Mike's conversation on push vs. pull SEO continues at Clickz today. He's specifically seeking input on how Mom & Pop sized businesses can utlilize the services of SEO with a very limited budget. I thought that, being responsible for some of this heated debate, I'd open up with a few options for the budget minded business seeking SEO.
First off, before pursuing any of the solutions below, I'd read the beginner's guide to SEO, this list of search engine ranking factors and join the Cre8asite forums. I suggest these steps to almost everyone I talk to or email nowadays.
Once you've undergone those, here are some options you can use your $2000 on:
The Ultra-Low-Budget Option
- Buy Steve Krug's "Don't Make Me Think" - $23.10
- Buy Aaron Wall's "SEO Book" - $79.00
- Buy an old copy of Dreamweaver ~ $81.00
- Build and Promote yourself - Free in $$, Expensive in Time
The Link Lover's Option
- Buy a month of service from Andy Hagans ~ $1000
- Get Greg Jarboe to send out a one-shot Press Release ~ $700
- Get a Yahoo! Directory Listing - $299
Consulting Options
- Get a Site Review & Link Recommendation Report from
- Simply implement the suggestions :)
The Slightly over $2000 Options
- Scottie Claiborne's Site Review - $3000
- Debra Mastaler's Custom Link Building - $2500
- Patrick Gavin's Link Building Services ~ $2000
The "Link Bait" Option
- Get one GREAT idea for a tool, service, resource or page - bounce it off some folks in the forums (or privately through email to an SEO you trust)
- Hire a developer who can help you build it - my choice is to use Craigslist - post with a budget of $2000
SEO doesn't have to be expensive and while having a budget certainly makes the task easier, I'm sure that the readers here will come up with even more options.
I disagree Michael.
First of all -- a good SEO is a professional; why not charge a professional (~$50-100) rate?
Secondly -- what type of value are you creating for businesses when you do SEO for them? Any SEO worth his salt is creating MORE than $100 of value per hour they work.
Thirdly -- why does everyone in this biz feel "guilty" charging a lot? Do you think your lawyer/doctor feels guilty charging YOU $120 / hour?
Jbrock,
Why are all of your headings and navigation in image format? You're missing valuable keywords by doing that. Keywords like: secure support, products, remote support, security, lower cost, fast support, purchase, subscribe, yearly basis, license, one-time cost, subscriptoin, network, appliance-based support, remote pc control, remote support, maintenance, access, conrol, remote PCs, manage desktops, manage servers remotely, control computers, etcetera....
Why are you targeting all of these keywords on a single page: control pc, pc anywhere,remote support,remote support tools,access unattended pcs,remote pc access,manage pcs,remote pc support,remote pc control,remote desktop support,remote desktop access,networkstreaming,support appliance ?
Why are you using difficult-to-follow Java Script when I don't see anything that couldn't be done with html and css?
Where is your XML sitemap to be submitted to Google and available to crawl by other search engines?
Where are your H1 / H2 tags?
Overall you have a decent site for someone who took the DIY approach, and I applaud your efforts. I'm not saying anything negative about your on-page optimization to be mean spirited; Rather, I want to prove a point about the difference between hiring a qualified SEO and reading a book.
I tried reading a book about Do-It-Yourself drywall for finishing a basement. The result was a very crapy looking basement and a waste of time and money. I had to have a professional come in and rip out all of my poorly laid drywall.
You're website looks MUCH better than my basement. But I hope I made my point.
As far as do-it-yourself options, has anyone worked with IPB 8 from Axandra?
And if you really want a low-budget option for SEO, hire an English major and teach her to do it. She probably has no possible chance of making more than $2000 in a year anyway . . . much less in the time it would take to optimize a site.
Everett - They've got the text part covered and the image headers don't contain terms that aren't already on the page (note the small text at the top, etc).
XML Sitemap - They've got a very crawlable site, I don't think it's neccessary and Google appears to have all their pages indexed fine.
H1/H2 - I rarely see these used unless they're keyword stuffed. I can't honestly say that there's any value in using them at all anymore. I think the search engines are finding that in general, Hx tags are more of an SEO "trick" than a good way to find relevant documents...
Just my $0.02. I agree, BTW on the last point - it's a very good-looking site.
Multiple reasons for the whys. The main one is that we began SEO in April 05, and there's a learning curve. But with a long term commitment to learning SEO and helpful tools like urchin, we're doing well in the serps against competitors - which is a high priority for most people hiring SEOs. (Plus, our designers like proprietary fonts - which only work as images if you wanna maintain your design.)
Thanks for the comments. I'll try to implement them. Do i owe you $50? Or should i just come hang your drywall next time? :-/
While an old blog post, this still have relevancy today, budgeting.
When setting out on a websiting building career, part or full time, setting aside a budget keeps you going overboard or over enthusiastic and spending everything you've and everything and anything you read. I'm sure you know what I mean :)
Now I'm signing up to directories, I'm divided my time between subscribing to non-paid and paid directories. With a collection of other products and services I'm paying budgeting really does come into its own.
Note: URL for Alan K'nech is pointing to an old page. Should be pointing to https://www.knechtology.com
Yes! True
We agree on something Michael...
