SEO

My domain/website is 3 months old. Our website is currently on page 7 of Google for a keyword phrase that gets about 74,000 local searches. Also, what is a reasonable amount to be paying for quality SEO services?

thanks

Hi Cliff,
Unfortunately there is no set answer to your question of how much you should be paying, without knowing a lot more info. I know that sucks, but it’s the truth. Anyone telling you otherwise is really just guessing – or is quoting for an amount of work that may or may not get you ranked successfully.

When I do SEO work, if I have a serious enquiry before I quote anyone I need to know their exact website and the keywords they are targeting. I will then do the following:
1) Check where the site is ranking currently for the main keywords.
1) Complete an analysis of what is wrong/right with the customers website than can be fixed easily.
2) Complete an analysis of keyword density and many other on page factors of the site, compared to the the top 10 sites in Google for that keyword.
3) Do a brief check of the amount and quality of incoming links to the site
4) Repeat for the top few results in Google, to see what their link profiles are like in terms of quality/quantity.

Only once the above or a variation of it is completed will an SEO specialist actually know how competitive the keyword is and the quality of the competition they are trying to beat (amount of searches has little to do with it). Once you know that, you can work out how much work has to be done and how much time/effort that will take.

A reasonable amount (as you mentioned) will depend on all of the above. In some really competitive niches like hotels for example, some of the top sites actually employ TEAMS of people, working FULL TIME on their SEO. If our niche is that competitive, you will have a tough time, and someone quoting say $1000 a month (which may sound like a lot) will have no chance of getting your site ranked. On the other hand, depending on the compeition, this may be plenty or even a lot more than you need to pay.

Sorry this isn’t an exact answer, but hope it helps.

Matt
Marketing Web
http://www.marketingweb.com.au

The SEO offered with my web hoster wants me to put an SEO badge on my site.

What does this do for me? Does it benefit me or them?

Is it a visible badge or is it invisible to the visitors?
What makes you think that this company is "shady"?

Most likely the "SEO" wants you to put it on your site so he will get a backlink from you. You do not want to do that unless the SEO offers you a significant discount. You are giving the SEO free advertising. If the SEO has not explained it to you in that way, then they are "shady".

How to decide upon the pricing policy? If some client approaches for getting SEO work done or wishes to get a website for his business, what are the standard rates?

Standard rates go anywhere from $45 – $100 / hour. However, before you hire an SEOer make sure you know the right questions to ask. I honestly would spend a few hours researching SEO just to make sure you can talk their language and ask the right questions.

These are the first things that I would do:

1.) Have them look at your site analytics to see if they can identify any low hanging fruit improvements you could make.

2.) Determine whether or not your website is structurally capable of becoming optimized? Do you have a programmer in-house? Who and how are you going to implement some of the suggestions from the SEOer?

When you finally choose an SEOer, before you let them loose have them devise a step by step plan of what they are going to do to optimize your site. Have them order each strategy/plan by priority and get an estimate for each step. Also, have them provide you with a list of action items that you can do internally. For example, one common SEO strategy is to submit your website to online directories. If that’s part of their plan then have them give you the list of directories so you can add your listing yourself. (DMOZ, Google Places, Yahoo Directory, Yellowpages, CitySearch, etc)

I hope that helps

I am doing off page optimization for my website but I want to know that what are the different way of SEO to come into Google First page. Can any SEO expert help me?

1. Pay-Per-Click
2. Banner Advertising
3. Ezine Advertising
4. Text Links
5. Leads (co-registration)
6. Offline Marketing
7. TV, Radio & Podcasts Advertising
8. Newspaper Advertising
9. Word of Mouth Referrals
10. Paid Inclusion
11. Traffic Packages
12. Classified Ads
13. Cost-Per-Action
14. Search Engine Optimization
15. Article Marketing
16. Affiliate Programs
17. Press Release
18. Directories
19. Forum Marketing
20. Email Signature
21. Shopping Sites
22. Shareware-Download Sites
24. Traffic Exchange
25. Banner Exchange
26. Link Exchange
27. CPA Networks
28. Affiliate Networks
29. Desktop Messaging
30. Contests & Races
31. Tele Seminars & Conferences
32. Write Testimonials
33. Surveys
34. Create a Product
35. Expired Domains
36. Exit Traffic
37. Myspace
38. Google, Yahoo & AOL Groups
39. Facebook
40. Social Bookmarking
41. Blogging
42. Video Sites
43. Podcasting
44. Content Sites
45. Wikipedia & Wikihow
46. Yahoo Answers
47. Return traffic
48. List Building
49. Viral Traffic
50. Joint Ventures
51. Product Launches
52. Cross Promotion (Integration Marketing)
53. Giveaway Events & Bonuses
54. Freebies For List Owners

