Hiring an SEO

[padre]

Need some advice....I have a proposal from an SEO who is proposing to get my website much higher in the "organic" section of Google, Yahoo, MSN and ASK.com for certain keywords

His price is $5000 for the year with monthly reports. He proposes/does not promise to get site into the top 3 positions of about 15 keywords.

What would you recommend I do? Thanks, Padre

[JWJ]

Hello Padre, and welcome to the forum.

You will know better than we will how much revenue you might be able to make if your site is highly ranked for those keywords, so it is hard for us to judge. My personal take on this is that I would only consider the services of an SEO if I had already exhausted all I could do for myself and, if I may be blunt, it is my opinion that you can do a lot more yourself quite easily. These things take time and you may be wanting things to happen quicker than you might manage for yourself, but $5000 is a lot to pay out in the hope of getting more sales.

Some work on your site to make it more attention grabbing, fixing a few errors in your code (like missing Document Type) and working hard to build good backlinks and generally optimise for search engines and I think you can make a big difference for free. There's a lot of great help available here and I would recommend you throw 6 months at it yourself and then see whether or not the SEO guy thinks he can still do more.

[EconMan]

I agree with JWJ. $5000 is a lot for an SEO with no guarantee. Besides, everytime Google does a big update it shakes everything around, so it's hard for me to believe that he can get you to the top and that you'd stay there.

Go to sites like webmasterworld.com and seochat.com and you can learn a lot about site optimization.

Could you do something else with $5000 that would be just as effective? Like a Google AdWords campaign or something?

[Sharron]

That is alot of money! I'd think long and hard and research those types of companies before I made any decision like that.

[activewebs]

Hi guys

Wohhh 5K is a lot of money for NO promise , like john says give it a punt yourself for a couple of months, get your key word and content to match, and your on a winner , BTW I would edit your post and get them key words out of there or any one with that type of search will end up here

Rich

[padre]

I appreciate all of your comments and advice...I have taken out keywords.....I am not a "techy"....am a construction CEO...Your advice is sorely needed.....keep it coming....padre

[EconMan]

I bet the forum members here could give you some tips on optimization and how to make your site better if you tell us what site you're talking about. Is it the one listed in your profile?

[padre]

Econman, yes the url is www.myuglychair.com which is listed in my profile. Thanks....suggestions welcomed!

[examish.com]

Originally Posted by JWJ

Hello Padre, and welcome to the forum.

You will know better than we will how much revenue you might be able to make if your site is highly ranked for those keywords, so it is hard for us to judge. My personal take on this is that I would only consider the services of an SEO if I had already exhausted all I could do for myself and, if I may be blunt, it is my opinion that you can do a lot more yourself quite easily. These things take time and you may be wanting things to happen quicker than you might manage for yourself, but $5000 is a lot to pay out in the hope of getting more sales.

Some work on your site to make it more attention grabbing, fixing a few errors in your code (like missing Document Type) and working hard to build good backlinks and generally optimise for search engines and I think you can make a big difference for free. There's a lot of great help available here and I would recommend you throw 6 months at it yourself and then see whether or not the SEO guy thinks he can still do more.

Like try this site: convertlinks.com, they have some good ideas, and say they make xxx,xxx monthly, so check it out (NOT my site btw)

[webado]

Sure - they don't say what they do, why they do it and how they do it, but click here to downlaod stuff and fill in your email because we won't spam you .... errr... just what is that site? Does anybody have X-ray vision? I don't.

It's a spammy site if ever there was one. At best useless, at worst nasty.