SEO Tycoon

**SeanB** · 07:17 PM

I see lots of people posting about SEO and it seems that a lot of them don't really know what they are talking about. It's also an area that I have not really focused on. I've spent my time just trying to develop a site with quality content, and to that end, have been very successful. Still, with the volume of traffic, posts, and members that my site, has, I would expect it to rank higher in the search engines. Only one key phrase yields good results, but on many other relevant searches, we seem to be non-existent.

Therefore, I'm looking for some help. I think I would prefer to hire this out, providing it's actually effective and that there are true experts, actually deserving of my money.

Thanks for any help answering these questions. Please don't respond by recommending yourself as an SEO expert as many people on here are clearly miss-using that term. However, if you yourself have used someone for SEO and have had noticeable results and can recommend them, then please do so.

BTW, I'm just looking for help with my pool care site.

Thanks,
Sean

**Learning Newbie** · 10-02-2007, 07:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SeanB

Therefore, I'm looking for some help. I think I would prefer to hire this out, providing it's actually effective and that there are true experts, actually deserving of my money.

Give us more info. It seems like your main question is "Is it worth it?" and if that's the case, well, worth means different things to different people. At present you're going to get a lot of "build more linkz dude" replies. Ignore them. But share more info about your site, how you see it, how you think your visitors see it, your traffic at present, and how you monetize the site, and you'll get more reliable advice.

You said you already have good content. Actually that you've been successful at creating it. That can only be the first step. If you try to cut corners on the "create something people want to see" part you can spend thousands on SEO and just be pouring it down the drain. So right off the bat, you're in a better position than average.

Also, you seem against the idea of doing your site's SEO on your own. Why is that? I'm not trying to talk you into changing your mind, just looking for clarification.

By the way, as long as you support the Iraq War, Google is never going to rank you for anything.

Just giving you a hard time because we've bumped into each other before - my way of saying "hi."

**SeanB** · 10-02-2007, 07:27 PM

:lol: Thanks.

I've had great growth, but a lot of that has come from another site, which is becoming defunct - long story.

I get lots of positive feedback, and if I may brag a bit, think we actually now have what may be the best site on the internet on pool care. However, my site still does not show up well on most relevant search topics.

It's not that I'm not willing to do SEO, but I'm stretched pretty thin on time and if I can get some "real" help, then it might be worth it to me to hire out.

As far as monitizing the site, I do accept donations and have tried adsense but found it to be a poor fit even though it was somewhat profitable. I am looking into banner advertising and selling the ads myself to select reputible businesses. There are a lot of snake oil salesman in the pool biz and a lot of them use adsense. It wasn't worth my time as I ended up having to block too many of them - another long story.

More important than direct monitization, though is volume. If I have more volume, I'll have more options regardless of how I monitize.

I hope that's enough background.

Thanks,
Sean

**MrCat** · 10-02-2007, 07:28 PM

Intriguing thread

lols

To the OP, if you are after your SERP (keyword ranking on search results) - you could do such thing as link building as what Learning Newbie recommended, with your keywords as anchor texts.

But if you really need to outsource it, you could try our marketplace here for the services of our co-members. You could ask them for their folio so you could assess how well they can deliver...

**SeanB** · 10-02-2007, 07:41 PM

I don't really want to try to do link exchanges as I think they are mostly crap.

Here are my site stats if that helps - attached. Please note, being a pool care site, we are obviously going to have some drop off in the winter months.

**Learning Newbie** · 10-02-2007, 07:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SeanB

It's not that I'm not willing to do SEO, but I'm stretched pretty thin on time and if I can get some "real" help, then it might be worth it to me to hire out.

As far as monitizing the site, I do accept donations and have tried adsense but found it to be a poor fit even though it was somewhat profitable. I am looking into banner advertising and selling the ads myself to select reputible businesses. There are a lot of snake oil salesman in the pool biz and a lot of them use adsense. It wasn't worth my time as I ended up having to block too many of them - another long story.

More important than direct monitization, though is volume. If I have more volume, I'll have more options regardless of how I monitize.

