Looking for service to optimize google search (SEO) for my business
 

Does anyboy have recommandation for person or company who can help provide service to increase web search for my business (Google listing, marketplace, adwords..etc)

Don't waste your money.

99% of SEO companies are scam (well... they do very little for what's worth).

You might be better off just paying Google for their ad placement. You can always come up first.

^
True in a lot of ways. Most of the basic stuff are easy enough that anyone can do it if you bother to google it.

All i wanted to do is to be at least searchable and come up in the first page. I have all the google analytics and google place account, but I have no idea how to get to top page. I cant be found until the mid of second page when search by business type.

I dont have the time or knowledge to play with this myself..

Also I do not understand why is it a monthly fee for SEO and not a one time fee to have it setup since i am just a small fish in small community

I wouldn't say it's a scam. It's more like the expectations are set too high.

It's impossible to rank #1 in a month or even a few month. It's an ongoing thing that you have to do. A SEO agency will help guide you and set you up but eventually you'll have to take care of it.

It's monthly fee because once you get to your desired position it's entirely possible that you fall back to the second page because of a number of different things.. depending on how competitive your keywords are, it takes a lot more effort to get in the top 3-5.

You can pm me if you want more info.. I work in the advertising industry but hate doing SEO jobs because clients don't really get it.

it will take a long time depending on how competitive your industry is. it's not a simple "write a $10,000 cheque" either. it takes time and you need to find competent SEO people.

You mean like this? :badpokerface:

Ditto.

yep... and you have to do more work for more keywords.

"what do you mean we don't rank for [homes in Surrey]?! We paid you for [homes in Vancouver]!!! It's basically the same thing!"

see pm for recommendation.

ps: the guy i suggest has a one time setup fee and monthly fee if that's what you are into.

Exactly.

And if one is willing to budget the entire cost for the duration for SEO optimization to work, one might as well buy it from google. Same result, much faster time... and in the two cases I had opportunity to work with, cheaper (on quotes given to us)

adwords aren't the same as natural results. just be extremely careful when looking for SEO optimization. you should look for them, not them spamming you. and even if you're not a tech guy, you need to learn a bit so you can monitor what they're doing and ask for monthly if not weekly reports.

If you have a small budget I wouldn't really recommend SEO. It's become a commodity similar to web design. Lots of cheap, low-quality work, and many "companies" will use spammy or black-hat methods that may temporarily work but hurt you in the end.

Want to do it yourself on the cheap? Write quality content on your website (assuming you're knowledgeable in your business industry). Write things people would find interesting, useful, informative, etc. Things people naturally tend to share. Don't forget to integrate social media so people can share this useful content. Read about on-page optimization (easy) and inbound marketing. Plenty of free information.

Another low budget option is optimizing your Google+ Local (heard they changed the name again, so whatever it is now) page and getting citations. Again, lots of free information online! PM me if you have any questions.

Edit: Forgot about PPC. AdWords, FB, and LinkedIn are good options depending on your industry and who you're trying to target. They can be pretty cost-effective too when you get the price down (not sure about LinkedIn). I know for Facebook you can get the CPC down to less than $0.01. Something to consider: advertisement blindness.

Shot in the dark, but try Google Analytics.
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This is what I would personally call an uneducated response. SEO companies are not a scam, they offer a service for a price with an "expected" result. Just like EVERY INDUSTRY IN THE MARKET, there are good and bad companies, buyer beware. SEO comapanies charge a monthly fee as the algorythms for search are in a constant morph state.

As a management consultant for small businesses, I can say with confidence that SEO, when used correctly, can be valuable depending on your industry and how your customers source you. My opinion is that SEO should be a "part" of your overall marketing strategy.

feel free to PM me if you want to discuss in detail :)

I found FB ads worthless. sure people 'like' you but analyze the crowd of your intended market. unless you're putting a lot of deals on FB then don't bother (or lots of new products such as new real estate listings).

adwords work but natural SEO returns a lot more results. analyze how much your competitors spend on adwords and see if it is worth it. don't just write blank cheques out.

I said 99%. And how is this an uneducated response?

As part of my job (I provide consulting for companies to obtain government contracts or meet their requirements), I have worked with a few firms that are Google Analytic certified partners and they are often the absolute best in the industry they are in. Which include... you guessed it, SEO.

As a solution consultant, I am after reliable and precise results. If even the absolute best firms in the industry cannot always provide me a satisfactory result (given time/budget limitation), how would the smaller player be any different?

Oh I know, they claim it takes "time", "money" and (the most ridiculous reason IMO) "patience" to get the SEO working.

The fact is, SEO is not something concrete or precise. One "optimizes" its website for SE, but the result is never guaranteed. Therefore, if one has the urge to get into the page 1 with precision and reliability, their best bet is simply go with Google. Any claim otherwise is SCAM.

So, how would this reason be "uneducated"?

How can google help in my case?,, do I pay them or?

