Webiste Builer and SEO

niamh4626

Hi all,

I've been told that most website designers are not overly great at SEO, keyworks etc. I have seen a company canned Superior Internet Marketing who seem to be good at everything, are there other companies that are good all round or would I be better setting the website designed by a designer and then going to an online marketing company?

Also, I was told that i'd be looking at spending 4 times the amount on online marketing - google ads, SEO, key works etc than I would on website design.

Can anyone confirm or advise please and thanks.

Niamh

billybunty

niamh4626 wrote: »

Hi all,

I've been told that most website designers are not overly great at SEO, keyworks etc. I have seen a company canned Superior Internet Marketing who seem to be good at everything, are there other companies that are good all round or would I be better setting the website designed by a designer and then going to an online marketing company?

Also, I was told that i'd be looking at spending 4 times the amount on online marketing - google ads, SEO, key works etc than I would on website design.

Can anyone confirm or advise please and thanks.

Niamh

Hi, i dont know a huge amount but i dont use google or adwords. I also havnt paid for advertising.
You most likely know this bit, try have your name/product listed on all of your web pages.
When using descriptions for your product or service pop in your name/product name everywhere you can.
Ask everyone you know to google it using certain "buzz" words from your site.
Im very new to this but already my site comes up in first few results inder several different search parameters.
Im still learning myself but try do it yourself without having to fork for payment, unless its very reasonable to use the experts??

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan

niamh4626 wrote: »

who seem to be good at everything, are there other companies that are good all round or would I be better setting the website designed by a designer and then going to an online marketing company?

Also, I was told that i'd be looking at spending 4 times the amount on online marketing - google ads, SEO, key works etc than I would on website design.

Rarely are the people who make websites experts in online Marketing, but many sell this service as it's an easy way to make money and customers don't really know how to measure their success.

In terms of spend - it's a how long is a piece of string type question. If it's a brochure site for a dance studio and people are googeling it by name you are likely to be found. If your trying to run an online e-commerce business, then you need serious investment in SEO and SEM depending on how competitive the industry is. The 4x number is plucked from thin air, so don't use that as a figure.

My suggestion is to only go with outsourced companies if they have great references having done the exact work you need done for another client, who is bigger than you are planning to be. No point in paying for someone to learn their trade. Someone with experience will get the work done much faster and will make less mistakes.

tricky D

niamh4626 wrote: »

Hi all,

I've been told that most website designers are not overly great at SEO, keyworks etc. I have seen a company canned Superior Internet Marketing who seem to be good at everything, are there other companies that are good all round or would I be better setting the website designed by a designer and then going to an online marketing company?

Also, I was told that i'd be looking at spending 4 times the amount on online marketing - google ads, SEO, key works etc than I would on website design.

Can anyone confirm or advise please and thanks.

Niamh

You haven't been getting good advice.

I wouldn't give too much credence to whoever said to design and then do the SEO. They are dependent, so it's much better to have it factored and designed in from the start. Also, SEO is largely oriented around content and bad design would discount that and its implications.

As for Superior Internet Marketing, they're not that good. At a glance: SEO-wise, no h1, h2, h3 on the homepage, keyword spam in their meta keywords (which is ignored these days due precisely that kind of abuse), bad link text [Read more]. These are very basic SEO errors. There are many other different non-SEO basic errors too, broken nav bar layout, no footer, no legal stuff, poor copywriting.

As for the marketing costs scale, it depends on your type of business.

The Apprentice

To be honest Superior Internet Marketing suck balls .. Take a moment to practice what they preach is what i suggest
Website design - well they could have started on their own site first ??
Seo - they cant even target their own market with regards to Keyword research

Move on buddy dont give them a second thought, and if there are no WebDesign Examples ask yourself the reason why ??

Squeeonline

niamh4626 wrote: »

Hi all,

I've been told that most website designers are not overly great at SEO, keyworks etc. I have seen a company canned Superior Internet Marketing who seem to be good at everything, are there other companies that are good all round or would I be better setting the website designed by a designer and then going to an online marketing company?

Also, I was told that i'd be looking at spending 4 times the amount on online marketing - google ads, SEO, key works etc than I would on website design.

Can anyone confirm or advise please and thanks.

Niamh

I hate SEO. The only reason designers have to care about SEO is because others do. The internet would be a better place if websites were judged solely on their content and not on keyword stuffing or other SEO techniques.

A good website designer will take SEO into account when building a site. logo images etc will have alt text, all posts/pages will have titles and descriptions. I've never had a problem getting my websites to the front page of Google with just good content

I'd love to know who "told" you this, or whether it was something you read that may have been more than slightly bias. Even if your website has an ecommerce element, you can advertise for free using Twitter/Facebook etc. If you feel you need to pay for advertising, you can get highly targeted fb ads that actually give you results.

amen

would I be better setting the website designed by a designer and then going to an online marketing company?

as per the other posters you need to think about SEO from the start and determine how you are going to implement it in your site.

. logo images etc will have alt text, all posts/pages will have titles and descriptions.

which is great for a simple brochure site but SEO is a lot more complex if you are running an e commerce site. For isntance in ecommerce you will want to ensure you URLs for each item are SOE friendly. If you are running across multiple countries/domains there are some additional challenges.

