SEO Tycoon

**TODMovies** · 11-03-2008, 10:15 AM

To be sure I choose a reliable SEO, what questions could I ask to feel more confident it is the right one?

If I ask "how or what" then obviously they keep it vague (which i understand, nobody wants to actually TELL the techniques).

Anyone?

Thanks!!

**chrishirst** · 11-03-2008, 11:23 AM

Quote:

If I ask "how or what" then obviously they keep it vague (which i understand, nobody wants to actually TELL the techniques)

Simple, ask the question, if they "keep it vague" DON'T let them loose with someone else's site.

There is ABSOLUTELY no need to be vague about "techniques" UNLESS they have something to hide.

There are several members at this forum who "tell it like it REALLY is" and I would count on to do a good job. Unfortunately they are outweighed of course by the shysters and pseudo "experts".

You can easily spot the good ones, they are the ones who don't try to confused you with pseudo scientific claptrap, tell you how they will increase the toolbar PR, What keyword density is "best", why you should have 50 freebie blogs that you can't promote either etc etc.
They will simply tell you that first and foremost you need a site that is good for real visitors. And if you don't have that, all the "Social Media Marketing", "Blog spamming" and forum link dropping in the WORLD won't help you.

**juliensimon** · 07:39 PM

You can also ask them how their SEO have helped them. Ask them how many leads/sales a month they get from their website.

Ask for a portfolio. If the company won't show you any for the sake of "private information", they most likely have nothing to show.

Call a few of their references.

Type their main keywords in SE. If you can't find them there, don't hire them. Why would you hire someone to do a job for you when they can't do it for themselves? (I can hear Chris say: The Cobblers kids never have new shoes

)

Don't ask them for technical details if you don't know anything about SEO but ask them for figures, stats, numbers, real proof.

**Learning Newbie** · 11-03-2008, 07:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TODMovies

To be sure I choose a reliable SEO, what

Trust anything Chris H and Julien say. I'll add my 2 cents, which, ravaged by inflation and the falling value of the USD, are about worthless.

What specific goal will they work toward? I'm guessing you plan to leave that somewhat up to the company. If they mention PR, Alexa, or whatever, it's a sham.

How will progress be measured? And how do these metrics translate to your bottom line?

What will they do to achieve that goal? Specifically? A contractor builds a pool in your back yard by digging and lining a hole, etc - there's no mystery involved, only labor. SEO is the same.

**micoblanco** · 11-03-2008, 07:49 PM

I think you shouldn't ask. I think the best way to know if that's a GOOD SEO company is to see its portfolio/works.

It's like ACTIONS speaks louder than WORDS!

**DNChris** · 11-03-2008, 11:31 PM

Well guys, I'm sorry but i disagree with most of the above.

Firstly i would not employ an SEO company that wanted to ad my site to their portfolio.
I do not want my competitors knowing who I use and how my site is achieving its rating, I certainly don't want emails from their potential customers asking if they are any good.

As for them quoting what they do, this is true to some extent, but only to a point, its true a lot of SEO is labor intensive and if you are looking for a link builder or someone to take care of the "time in" side of SEO then yes these guys will and should quote what they do, however, i don't consider these guys to be SEO guys, they are laborers.

A good SEO guy or company does more than put in to practice what he learns every year from the SES, a good SEO company have developed their own little tricks of the trade, things that give them the edge over their competitors, these are the things that will in turn give your site the edge over your competitors, so, what really matters is not going to be given out freely.

IMHO the best way to find a good SEO guy is to ask for recommends in webmaster forums, if someone as used the service and got good results they will be happy to recommend the company. It may be by PM and not to their competitors

**juliensimon** · 11-04-2008, 02:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DNChris

Well guys, I'm sorry but i disagree with most of the above.

