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abbeyvet -> RE: SEO Firms - Worth the Money? (9/11/2002 11:53:33)
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To get back to the original question, which I believe was Do you need an SEO specialist - I would say the answer is an unambiguous maybe. [:D]
It really does depend on so many things, and these are just a few:
1. Is search engine position really important to you?
It is not for everyone surprisingly enough. Some people do not use their site for the purpose of gaining customers but rather for supporting existing ones, and in that case you can just tell them where it is.
2. How general are your important keywords?
You really need to think about your keywords and if they are very general and popular then you may need help, if they are more spcifc and/or less common then you will have less difficulty getting a good position.
For example, using my own site as an example, if I wanted to be at the top of Google for the phrase ' web designer' then I am going to need heavy duty and expensive optimisation and will still probably never make it. If I focus on the phrase ' Ireland Web Design' I am competing in a smaller yet still competitive pool and with some work should get good if not top rankings, if I want the top it will cost me. However if I am really only interested in local clients then getting to the top for ' Kilkenny web design' should be fairly easy - and indeed it is.
3. The amount of money you or your client are willing to spend.
Sites can be on a very tight budget, that is a reality, and with the increasing number of pay for inclusion search engines that budget need to be carefully spent. It may be that it just won' t stretch to SEO specialists. Some of them would undoubtedly say that without them it was doomed to failure anyway, but if the budget is bust then the business may be bust and a top position will be of little use to it then.
4. The amount of time you or your client are willing to spend
As with most things SEO is complex but it is not rocket science - if you are willing and able to pay a cost in time you sure can do it yourself. For people who own their own sites and like to be in full control of them, this is often a good road. You do need to subscribe to good newsletters, read sites such as http://www.searchenginewatch.com and generally keep up to date with what is going on. It IS time consuming, but it most certainly can be done.
For those making sites for others it behoves us to keep generally up to date and to be able to offer a good basic submission service, which may be all the bulk of our clients need.
5. What your priorites are
For some pursuit of the top spot becomes obsessive. It would be well to pause sometimes and wonder what the effect would be of putting the same time and effort in to supporting existing customers, providing them with great service, an improved and regularly updated site, better value even, and see what effect that has on referrals.
Sure, in an ideal world you would do everything, but in the real world choices have to be made, budgets allocated and priorities set.
6. How badly or well you are doing with the simple stuff
In very, very many cases submission to the major players, including the paid ones or some of them anyway, by someone with a reasonably good knowledge of what they are doing, who has taken a little time to research the main key words and phrases and has carefully followed the (generally very well documented) submissions procedures, will be enough. The site will be do just fine thank you.
7. The Type of site/business
This is really my answer to
quote:
do those who use a SEO specialist recommend this route for every job no matter how large or small, no matter what type of business
No. For most sites I will discuss (and usually explain) search engines at the very outset and describe the basic service as above. I do let all know that a specialist service is available if they want it now or at a later stage but I do not heavily see/promote it to most clients. Apart form anything else if you start heaping cost upon cost at this stage you may lose ' em altogether.
The criteria I use to decide whether I will really sotrongly recommed the service are:
a. If the site will be the businesses primary way of getting clients/customers
b. If the main keywords and phrase are particularly competitive AND the site is a major may of getting new clients/customers
To take three examples.
- A site for a company providing consultancy for film scriptwriters.
The market is competitive and international and they are hoping to attract more than half of their clients via their site. They are using an SEO specialist.
- A site for a local buiders providers.
Their market is almost entirely local (or at least regional), they hope to get new customers via the site but will definiitely not realy on it. It is a simple matter to tell their existing customers about it. For this site it is really most important that they are found in searches on their business name (easy peasy!) and that they are in local nuche directories. No SEO specialist required.
- A site for a company manufacuring a product it hopes to sell world wide and for whom getting new clients and agencies via the web is vital. But the product is a very specific and unusual one with no more that 4 or 5 companies making it world wide. Thus it is easy to rank well in searches. No SEO specialist required.
8. Where are you in Google?
For the moment anyway that is really your main question, whether or not it is a good thing the truth is that Google is more important to most sites than just about anywhere else, or even everywhere else. This is good news for those who do not want to spend fortunes because Google is really trying to find you! If you have good content that is relevant to the search it will.
Unless you are in a really competitive area I genuinely beleive that minimal work on the SE optimization stuff per se and maximum time just making your site the best and most relevant it can be will bring you sucess with Google.
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