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smallbizhelper
08-14-2015, 01:36 PM
The point of SEOs are to optimize a businesses online exposure but how many really do what they say they can do? name a few in the comment section if you know of any at all...

Harold Mansfield
08-14-2015, 01:46 PM
The point of SEOs are to optimize a businesses online exposure but how many really do what they say they can do? name a few in the comment section if you know of any at all...

Nope. We're more than happy to discuss, but we cannot let this thread turn into people recommending SEO services and will delete any links to them.

To answer your question, just like any other service or web service some companies are very knowledgeable and good at what they do, and some people are full of crap. You have to do your due diligence, look at past work, read reviews, get references, speak to service providers to see if they are on the same page.

cbscreative
08-15-2015, 12:19 PM
do your due diligence

Therein lies the key. A business owner is not required to become an expert on SEO but a certain amount of study is necessary to avoid being taken by SEO's that sell snake oil.

To tout the place we are at right now a bit, SBF has a lot of qualified people on board who are good at real SEO. This place is a great resource for any business owner to get a reasonably good handle on SEO. Best of all, it's free, and pretty much anything else related to small business can also be found here.

This whole discussion is actually almost useless without mentioning what precedes SEO—that would be conversion. SEO is best planned into a web site from the beginning but it's equally important to plan what you want to accomplish with the site. Optimizing a dead dog gets you nowhere except for the hole in your wallet for paying an SEO person to put the dead dog on the top of the pile.

Simple rule: people first, search engines second. Do that well and SEO is much closer to being automatic.

billbenson
08-15-2015, 06:35 PM
people first, search engines second. Do that well and SEO is much closer to being automatic.

I make my living online. IMO get a copywriter that knows SEO. There are quite a few on this forum.

canirank_mel
08-18-2015, 02:02 PM
I like to give the benefit of the doubt and so all companies should. But yes 100%, there are bad apples in every industry that can ruin that philosophy. However, those that still exist with a good following or have been around for awhile I feel are doing that for a reason; they are in it for the right reasons. <removed>
Cheers,
Mel

kb24
09-11-2015, 11:56 AM
You can learn SEO on your own but it will take a while to figure it all out..

profitlabs
09-11-2015, 05:00 PM
The point of SEOs are to optimize a businesses online exposure but how many really do what they say they can do? name a few in the comment section if you know of any at all...

If your goal is to get traffic, then most seo's can probably get the job done. (believe it or not it's true. SEO is not as hard as people make it out to be)

But that is the problem i see most business owners are facing... traffic is not what you are after.

For your business to thrive you need leads and sales.

Therefore the amount of traffic or exposure an seo company will provide is useless if it's not targeted.

So what i am saying is if 1 keyword brings in 10 super high qualified awesome buyers to your doorstep.... with 5 of them turning into loyal customers... then you are dealing with a true seo professional.

Unfortunately these days, seo companies are held to a standard of quantity rather than quality. Owners are expecting a certain amount of traffic in order to justify the SEO expense. (without realizing quality is much more important)

So to answer your question... how do you know when an SEO company really does what they say they can do?

In my opinion if they are more concerned about your keyword selection rather than amount of traffic they will possibly get you.... that to me is a sign of a true seo professional.

Alexcook
09-12-2015, 04:13 AM
My opinion is bit different from other. A SEO professional is one who will have your site get properly indexed & crawled in search engines. Correcting or removing any problem encountered. There is some technicalities involved in this.

While promotion is done by someone who is much more familiar with business mode & marketing. Who can converts the marketing campaign into conversions.

MikeSweeney
09-12-2015, 07:14 AM
SEO is foreign language to most small business owners. They could learn it, but are too busy working on their business. Most are smart enough to know the importance it can have on their business. The best way to look at the value of an SEO service or person doing it. Are you getting leads and customers from it? Will the expense of the SEO make you money or are you loosing money? How long of a commitment do you make to gather those results?

I would talk with some other businesses that are implementing SEO into their marketing.

Mike

dewalds86
09-14-2015, 06:09 AM
If your goal is to get traffic, then most seo's can probably get the job done. (believe it or not it's true. SEO is not as hard as people make it out to be)

But that is the problem i see most business owners are facing... traffic is not what you are after.

For your business to thrive you need leads and sales.

Therefore the amount of traffic or exposure an seo company will provide is useless if it's not targeted.

So what i am saying is if 1 keyword brings in 10 super high qualified awesome buyers to your doorstep.... with 5 of them turning into loyal customers... then you are dealing with a true seo professional.

Unfortunately these days, seo companies are held to a standard of quantity rather than quality. Owners are expecting a certain amount of traffic in order to justify the SEO expense. (without realizing quality is much more important)

So to answer your question... how do you know when an SEO company really does what they say they can do?

In my opinion if they are more concerned about your keyword selection rather than amount of traffic they will possibly get you.... that to me is a sign of a true seo professional.

Selecting good keywords and getting traffic to a site is good but converting that traffic into customers has allot to do with the design of the site. It doesn't help to have allot of visitors if they dont find what they are looking for on the site. The site has to be designed in such a way to give the visitors a good experience and to provide them the information they were looking for.

Owen
09-14-2015, 06:50 AM
Nope.

I don't know about that one. I have seen a huge search engine ranking and exposure over Google, Yahoo, Bing (doesn't matter, no one uses Bing. I'd use Yahoo over Bing any day of the week). I would say using cheap managed SEO would work out on a larger provider like Attracta or something. It's like $50 a month so it's not like it's a wallet breaker.

cbscreative
09-16-2015, 02:27 PM
Well, so far this thread has done a pretty good job of pointing out the need for sales and not just traffic. Anyone hawking SEO only is doing a disservice, usually by telemarketing you with unwanted sales calls or those wonderfully impressive spam offers with disposable gmail addresses.

cbscreative
10-02-2015, 11:50 AM
but what if your competitors both run ads and do SEO works

In addition to outranking competition, you need to set yourself apart. That also involves targeting your real customers and not just outranking the other guys. I say let them have the scraps that fall from your table. Once you have your ideal customer visiting your site, they need to know you are the ideal solution to their need. That is a much more important factor than just gaining traffic through SEO.

The posts above already lay out this principle, I just condensed it to directly answer this question in shorter form.

janefirst
10-05-2015, 06:40 AM
Yes seo is really a useful investment as it provides you good results in organic searches and support your business or information successfully. Its regular attention is also necessary including addition of some content to your website so that online users could get its benefits.