Firstly i would not employ an SEO company that wanted to ad my site to their portfolio.
I do not want my competitors knowing who I use and how my site is achieving its rating, I certainly don't want emails from their potential customers asking if they are any good.

because of course, if your site appears all over the first page of SEs, your competitors won't guess that your site is optimized. Also, a respectful SEO company will not take a lot more than 2 direct competitors as there are only 10 spots available on the first page.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DNChris

As for them quoting what they do, this is true to some extent, but only to a point, its true a lot of SEO is labor intensive and if you are looking for a link builder or someone to take care of the "time in" side of SEO then yes these guys will and should quote what they do, however, i don't consider these guys to be SEO guys, they are laborers.

Again, you can tell them what you do. If don't don't know SEO, it will sound gibberish to them anyway. And nobody asked you to give the little secrets but when someone pays you, I think you can tell him how you are using his money/your time. Unless you over charge and don't feel confident with that anyway.

A good SEO guy or company does more than put in to practice what he learns every year from the SES, a good SEO company have developed their own little tricks of the trade, things that give them the edge over their competitors, these are the things that will in turn give your site the edge over your competitors, so, what really matters is not going to be given out freely.[/quote]

Again, you can tell them what you do. If don't don't know SEO, it will sound gibberish to them anyway. And nobody asked you to give the little secrets but when someone pays you, I think you can tell him how you are using his money/your time. Unless you over charge and don't feel confident with that anyway.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DNChris

IMHO the best way to find a good SEO guy is to ask for recommends in webmaster forums, if someone as used the service and got good results they will be happy to recommend the company. It may be by PM and not to their competitors

Considering the amount of SEO Experts for who "get more backlinks" is the answer to everything, I wouldn't necesseraly recommend doing that.

**Adam_waugh** · 11-04-2008, 02:57 AM

I will ask when my website will get good rank on search engines

**DNChris** · 11-04-2008, 04:42 AM

juliensimon your argument makes no sense, you seem to argue all points with

Quote:

If don't don't know SEO, it will sound gibberish to them anyway

yet it could be their competitor enquiring, as for your point about being top spot on all the search engines, its not that you dont want your competitor to know you are employing SEO, if you are using a good SEO company that is getting top result on all the SEs, you dont want them to know witch company you are using

**chrishirst** · 11-04-2008, 04:53 AM

Actually;

If a page has been truly well optimised, you should NOT be able to tell that it has

If it looks optimised, it isn't.

**juliensimon** · 01:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DNChris

juliensimon your argument makes no sense, you seem to argue all points with

yet it could be their competitor enquiring, as for your point about being top spot on all the search engines, its not that you dont want your competitor to know you are employing SEO, if you are using a good SEO company that is getting top result on all the SEs, you dont want them to know witch company you are using

Maybe if you would have read my entire post, you would see that there is more that just one point. To answer your last comment:
As I said, a respectful SEO company won't take direct competitors. There are only 10 spots available on 1st page of SEs. Why would do fight against yourself? That's auto-cannibalism.

EDIT:

This article might help you to decide.

**Learning Newbie** · 11-05-2008, 08:36 PM

If a person won't tell me what they plan to do, I won't hire them. That's true whether they're an SEO, a dentist, a banker, a politician, or any other job.

Think about it - if the best case is more customers, a bad case is wasting your money and getting nothing, and the worst case is being banned by search engines and taken to task for spam, anybody would be a fool to pay another company (or individual) to "do whatever seems like a good idea - on my behalf". Would you pick up a hitch hiker and believe them when they tell you they can perform open heart surgery? Enough to let them try it on you?

**juliensimon** · 08:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Learning Newbie

If a person won't tell me what they plan to do, I won't hire them. That's true whether they're an SEO, a dentist, a banker, a politician, or any other job.

Think about it - if the best case is more customers, a bad case is wasting your money and getting nothing, and the worst case is being banned by search engines and taken to task for spam, anybody would be a fool to pay another company (or individual) to "do whatever seems like a good idea - on my behalf". Would you pick up a hitch hiker and believe them when they tell you they can perform open heart surgery? Enough to let them try it on you?