The first paragraph is in conflict with the last two. Hiring an SEO campaign might cost you anywhere from $500 to $5,000 (I've never done it) so unless money means little to you, it won't be worth it unless you see a decent ROI. The last thing you wrote is true, and sounds like you're aware of this, but you may want to do some homework on that end. Google is trying to end "paid links" which people try to hide as "advertising" so that may hinder your long term options. Which could tip the scales overall.

SEO is a time consuming affair, so if you already feel like you don't have enough time, you're probably better off hiring somebody. On the other hand, if you look at the broadest reasonable definition of SEO, you've already done the hard part. And that should be reflected in any quote you get. A lot of people need an editor and a ghost writer to be successful.

I moderate the SEO Marketplace forum, so naturally I have to invite you to look over there. But I would personally recommend Steve or Adam for the job. There are plenty of other talented individuals, but I know both of those two not only have the skill, but do freelance work.

**SeanB** · 10-02-2007, 09:28 PM

$500 to $5000 seems ridiculously expsenvive for "optimization."

I would expect $500-$1,000 to be on the high end, although I have no experience with this. I'm not looking for someone to create a site, just improve it for search engines.

What would I expect to get for my money - actual changes or work done on my behalf?

**scorpionagency** · 10:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SeanB

$500 to $5000 seems ridiculously expsenvive for "optimization."

I would expect $500-$1,000 to be on the high end, although I have no experience with this. I'm not looking for someone to create a site, just improve it for search engines.

What would I expect to get for my money - actual changes or work done on my behalf?

I can't answer for everyone, however the price bracket would include (But not limited to) the Following: (In my opinion)

Inbound Link Building
Content Vs. Keyword Density
Image format/size optimizing
Image - alt/title Attributes
Hyperlink - title Attributes
(SE) Search Engine friendly Navigation
Inner / Cross linking
Content tweaking (as needed)
Landing page support
Outbound link management / restrictions
Meta tag arrangements
Engine submissions (if needed)
Analysis / Troubleshooting to insure positive results for selected search phrases
and More.....

All these things are taken into account (& More) when doing a complete SEO campaign. As you can see just by the partial list, it can be quite time consuming.

Hope this helped clear up the "Why so much Inquiry".

**kaus** · 10-03-2007, 12:19 AM

Can i amke suggestions. First you can do this yourself. Read some books although they do change over time. Agreat start is Aaron Walls SEO book, covers alot of the basics.

Also maybe I am not sure but your page looks like it should be HTML but you have alot of styles within the beginning of your code. Maybe a CSS would be better to reduce that

Second I dont see any H tags nor do you have a description/keywords and even your title tag is off.

Title tage should represent what you want to be ranking for not the name of your company. Description is needed not only to give google something to describe your content but also helps for keywords...and keywords well tahts obv.

I see that its a phpbb but there has to be mods for these things.

Also you may want to look into rewriting your content. i am not sure what it is you are looking for to rank on but your keyword density shows nothing taht I can find for you. See below,

Quote:

tue oct pm111.81%comments view comments50.82%full comments view50.82%read full comments50.82%view comments post50.82%comments post your50.82%post your comment50.82%your comment announcement40.66%nwmnmom on tue30.49%not have noticed20.33%you may not20.33%saw a link20.33%sarah's girls boy20.33%a few new20.33%may not have20.33%build by compass20.33%compass on tue20.33%pool and spa20.33%posted seanb mon20.33%

Just trying to help take it for what its worth I am still very new ast this and constantly reading and asking questions, but I do believ it can be done without shelling out a ton of money as long as you ahve the patience to learn.

Good Luck

**vangogh** · 10-03-2007, 01:06 AM

Sean I hope this won't come across as coming down hard on you, but I think you're way off base in how you much you think real seo should cost. There are SEOs (good ones) who will charge you over $500/hr just to consult with them.

If you think that $500 will help your pages rank well you're going to end up with one of those people who add the label expert to their name.

You have to understand that what you're asking someone to do is drive a lot of traffic to your site so you can make money. The person who can do that for you deserves a reasonable amount of money back for the work.

