Search Engine Optimisation

Walsandrew · 27 Jul 2011 at 12:51

Hi OcUK,

Sorry if this is the wrong section but it seemed like the best place for this.

My company has recently contracted a company to work on the complete redesign of our website, and on top of this something we want to look at is SEO. Although they are offering SEO as an additional service, we don’t want to jump headfirst into another contract with ongoing costs. For example we have been quoted £100 per month per keyword/phrase, for a minimum of 6 months. Obviously getting to the top of google is the hard part but maintaining that position would also require substantial investment.

The purpose of this thread is to enquire about anyone here who has had experience with SEO, and whether they think this is a realistic figure to be paying. I have done some research into this myself and appreciate that lots of factors are at play, that today google’s algorithm complicated, changing all the time and there are hundreds of ‘boxes to tick’. We currently rank nowhere in natural searches and we want this to change, but we want to go about it the best way possible!

gord · 27 Jul 2011 at 13:05

If they are working on a complete redesign of your site make sure that included in that design is at least basic SEO.

SEO can roughly be divided into two areas, on-site optimisation and off-site. Any web designer worth their weight should be implementing SEO during the build process. The service you pay for afterwards is for activities like link building. All of these tasks are important for organic ranking. £100/month/keyword sounds like a lot to me but it all depends on what promises they are making.

Dj_Jestar · 27 Jul 2011 at 13:07

I hate that people call it "SEO" and I feel like stabbing anyone that does, particularly those with experience of the industry (*glares at gord*

)

Just make your site accessible. Ensure all links work, are descriptive links and not "here", all images have the "alt" attribute describing them, etc.

Basically, in short, it's make a website how it should be made using the HTML spec of your choosing to its potential.

Walsandrew · 27 Jul 2011 at 13:16

gord said:
If they are working on a complete redesign of your site make sure that included in that design is at least basic SEO.

SEO can roughly be divided into two areas, on-site optimisation and off-site. Any web designer worth their weight should be implementing SEO during the build process. The service you pay for afterwards is for activities like link building. All of these tasks are important for organic ranking. £100/month/keyword sounds like a lot to me but it all depends on what promises they are making.

Thanks for the response. Undoubtedly there are a lot of elements comprised in the web design process relevant to SEO. Things like good archiecture, key words appearing in the right places and within the right context, integration with social media, and these would all be included part of the design process.

However as you say these are only a very basic part of SEO, and the additional fees is what we would be paying for everything else. According to them they can get us number one on google page one or very close in 6 months, and for several search terms, baring in mind that these terms are fairly niche (data analysis software for example).

gord · 27 Jul 2011 at 13:16

@Jestar <points at self> <inquisitive look> <raised eyebrow>
Do you mean I should be calling it just good design for on-site optimisation? You've left out off-site optimisation altogether!

I wouldn't be paying a lot for niche terms. Only pay for SEO on keywords you simply can't compete with off your own back. You will probably rank well for your niche terms if the site is designed well.

Dj_Jestar · 27 Jul 2011 at 13:21

"off-site optimisation" aka, get people to link to your site? Perhaps stretch it to also include "Buy Google AdWords"

Talk about building an industry out of nothing. It's pathetic!

Walsandrew · 27 Jul 2011 at 13:43

Dj_Jestar said:
"off-site optimisation" aka, get people to link to your site? Perhaps stretch it to also include "Buy Google AdWords"

Talk about building an industry out of nothing. It's pathetic!

With due respect, I think you're pretty far off. SEO has been around for quite a while, and there a hundreds of companies out there offering it, and thousands more investing a lot of money into it. It's a lot more than simply putting some good keywords and building some links, the way google in particular (and other search engines) work is far more complicated than that

Dj_Jestar · 27 Jul 2011 at 13:46

Testicles it is.

Walsandrew · 27 Jul 2011 at 13:47

gord said:
I wouldn't be paying a lot for niche terms. Only pay for SEO on keywords you simply can't compete with off your own back. You will probably rank well for your niche terms if the site is designed well.

Poor choice of word by me. When I said niche I guess it was respective of things where you really will get thousands of websites competing for the spot, like dating or something. To give you an indication, companies competing for searches like ours could be PWC, KPMG, Deloittes.

gord · 27 Jul 2011 at 14:19

Dj_Jestar said:
"off-site optimisation" aka, get people to link to your site? Perhaps stretch it to also include "Buy Google AdWords"

Talk about building an industry out of nothing. It's pathetic!

You old cynic! You seen this?

Dj_Jestar · 27 Jul 2011 at 15:12

I'm not old

So yeah, that graph shows SEO is a made up industry

blade007 · 28 Jul 2011 at 12:20

It depends on the competition for the keywords you want.

Something generic and popular like "LCD TV" is a lot more difficult than 'mobile hairdresser stoke'.

So if it was £100/month for six months to get to no'1 on 'LCD TV' then that's an absolute bargain, assuming they deliver.