I'm not saying you shouldn't tell them anything. All I'm saying is that you don't have to go into too much details.

If a doctor explains to me that I have a problem, that he knows how to fix it and that it requires this surgery and the result will be that I will live 10 extra years, I won't ask him to explain to me what tool he is gonna use.

In every business relationship there is a part of trust. For the rest, there are signed contracts

All I said was:

Quote:

Originally Posted by juliensimon

"Don't ask them for technical details if you don't know anything about SEO but ask them for figures, stats, numbers, real proof.

If I hire a Doctor, I'll make sure he is legitimate and have proven results, I won't ask him to teach me medicine.

**VirtuosiMedia** · 10:52 PM

Going back to the original question, here are the questions I would ask (and why) if I were searching for an SEO company:

What are your methods? Like has already been mentioned, if they aren't willing to disclose their methods, you should assume that they are using dishonest techniques. They may not be, but at the end of the day, they'll be promoting your website and your company and it'll be your good name that's on the line, not the SEO company's name. I'd rather not risk it.

What is your ethical policy when it comes to SEO? My preferred answer would be, "We always have our client's image and name in mind whenever we do anything. If there's even a chance that we could damage our client's reputation or image, we don't do it. If it's borderline, gray, or even slightly spammy, we won't do it."

Do you outsource? Chances are, if they outsource some of their work, they're performing useless or shady link building exercises. They will charge you a premium and then turn around and outsource to developing countries at a far lower rate and your company will be poorly represented. A similar question could be, is your SEO process automated? If it's automated, chances are that they're just using a script that will spam the internet. In either case, they're charging you for a lot of money and you won't be getting much value.

Can you guarantee me the first position or the first page on Google? If they say yes, walk away immediately. No one can guarantee that they can control how Google or any other search engine is going to display their search results. It can be done and in many cases it can be easy depending on the terms, but a guarantee should never be given. In a similar vein, be careful of SEOs that promise to help you optimize for a particular keyword or phrase. You can do that, but the majority of your search engine traffic is going to come from "long-tail" searches, which are searches that are far more random than any singular keyword phrase. If they mention anything about keyword density, they probably don't know what they're talking about.

Do you offer on-page optimization? Personally, I think most of the work should go into optimizing your site (and for the customer first before the search engine) rather than link building, but if they don't do any on-page optimization, again, chances are that they are just link spamming.

How do you balance optimizing for search engines versus optimizing for users? Users should always come first, no matter what. What's the point of a visitor if they leave your site as soon as it loads because of poor design, poor copy, or a gazillion ads?

How much do you charge per article? This is somewhat another trick question. If they're offering article writing services in addition to SEO, you need to be very careful. A truly readable and usable article won't be very cheap and I'd really recommend against having an SEO company do it at all. Oftentimes, they will write keyword stuffed fluff articles that are written purely for search engines and not for human readers. Sometimes they will outsource the article writing to non-native English speakers and sometimes will use a program called an article spinner to replace a few of the words with synonyms. The results are never good and they won't represent your company or website well. If you do go with an SEO for article writing, look over their site carefully for spelling errors and content quality. If there are horrible mistakes on their own site, don't expect it to be any different for the work they do for you. Really, your best bet for content writing is to get someone who is qualified in the field or industry of your website to write the article and then to have it edited by a professional editor.

How many search engine and directories do you submit my site to? If the answer is very much more 10, you'd be best served walking away. Really, Google, Yahoo, and Live are the only search engines worth submitting to, but you shouldn't even have to submit your site to them. Sitemap submissions are far more effective in getting your content indexed. There are only a few directories, if any, that are worth submitting your site to as well. If you get an answer of hundreds or thousands to the above question, they are using an automated script (that you could probably download for free) and charging you an arm and a leg for it. What's more, it won't help you in any appreciable way. If they mention article directory sites, they don't know what they're talking about.