SEO is not a one time thing. It's not about spending a few hours tweaking your site and then you rank. SEO is marketing. It's an ongoing thing and depending on your industry can take a few months or a few years before you see any results.

You should also know that one of the first steps in optimizing a site is often rebuilding the site. In your case the site itself wouldn't be rebuilt since you're running a forum, but there is still quite a lot of work that can and probably should be done in the underlying code.

If I was going to seo you site my first step would be to spend some time understanding your industry and researching the competition. My next step would be to spend time researching keywords for the site. I would then look towards making improvements in the code and probably reorganizing the way you've set up the forums and sub-forums. All the while I'd be working on ways to build content on the site you could control and build links into the site.

Then I would do the whole thing over again.

Pretend that all of the above could be done in 50 hours. At $1,000 you're paying someone $20/hr. At $500 you're paying them $10/hr.

It's not realistic to think that a person working for $10 an hour is going to help you make money. It would be more profitable to build a site on the same topic as yours and seo that instead.

Again I hope I'm not being too harsh. I just want you to understand you get what you pay for. You don't want to seo your site because you don't have the time. That's perfectly understandable. But if you don't want to spend the time then you have to pay someone who will.

As far as what you'd get for your money it really depends on how much you're willing to spend. For a few hundred dollars you're probably not going to get someone who actually knows what they're doing to do the work. You'll get advice on what you should do. If you're willing to pay more you'll find someone who will make the changes and do the work.

**ForrestCroce** · 10-03-2007, 01:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vangogh

If you think that $500 will help your pages rank well you're going to end up with one of those people who add the label expert to their name.

That seems to be the case in a lot of skilled industries. Doing something well is time consuming.

**vangogh** · 03:06 AM

It's also one of the reasons many of the top SEOs advise the still learning SEOs that client work is a dead end and we're better off building our own sites and marketing them since we take in 100% of the profit.

Unfortunately the SEO industry has a bad reputation because so many people sell services that have no clue how to optimize a paper bag. Look at all the self proclaimed seo experts we get here.

The people in the industry who really can help clients have to carry the same reputation though.

Also there are far too many people who believe that seo is about manipulating some code and you're done. I don't blame people for that since it was my view when I first stated learning. Years ago that is what seo involved, but things changed very quickly.

Every day SEO moves closer and closer to traditional marketing. There are certainly differences, but the idea is it's about ongoing marketing. Nike didn't run one commercial and then we all ran out and bought their sneakers. They ran and continue to run ads all the time.

They realized that having Tiger Woods wear shirts with a Nike logo would help them sell those shirts and golf clubs and sneakers. They understood that giving Michael Jordan his own show would be good for business since we all wanted to be like Mike.

It never stops because if it did less people would be wearing Nike apparel and more people would be wearing Adidas apparel and Puma apparel.

SEO is the same way. If you have no competition for a keyphrase I'll write make a few page tweaks and you can rank #1. As soon as someone else does the same a little better you'll need to hire me again to do something more. And on and on and on.

And of course you still need to pay to find all those keywords in the first place.

If you pay someone $500 o make you money don't expect you're going to get much more than $500 in return. Sean I don't want to imply you can't get something back for a few hundred dollars. All I'm saying is you'd need to have realistic expectations. The hard part for someone like me is I know there's only so much that could really be done for that price and while I'm sure I could improve your situation it probably won't be enough for it to make much impact on you. You might reasonably conclude that the money wasn't worth it, but that would be the case.

You can buy a decent used car for a few grand. That car won't win at Daytona. It might not even be running in a few years.

**ADAM Web Design** · 10-03-2007, 03:06 AM

SeanB, I just want you to know that I got your PM and this is where I'm going to answer it. I'm not ignoring you or your question: I just want to post it here so that others can both learn and/or play off of my comments. In other words, it serves the masses better if I do it publicly.