I am fairly intelligent, not by any means a natural at computers though. I am disabled and am looking for a job I can do at home on the computer (a Mac). How would I go about learning SEO so that I could be an individual provider of SEO services, are there classes for it, or online courses, and how hard/how long would it be to learn?

Hey,

I was in the same situation for you where I needed to learn SEO for one of my websites and one of the most helpful ways I found was to just to on youtube and view the tutorials by someone of the experts and ordinary people like us, I learnt quite a few good tips.

Google has just changed their keyword page for SEO research and it sucks BIG TIME. There’s no way to get to the previous interface and the new one is awful. You can’t see the list of keywords all together like you could before.

If you are looking for tools for performing keyword research, you might want to try the following:

1) If you have an AdWords account, try the keyword research tool which Google provide. Here is the external link: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

2) Google Insights for Search – http://www.google.com/insights/search/

3) Try Google Suggests. Go to Google.com and turn off Google Instant. Then simply type your keywords in the search box in order to see variations which people would potentially search.

Hi,

People use search engines to find the product or service they are looking for. They usually do this by searching for the most common form of keyword for that product or service.

A thorough analysis of your business and your target market is necessary in order to identify and pick the most effective keywords for that business.

Usually, unless you have plenty of time and SEO ‘know how’ it’s not a good idea to go with the highly popular and competitive keywords. You need to find niche keywords that are less popular but give your site the best chance of gaining a top ten search engine ranking whilst still delivering good volumes of targeted traffic.

It would be a good move to choose longer tail keywords (2 or 3 words key phrases). This is because the more specific keywords can generate a higher rank on search engines.

For example, if you provide SEO services it would be unwise to target ‘SEO’ as your main keyword, as this is a very competitive and difficult keyword to reach the top ten with. You would be much better off thinking about targeting the local area for the same service. So, a better choice would be ‘SEO services in Chester’ for example. This is what we would call a longer tail keyword that has a good volume of targeted traffic and would be much easier to gain a top ten ranking for.

So in answer to your question, Keyword selection is THE most important factor for a successful SEO campaign. Correct selection can mean the difference in failure and success of your campaign.

Hope this helps…

Use https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal to find out the kind of phrases people are searching for relating to your field. Pay attention to competition for search terms. Using keywords in H tagged areas, top, and bottom of the page, page titles, and meta descriptions all help to tell Google what you’re about.

Also, remember to use keywords in your anchor text. This the text used to include a link – so ‘click here’ is no good. You can read more about anchor text use here: http://www.oxfordonlinemarketing.com/blog/what-is-anchor-text

long tail keyword phrases will be easier to rank highly for, so if you’re starting out, go for some of those, and as your build your page rank start targeting some of the shorter versions.

Remember your off-page activity is probably the most important factor in SEO – the number of quality, high ranking and relevant sites that link to you, via relevan anchor text.

I am optimizing a site and have 5 keyword phrase i want to show up in Google. I have good Search Engine Optimization (SEO) results for 2 of the keywords. But I can’t figure out how to get the other 3 to become top result in Google. I have inserted the keywords in the title tags and image alt texts. Can anyone tell me what else I need to do.

There are many many factors when doing on-page optimization. BEFORE you begin link building (off-page optimization) you want to make sure that your on-page is top notch otherwise your skipping steps. You may want to create a webpage for each keyword. There is an amazing free tool you can use (link below) to find out how well your page is term targeted. I also put a link to a guide that covers all the basics!

Hi there people. I would like your views and help on how to do seo ?

Or would even like to know to get good traffic regularly?

On Page Optimization & Off page Optimization