What's your social media strategy? Social media can be a very, very effective tool, but it can devolve into link spamming far too easily. Having a Digg button on your site is fine, but if you're selling Get Rich Quick ebooks, Digg really isn't the place for you. You should think twice about getting involved with social media as a company unless you are planning on being actively involved with your users. A good SEO company will approach social media as a marketing campaign and will discuss how you want your company to be portrayed and talk about active user engagement. And it should be a long-term strategy. It is not just submitting every blog post to Digg.

Do you test user conversion rates? The bottom line for most sites isn't how many visitors they receive, but how much money they make from converting those visitors to clients, customers, or users. If I were to hire an SEO firm (and to be fair, this might beyond just SEO, so many good and legit SEOs may not offer it), I would expect them to make suggestions for improving my bottom line. Usability, split and/or multivariate testing are going to be a part of that for each page, design, logo, and bit of copy.

Do you have any case studies related to your previous clients? If you are going to pay someone to do work for you, it's more than reasonable to ask them to prove that they can do the work and do it well. A formal case study might not be necessary, but they should have a selected portfolio of successes. A telling sign is also how well their own site ranks. If they aren't first for their company name or SEO in their area, they probably aren't a very good SEO.

Can I speak to some of your current or former clients? If they aren't willing to let you do this, it should be a warning flag, though perhaps not a deal-breaker. If they don't have a list of clients that you can contact immediately, ask them if they could put one together for you.

Is there a contract with all of the services that you will perform explicitly written out? Everything needs to be in writing. No matter what. If it's not, you'll regret it, if not sooner, then later. If there is no contract with absolutely everything in writing, don't do business with them. They may not be dishonest, but you need to cover yourself and your investment and a contract is the only way to do that.

Why are you more (or less) expensive than your competitors? This is a pretty open-ended question, but it could give you valuable insight into the way that they work and the methodology that they use.

I'm sure there are a thousand other questions you could ask, but these should hopefully help you weed out at least a few of the bad SEOs.

**alysha** · 11-05-2008, 11:59 PM

How many keywords that they can guarantee that will rank in top 10 of google.

**Reine__0** · 11-06-2008, 01:00 AM

I would rather ask him/ her facts about SEO. if he/ she really Good in Optimizing Webpages.

**chrishirst** · 11-06-2008, 05:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by alysha

How many keywords that they can guarantee that will rank in top 10 of google.

Well that's web-innovators.com crossed of the list already.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reine__0

I would rather ask him/ her facts about SEO. if he/ she really Good in Optimizing Webpages.

And if you don't KNOW the correct answers how will you decide if they are being honest??

**Learning Newbie** · 11-06-2008, 08:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by juliensimon

If I hire a Doctor, I'll make sure he is legitimate and have proven results, I won't ask him to teach me medicine.

Well, sure, but a doctor is licensed - an SEO doesn't necessarily have a high school education. And I don't think I've ever heard of an SEO with malpractice insurance. Being allowed to practice medicine in and of itself confers a lot of trust - calling oneself an SEO doesn't.

Quote:

Originally Posted by alysha

How many keywords that they can guarantee that will rank in top 10 of google.

If a keyword means a phrase, I can guarantee anybody an infinite number of them, on Google's first page.

This is alysha's web site
alysha's site has lots of html
alysha web site built of markup, it is
Indeed, alysha has a web site
Now you've found this page on alysha's site!
Elephants, ibex, and bonobos all prefer content of alysha

I think you get the drift. Keyword placement without understanding competition is a very dangerous thing!

By the way, that keyword analysis cost $5,000. Where do I send the bill?

**anujlko** · 11-15-2008, 09:08 AM

I think we should know that “Do they require that I make changes to my website” and
“What is there link building methodology?”

**chrishirst** · 11-15-2008, 09:18 AM

Quote:

“Do they require that I make changes to my website”

AND HOW exactly would they optimise a site without making changes to it????

"Link building" is NOT SEO