I'm also posting with absolutely no vested interest in the outcome (i.e. I'm not going to solicit your business, I'm not taking on new clients, and I don't know how to fix your specific problems because I don't have any experience with PHP anyway.) You also PMed me looking for a straight answer (mods, don't punish him, he was a very good boy just looking for some info), and if I'm hustling you for a few bucks, then I can't give you that straight answer.

First things first: SEO, like any other form of marketing, is only limited in terms of your operating budget. You can throw $5 at your SEO efforts, or you can throw $5,000,000 at it. The more you spend, however, the more likely you are to succeed.

Having looked at your site, your major problem with any SEO efforts that I can see boils down to some simple design mistakes. SEO and web design are closely intertwined (contrary to the public ranting of idiots who think it's all about links and that SEO is a standalone module...you people can shut up with that already!)

For example, let's look at your page titles (specifically, your home page). Dude, you need some spaces: "Trouble Free Pool" is a far more effective title than "Troublefreepool", since it's both easier for a human to read and it separates words for search engines that want to know what your pages are about...the title is a big key that way.

Next on the agenda, a serious killer that I'm surprised no one seemed to have picked up on yet: the session hashes in your URLs. This is bad search engine mojo because they think each different session hash represents a different page, even if the same content is loaded. This is especially true of your forum links: you have a tremendous opportunity for longtail search engine traffic if you can just clean up the URL structure and make sure each page has one URL and only one URL associated with it.

I'd also consider moving forums to their own folder, just to avoid any confusion with your default page (portal.php, from the looks of it), and index.php. Alternatively, you could rename your forums page forums.php (if it will still function...I really don't know, since I don't mess with the forum stuff.)

Next up, your code. Externalize all that CSS stuff. Besides being easier to maintain, it's easier for a search engine to figure out what your page is about if there's an external CSS sheet...it knows "this is just styling stuff, I don't need to worry about it except maybe to check if there's hidden text, and even then that's not overly likely." It's also better for your users, since they can download and cache the stylesheet, then reload and reuse.

Finally, you've got some canonical issues. www.troublefreepool.com and troublefreepool.com appear to be mirrored, but the non-www should be 301ed to the www.

RELEVANT READING MATERIAL

The best thing you can do, Sean, is to read this article on how web development and SEO are related. It's not my article, either (although the author and I share a first name and he did organically plug my Search Engine Friendly Layouts Site for me...one day I'll have to figure out who he is and thank him for that.)

I'm not sure what it would cost to solve those issues, but I suspect a decent programmer that knows PHP and SEO would probably be able to fit those issues within a $300-$400 budget (or if you can manage to solve them yourself and keep the few hundred, more power to you). Solve those issues, spend a few bucks getting links from the few quality directories out there (such as WebSavvy and JoeAnt), and you'll find yourself in much better shape.

I don't think you'll fit a $500 budget, but $1000-$1500 should be doable, based on what I've found.

CAVEAT: if others find issues that I missed (I gave it a few pages "surface glance"), then be prepared to spend more than what I just said. But based strictly on the issues I found, that should be about right.

**chrishirst** · 10-03-2007, 08:23 AM

Actually $500 to $5000 seems very cheap for a properly done SEO/SEM campaign. For the top brackets SEMs a full report on your site could cost $3000 to $6000 before any bit of work to improve the site is done.

I agree with everything that has been said in this thread I would add. When you are optimising a forum (or any other site with user generated content) is to simply forget the search engines exist and concentrate on making the pages great for users.
Making sure the backend puts no obstacles in the way of SE bots is about the only thing you can do directly. (session IDs for example)
Something I would do is to make thread titles better. Thread Topic followed by the site name would help a little.

The only content YOU can "optimise" are your own posts.
Word research is not a major issue as in most cases the people posting will write using the same or very similar words and phrases to the people looking for that kind of info.

You just need to get that initial user base to bring the forum up to "critical mass" where it will start to generate it's own "optimisation"

Quote:

Only one key phrase yields good results, but on many other relevant searches, we seem to be non-existent

Who decided what these phrases should be?
Do you check your logs to see what you get found for?

As we say many times, Rankings are meaningless it's conversions that matter.

