for "Gifts" and that site has 500 fans on facebook.

Lastly, I've worked for Dell, Intel and many other large (and small) companies. Just because I said beware of Social Media spam, doesn't mean I dont see the benefits of it. You spammed this index and the moderators rightly removed your link.

If I'm negative, I'm negative about your post. That doesn't make me a negative person. I am a web user - I dont want people running around creating link juice on social media (social, not business media - thats the clue from my last post) just because you think it will create lots of link juice. That's not responsible, ethical or sensible. Furthermore, social media spam is certainly not advocated by or condoned by Google. This is why social sites have "nofollow" links.

I've read your site, you're text at the top of it - which looks like keyword stuffing maybe (what other point does it have? its not "content") and frankly, I've seen better.

Here is my point: Using social media, like forums or facebook, to advertise your business or to create links is pure spam. Nothing short of. It is my opinion that your advice is dangerous and violates how social media works

Here is a post from Matt Cutts detailing how he plans to cut spam and not trust social media links exactly because of posts like this:

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/webspam-in-2009/

link8r

DaveyByrne wrote: »

I thought link building and Page Rank has been depreciated by Google recently??? Is it not all about 'content' now? What are your experiences?

Sorry if this post is in the wrong place, but it seems like there are some good people chatting here...

Hi Davey,

No but a big Yes. Intersite linking is a cornerstone of the Google ranking system. It remains so. The last videos and updates released by Google and the posts on their site re-iterate this. Linking between sites and the authority given is based on relevance.

Google cannot really, as a computer system, evaluate content. It needs humans to help. PageRank is very much alive (internally) and toolbar PageRank (tbPR) - the pagerank we see on toolbars/publicly is really dubious and its function/purpose is under question [by google] and whether or not it should be stopped.

PageRank is also a measurement of how popular a site is - or how good the content is - because if people are linking to it, then it's a way of measuring its importance. Even if people don't like the content, its still a measurement of significance if they link to it.

By taking the links, where they are from, what they say and what sites they come from - and then by examining the content on those sites, Google can develop a position or place for the site by phrases/words and geo location.

So, in-links still remains key - but by building proper content (and, not by burying search phrases like other people have done, to "fool" the search engines) is a great way to have people link to you.

Hope that helps

badinfleunce

link8r wrote: »

Firstly, apologies to the boards, users and mods. I feel that there is a lot of misinformation in this users post and I would like to defend my post.

I will set the record straight please. There is no attitude - I saw something I feel very strongly about and I voiced a very experienced opinion on it. I have been working in SEO for a very long time. I stand by what I said and my opinion. I dont have to offer anything "for free" - its a forum for open discussion, not a charity site. I dont care what free audits you offer, my point was about the way in which you claim to work in SEO.

If you want to start a ranking competition, I rank for SEO, Search Engine Optimisation and SEO Ireland. You own SEO-Dublin.com - not really too hard to explain why you're on the first page. Compare the traffic search volumes for SEO to SEO Dublin...Don't call me inexeperience when I've had Primary Position at the top for SEarch Engine Optimisation for longer than you've had that domain name

If you think that you can just use Social Media for Link Juice you're very much mistaken - that completely misses the point of what social media is and to use it for merely creating links is nothing short of spam. You may think that just because its easy to create links there, that you should just use it to create "link juice". What relevance to the social forum or the website will it have? what about that? So we will just have social media sites full of link juice for organic rankings? How is that going to produce a good, content internet?

I understand social media, I use it well. I'm @primaryposition on twitter, I'm a partner in site ranked for "Gifts" and that site has 500 fans on facebook.

Lastly, I've worked for Dell, Intel and many other large (and small) companies. Just because I said beware of Social Media spam, doesn't mean I dont see the benefits of it. You spammed this index and the moderators rightly removed your link.

If I'm negative, I'm negative about your post. That doesn't make me a negative person. I am a web user - I dont want people running around creating link juice on social media (social, not business media - thats the clue from my last post) just because you think it will create lots of link juice. That's not responsible, ethical or sensible. Furthermore, social media spam is certainly not advocated by or condoned by Google. This is why social sites have "nofollow" links.

I've read your site, you're text at the top of it - which looks like keyword stuffing maybe (what other point does it have? its not "content") and frankly, I've seen better.

Here is my point: Using social media, like forums or facebook, to advertise your business or to create links is pure spam. Nothing short of. It is my opinion that your advice is dangerous and violates how social media works

Here is a post from Matt Cutts detailing how he plans to cut spam and not trust social media links exactly because of posts like this:

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/webspam-in-2009/

I am not interested in your opinion. You are now spamming and doing exactly what you critised me for. primaryposition.com, David Quaid, as im sure anyone else has discovered.

The funny thing is that when you wc3 validate your site and the other gift site you are tec director of you will find that giftsandvouchers has 48 errors and 14 warnings and your own primaryposition has 51 Errors and 43 warning. Hardly a perfectionist yourself.

So if you want to get personal we can all go down that route.

If you refer to my original post

"If you have a lot of contacts we can utilise the likes of social media marketing to drive traffic to your site. There are also possibilities of monetising the site with affiliates that will bring in extra revenue. Plenty of avenues to investigate and ways to build juicy links."

There is no mention of spam. I play by the book.

The original poster asked "Seo value for money - I dont think I have done a great job with my SEO and am looking at companies who have packages for approx €100, is this too little to be spending on SEO? "

You know instead of attacking the guy with your knowitall South African attitude you could have offered him a free site audit which you advertise on your site. "CHARITY"

For 100euros I would point the guy in the right direction and show him how to get an online profile and maybe do some on-page seo for him.

Anyway Im bored listening to a South African educated argumentative T**T.

Thats all folks!

link8r

badinfleunce wrote: »

The funny thing is that when you wc3 validate your site and the other gift site you are tec director of you will find that giftsandvouchers has 48 errors and 14 warnings and your own primaryposition has 51 Errors and 43 warning. Hardly a perfectionist yourself.

Anyway Im bored listening to a South African educated argumentative T**T.

Thats all folks!

Why is WC3 validation funny? I think its hugely insignificant. Thats why they're there and the sites still rank.

Xenophobia and racism isn't nice or funny or legal. As an Irish national and citizen, I feel deeply ashamed of you.

link8r

I guess not everyone gets social media.