If you read up the Google SEO/Adwords articles this will give you a good idea of what needs to be done and also provide you with the knowledge to ask questions of the person/company doing the SEO work.

business bloomer

I've been told that most website designers are not overly great at SEO, keyworks etc.

True and not true. They either don't know what SEO is or they offer SEO as an extra. SEO should definitely be done when the website is being built.

Also, I was told that i'd be looking at spending 4 times the amount on online marketing - google ads, SEO, key works etc than I would on website design.

This depends on your industry, your target, your audience and your profit margins. You can run AdWords campaigns for as little as €20/month and get few sales out of that - or spending €2000/month and technically get more than 50% of your revenue from online advertising.

Look for a honest Web Design Agency that offers SEO included in the website design, and for a Google AdWords expert who cares about your profits - as well as his/hers.

Best of luck!

Axwell

Thread Moved - Better place for it is here

niamh4626

Hi there,

Thank you all for your replies - I really appreciate it.

Basically I will be setting up a property letting and management company (another I hear you think!!) but this is one with a difference which I'm not going to talk about here because I don't want someone robbing my idea!!

After I posted my first comment I met with another guy who said its all in the name of the company so if I was 'Dunnelettings.ie' I will rank lower than if I used for instance 'dublinlettings.ie' (I know there is a company already by this name) because people would have to search my company name to find me whereas if I was a company called Dublin Lettings I would pop up first as people would generally search for dublin lettings when looking for a property to rent or a company to advertise their property through.....

To be honest, this is all clear as mud to me as I know very little about websites etc..... I have two options - get a super visible city center office with high footfall so to promote my business or spend a lot of time and money learning about Internet advertising and concentrating on that but to be honest, the last thing I want to be doing when I'm starting out is spending all my time worrying about whether my company is ranking - ideally i'd like that to be sorted during the web design so then I wont have to worry about it again......

niamh4626

Oh and two more things, I've been playing around with this google keyword research tool thing - when your looking to see how many times a phrase has been searched for my own keywords - I presume I should be aiming for high competition words / phrases??

Also, I was told the more pages a website has the higher it will rank on google as long as the keywords are relevant to the content of that page so say if I blog and the keywords for that page are relevant to that page the more relevant keywords and content I have the better google will rank me.... does that make sense??!

business bloomer

I've been playing around with this google keyword research tool thing - when your looking to see how many times a phrase has been searched for my own keywords - I presume I should be aiming for high competition words / phrases??

It depends. Your industry is well saturated, if I were you I would choose keywords and keyword phrases that are less common. E.g. What is your niche? Who are you selling to? Where? Ranking your website for "Office Lettings for Start-ups in Dublin" is much easier than "Lettings Dublin". This is my view... either find your niche or go and struggle to get a good ranking for very common keywords.

Also, I was told the more pages a website has the higher it will rank on google as long as the keywords are relevant to the content of that page so say if I blog and the keywords for that page are relevant to that page the more relevant keywords and content I have the better google will rank me.... does that make sense??!

Well, yes, the concept is: keep your website updated and users will come back. Write blogs everyday and your website might become more searchable. the point at the end of the day is: it must be cost effective. E.g. If you spend 1 hour/day blogging, you have to get a monthly return of 260€ in profit (8.65€ minimum wage * 30 days)....

And, personal opinion, don't learn SEO, leave it to professionals. Or get proper training.

Best of luck

Fanny Cradock

business bloomer wrote: »

And, personal opinion, don't learn SEO, leave it to professionals.

That's good advice. Your time and energy is better put to other uses. I can imagine that you have a million and one things to do. Don't add to the list. If you are starting a new business then it is important to get the basics correct, and this is where a professional comes in.

Some of the larger web design companies will employ people who deal only in specific areas. It is rare that you will find someone who is really good with design and development. Rarer still that that will have any idea about marketing, branding and SEO. Specialisation amongst staff is generally essential.

If you are looking for a one-stop shop then you might want to try the likes of Dara Creative, Web Factory or Strata3. They all have good reputations and they all recognise that if they are going to do a good job then they need to employ staff who specialise. Arrange a meeting and see what they are offering.

Internet forums will only get you so far.

MrPicante

I would suggest engaging a company who understands both the design and the online marketing - it's not going to be easy. For some reason everyone want's a bite of the other guys lunch and sometimes they spoof to get it. I'll explain, say you get a web designer who does not understand SEO. Then you arrive at the marketing company and they say your site is set up wrong - then your back to square one. On the other hand getting a marketing company who does not understand design will end up with an ugly website

carmel101

Hi Niamh,

Whatever you do don't go with a company called Justsearch SEO based in Dubin - myself and my friend have been totally ripped off by them. They have actually admitted that they mis sold to us, promising us top 3 rankings on google for our businesses. They are now refusing to refund the money that we paid them despite telling us that they mis -sold to us.

Am wary of recommending SEO providers to you as that is my 3rd bad experience but Justsearch have been the worst to date.

Carmel