SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Companies. What's Good & What's Bad?

LEE929394

LEE929394

LEE929394

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Hope this is the right section to post in, can't see where else it would go.

Had a SEO company approach me recently. Am used to lots of companies either trying to scam you or promise the earth by getting your results in the top 3 of Google for related keywords relevant to your site.

Am i right thinking many SEO companies are dodgy who claim this?

This company actually posts their results, unusual approach but the guy who emailed me seems genuine and friendly.
Their marketing approach is also very genuine (email wording, none of the pushy sales stuff you get normally)

I hope i'm not breaking any rules here by posting this but their results are on their site below.

http://www.seotech.co.uk/clients.html


If you see the top one about the golfing website, after checking on Google all the keywords indeed bring up this site at the very top of the results, they are all very high value keywords too, i can't think anything else that people would type in Google to get a golfing shop.


Question is.... is this SEO site too good to be true? Can SEO of this quality exist to bring sites so high up in Google's rankings without manipulating Google's algorithms that would breach their policy? (keyword spamming etc, not sure how it works)


And is SEO in general a good thing? Don't want to take a company on and have our Google ranking hurt even more in the process.

Thanks.
 
I work as a developer/designer/seo and you are right to be cautious as there are a lot of dodgy companies out there however there are companies that know what they are doing.

You can get you good positions with minimal risk of punishment but it can cost A LOT, the company I work for has a lot of packages ranging from £85 a month to £500+.

What keywords will you want to be targetting?

SEO is definitely worth having as more and more companies are using it so you will eventually need to pay for SEO to stay competitive.
 
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As we're in the building trade our keywords will be power tools, hand tools, building products - that kind of thing.

We have 70000 products online so i'd imagine it'll cost a small fortune with the amount of work needed to be done?

I take it a lot of work needs to be done our end and the SEO company just gives advice?
 
LEE929394 said:
As we're in the building trade our keywords will be power tools, hand tools, building products - that kind of thing.

We have 70000 products online so i'd imagine it'll cost a small fortune with the amount of work needed to be done?

I take it a lot of work needs to be done our end and the SEO company just gives advice?
Click to expand...

The procedure we do is agree 10-15 keywords with you and optimise your website focusing on these keywords. Normally top 5 homepage, other 10 on interior pages as the homepage is normally easier to achieve positions.

We would do whatever we can to get our titles/meta tags on the most suitable pages but we would also try to install a SEO plugin for your CMS/shopping cart so that every page has a good title and url (e.g. Title and url = product name) which means you may also pick up positions within the search engines for these pages even though the SEO would most likely focus on the homepage.

If the homepage is highly regarded it will make it easier for interior pages to get positions.

If the keywords you want to focus on are very competitive we would have to spend more time sourcing links to aid the search engine positions, the bigger budget you have the more time SEO companies can spend working on your website/sourcing links for you. You may have to pay extra for links too if you go with cheap seo service.
 
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LEE929394 said:
As we're in the building trade our keywords will be power tools, hand tools, building products - that kind of thing.

We have 70000 products online so i'd imagine it'll cost a small fortune with the amount of work needed to be done?

I take it a lot of work needs to be done our end and the SEO company just gives advice?
Click to expand...

When SEO is done properly, you won't need to optimise every single page - that's unrealistic anyway.

What you'll want to ask frtom a ny SEO company is exactly what they will do - it's worth reading up on the basics of SEO so you understand these a little.

With all due respect to the person who posted earlier, SEO is always going to be more involved than selecting the right keywords and installing a plugin - hell, you can do that yourself with minimal self tuition as it isn't hard.

I'd also expect a good SEO company not to have standard pri ces and plans - this always puts me off. SEO, if done correctly, will always be a bespoke and unique to every business.

What you'll want to be most careful of is seo companies who use shady (aka black hat) techniques to promote your site. While you may get short term gains, you site will suffer in the long term.

So, ask you SEO company a few questions:


  • What are they going to do specifically for your site
  • Ask them about backlinks and what sort of backlinks they get, are these backlinks one way?
  • Ask them the whole process and what this entails
  • Most importantly, ask them for specific results they have achieved (if you post some samples I'm sure someone will be able to tell how goof they are).
 
suarve said:
When SEO is done properly, you won't need to optimise every single page - that's unrealistic anyway.

What you'll want to ask frtom a ny SEO company is exactly what they will do - it's worth reading up on the basics of SEO so you understand these a little.

With all due respect to the person who posted earlier, SEO is always going to be more involved than selecting the right keywords and installing a plugin - hell, you can do that yourself with minimal self tuition as it isn't hard.

I'd also expect a good SEO company not to have standard pri ces and plans - this always puts me off. SEO, if done correctly, will always be a bespoke and unique to every business.

What you'll want to be most careful of is seo companies who use shady (aka black hat) techniques to promote your site. While you may get short term gains, you site will suffer in the long term.

So, ask you SEO company a few questions:


  • What are they going to do specifically for your site
  • Ask them about backlinks and what sort of backlinks they get, are these backlinks one way?
  • Ask them the whole process and what this entails
  • Most importantly, ask them for specific results they have achieved (if you post some samples I'm sure someone will be able to tell how goof they are).
Click to expand...

Pretty much spot on. SEO takes a lot of hard work and patience. Let us know how you got on. :)
 
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