More reading would be the HighRankings Tips for Newbies

**SeanB** · 10-03-2007, 02:09 PM

Thanks for all the responses. I will spend some time going over the suggestions, some of which are over my head at the moment.

I didn't mean to insult anyone or suggest that good SEO work was not worth the money. However, I have had some other minor work done on my site and found out that the amount I offered and paid initially was more than the going rate. If you go in saying "I'm willing to spend $2,000, then you are sure to find someone who will charge $2,000.

Based on what you've told me though, I agree, $500 is probably not enough for quality work.

Let me ask one other question. Assuming I still want to hire out, what type of agreement would I expect? Would it be something like, "I'll do xyz," for a set price, or would I be guaranteed some level of results? I'd hate to spend $1,000 plus and not see the desired results, or at least some marked improvement.

Thanks again!

**ADAM Web Design** · 10-03-2007, 02:14 PM

The former, Sean. Anyone who "guarantees results" is flat-out lying to you.

Let's take guaranteed rankings, for example. For all you need to know on this topic, read this page:

http://www.google.com/support/webmas...n&answer=35291

Everything you need to know is there.

If you fix the design issues, you should see some improvement. I won't say "will" because that depends on who fixes the issues and how the issues are fixed. But "should" is not unreasonable to expect.

**SeanB** · 10-03-2007, 02:21 PM

Okay, so the next step. How do I go about sorting the legitimate SEO professionals, from the frauds? Where would I start looking to hire someone?

**Learning Newbie** · 10-03-2007, 02:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ADAM Web Design

The former, Sean. Anyone who "guarantees results" is flat-out lying to you.

Yeah, that should be a red flag, immediately stop talking to anyone who guarantees anything. It's a shame that you get a roll of the dice (or so it feels like) for your money. But, imagine you took Ann Coulter's advice and murdered a bunch of liberals just for breathing. Think about how you would hire a lawyer, because really it's pretty similar. Any good defense attorney isn't going to guarantee any outcome, but they're going to work their butt off to get the best outcome possible.

You would ideally want a picky lawyer. They get paid the same whether they win or loose, but the good ones brag to potential clients about their win/lose ratio. And the good ones won't take a case they don't think they can win, because it will hurt their ratio and take away a selling point.

And so it is with SEO. Except you're not trying to get out of jail like OJ. Instead you need to clearly define what it is that you want.

PS - No one is offended at the amount of money you budgeted. I'm sure anyone thinking about buying some kind of service they have no experience with doesn't know what it cost. Honest mistake, and you're 1 in 10 who is willing to hear people out and understand why. No harm no foul.

**ADAM Web Design** · 10-03-2007, 05:52 PM

What John said. Except in your case, the legitimate SEO professionals will understand both the design AND the SEO issues.

First things first: they should talk to you about your site architecture (i.e. the issues I and others have pointed out with your design.)

Second: You'll have to come to them. The good ones won't come to you. Why? They don't have to. The ones that spam you...obviously their SEO isn't working for them.

Third: avoid anyone who talks about link exchange, link building, link schemes, or anything else to do with links first. Links are a factor, but people who just go after links for links' sake are the ones who try to put a Big Bird bandaid on a gash that requires 100 stitches.

That's all I can think of off the top. I'm sure others will add to that.

**Learning Newbie** · 10-03-2007, 06:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ADAM Web Design

Third: avoid anyone who talks about link exchange, link building, link schemes, or anything else to do with links first. Links are a factor, but people who just go after links for links' sake are the ones who try to put a Big Bird bandaid on a gash that requires 100 stitches.

Yup. Some great rules are don't hire a SEO if they approach you electronically. Ask to see their portfolio, what sites they've worked on and specifically what they did for them. Links they'll be able to create for you will do very little good in SEO terms. Their job isn't to provide links, it's to help entice legitimate sites to create them for you.

And do think about how you're going to make money from this venture. Like a sue people lawyer, some SEOs will change you nothing up front but take a % of your earnings from their work. I don't know how common that is, except that all "SEO EXPERTs" know not to do that because they can't provide any real help so it means they won't get paid.