Yes, you pay them.

Google AdWords ? Online advertising by Google

Depends what the strategy is.. Using FB to get critical mass of "fans" is the best way to use fb ads. It can seriously turn your 31 fans into 500 fans in a month or less.

What you do with your new fans is up to you but that is (I think) the best use of FB ads.

A scam is having certain expectations but getting a difference result.. Having unreal expectations and not agreeing with the solution isn't a scam.

Patience really is a big factor.. You have to keep pumping out content and building links ESPECIALLY if your desired market is highly competitive. SEO isn't some magic process to make you #1. You have to constantly prove to Google that you are better than all the other sites in order for you to rank higher.



To OP I think PPC/Adwords is better for you short term but long term you'll want SEO done. The best would to be to do them both at the same time but you probably don't have the budget for it.

what he said...

Here is the straight goods on marketing for you; strategies are all good, marketing is about throwing money CONSTANTLY and CONSISTENTLY in a direction and being patient for results. Measuring those results, re-strategizing and re-implementing.

Of course there are many strategies and it really depends on your budget and overall goals. It is EXTREMELY difficult to use one marketing tactic and be successful over the longhaul, but of course all my statements are general and not industry specific.

I understand that you are a Solutions Consultant and looking for precise and reliable results are very important, but when you find out how to answer the "holy grail of marketing" question (ie, how do i determine exactly how each $ i spend on marketing translates into a profit) you let the world know champ ;) in the mean time, when you say things like 99% of SEO companies are a SCAM, i get to call you uneducated....

You'll probably want to still hire someone to do that for you or at least spend a good amount of time learning how to properly do it (Google "ppc guide" or something). Doing this without any knowledge will probably cost you a pretty penny. It's not as simple as it appears. There's still a lot of things to consider, for example:

• Researching your target market (is there even a big enough market?)
• Keyword(s) to target
• Ad copy
• Landing page optimized for conversions

I'd still recommend at least starting the Google+ Local stuff. You'll want to do it for sure anyway.

:lawl:

Marketing IS about throwing money and they do *measure* the result.

Why do they measure that exactly? Because it's financially impossible to get an accurate view of EVERY result. (consumer preference? actual sales? brand recognition? too many to list). Therefore, they use measurement to estimate anything that their client is interested in knowing.

For SEO, there is actually a simple and precise result/goal: showing up on page 1 when look for certain word.

If even the absolute best SEO firm can't guarantee that after using their service, a particular site will ALWAYS show up on page 1, how is it not a scam by claiming otherwise or hiding the fact that there is a possible chance that it might never get anywhere. By always blaming on "expectation" is not an excuse for dishonest conduct.

I have yet to see ANY SEO company (big or small) stating anywhere that there is a chance that the SEO might never lead them anywhere close to page 1. They don't even offer any guarantee that it would reach page 1 in a specific time frame.

SEO is part of marketing. But it does not mean that it could use the same tolerance level given to marketing.

Of course I am a bit extremist due to the nature of my work (it either work or it doesn't... simple), but I could at least appreciate some honesty about what can and cannot to be done in a SPECIFIC term rather than using some vague words.

I said 99% because there is this small 1% that actually have the courtesy to tells you, SEO might not make any significant improvement at all. And I consider those honest companies.

That's because there is no guarantee that you'll reach page 1!

Any company guaranteeing a placement on the first page is one to avoid. But there are also shady companies that exploit this. They'll get paid, produce no results and point to the contract where it says results are impossible to guarantee. Or they'll sign up a business for a long-term contract saying that results take a long time and when nothing comes out of it, the business doesn't renew.

Oh for fuck's sake, there's so much misinformation in this thread.

First of all, adwords are one avenue for showing up in the search engine results. The problem with that is that you are paying per click and once you stop paying, you don't show up. For ultra competitive terms like say.. life insurance, the cost can become prohibitive for small businesses. It's an ongoing thing that requires money to continuously be spent.

It is possible to maintain a #1 rank on google for a given term, but doing so requires time, effort and money. I used to work for a huge sports betting website that dedicated hundreds of thousands of dollars to a full-time SEO team of 10 and you better damn well believe that we had #1 rankings for the important terms.

The biggest mistake people make is to target the generic terms that are uber competitive, but ultimately, useless for their business. For example, if you sell life insurance in Vancouver, then ranking #1 for "life insurance" is going to send you a bunch of traffic that you can't convert. What you should be doing is going after the long tail keywords that show buyer intent like "where to buy life insurance in Vancouver".

Ranking for those long tails is EASY. They get less traffic, less attention and maintaining a #1 ranking for those terms is infinitely easier than going after a generic term.

If you spend time going after long tails, then you save money and it's possible to maintain your position for a long time with little maintenance effort.

Measuring an SEO company's effectiveness by the number of times you show up #1 for a term is a poor metric imo. A better one would be to look at how effective your website is at generating actions, whether they be through purchases or inquiries.