I stood up at SES in Chicago and specifically asked a Yahoo rep during the Evening Forum with Danny Sullivan about H1 tags. The question was related to whether we should be manipulating the way they look with CSS, but the gist of his reply as it relates to your statement above is:
YES – they do still look at Heading tags (h1, h2, h3) and other HTML text elements like bold and italics to determine what some of the more important elements on the page are.
That’s from the horse’s mouth. It might only be a SLIGHT difference, but as long as they’re looking at them, I’ll continue to use them.
Just because something’s already on the page in small text, doesn’t mean you should ignore the value of textual headings and start using image headings instead. If that page is ABOUT “keyword” there’s not reasons to have “keyword” as an image instead of an H1 or H2 tag. No reason at all unless you’ve got some sort of branded, proprietary font that acts more of a logo – which wasn’t the case on that site.
Again, they have a great looking site with some good content on the inside pages. I’m not bashing that site at all. I’m just saying for $1,000 they could get some major improvements done by hiring a professional SEO.
We're not a "mom-and-pop" business, but we took the "Ultra-low-budget option." But instead of Aaron Wall's "seo book" we used "Search Engine Visibility" by Shari Thurow. I recommend the low budget approach because the hefty time investment makes one wiser for the aspects of the more expensive options one will probably want to add later. Here's our result.
And i agree with randfish. Most people with a site know what they want from it. If a client doesn't know what she wants from the site, she needs to spend the time required to figure it out. It's hard to please a directionless client. You can learn a lot from reading blogs or books. Then, even if you don't do the optimizing yourself, you'll understand why it's fair to pay over $50 an hour to have it done.
Michael,
Regardless of the price some SEOs charge – and I do see your point about “good” SEO involving more than throwing up ten pages – my point was that a mom-n-pop shop would do better to get some quality written, quality optimized pages up on their site than to hire one of these expensive (albeit worth it if you have the budget) gurus who specialize in one area, such as link building OR press releases….. And they would be better off going to someone who is actually going to implement the changes instead of just “consulting” with them.
Now, to get QUALITY content from a copy writer who understands how to write for the internet with SEO, conversions and branding in mind all at the same time, it will run you about $50 per page. If your key term is “blue widget” that copy writer will need to finesse the term “blue widget” into the copy at least one more time than any other key term. They need to write the copy in such a way as to make the reader want to convert. They have to understand how readers “scan” internet pages differently than they “read” magazine articles – bolded headings, pull-out quotes, bulleted lists, etcetera… It’s much more than just writing and it’s worth every damned penny. Anyone charging less is either not at that level, or is harming the industry for those who are.
Design – If you want a designer to put up your new pages with clean code, using CSS and crawlable site architecture, you’d be hard pressed to find one for less than $50 per hour. AGAIN – if you do, you’re probably only getting what you pay for.
SEO – We’re talking about a one-time fee. Most SEO companies will want to put you on a contract for 6-12 months, during which time they do very little except a bit of link building. By taking the up-front payment of $1,000, the SEO is forfeiting their monthly payments and future income. That’s one less site out there to optimize, and one more site out there competing for those terms, which means the SEO will have to work even harder to rank the next guy who comes along in the same industry.
SEOs need to stop thinking of their selling their TIME and start thinking of selling their SKILL !!! Time is nothing. If it were about time, my office would be full of (edited by Rand)kids without high-school diplomas. Instead, my office is full of college graduates who eat, sleep and breath The Internet.
And THAT is why I would charge $1,000 to optimize a site. Although, I do concede that I made it sound like not much had to be done in my above post. It would be a little more than meta tags, titles and building a sitemap. I’d make sure the owner was submitted to the appropriate free directories; I’d do a bit of reciprocal link requests to similar, trusted websites. I’d write a press release or two and put them out on the free Internet wires. I’d make sure the designer and copywriter did their jobs correctly – no big chunks of java on the page, no keyword stuffing, and etcetera. I’d run a Key Word Density analysis on each page to make sure we’re targeting the right words in the Meta and Title, and I might even do a quick and dirty keyword report to make sure we’re targeting the right words overall.
But for $1,000 they wouldn’t get much more than that.
Wow! Fantastic help. I got to say that between the magazine article and this blog, I've gotten a ton of ideas. Once I get rich and famous ;) I'll be able to hire you!
My opinion of Mike Grehan has changed a lot since I first read his post on the SEW boards. I have since read his articles on ClickZ and his very long blos post. I now see where he is coming from and I can see that he is very knowledgeable and experienced. He can and does offer a lot of great advice.
I still totally disagree with him on the sandbox though. You first have to experience it to know it is there, and from his (enviable position), he will probably never have to experience it.
Have someone write and distribute articles, here are 78 ideas for those with writers block
https://www.jimboykin.com/building-backlinks-through-content-advice-and-tips/
Michael - based on the folks I talk to every day, I'd disagree. There are tons of "mom and pops" or small business owners who know exactly what they need from the web - a presence through which they can use the Internet as a distribution, branding, marketing and advertising channel.
The Internet is cheaper to get on than television or radio (in most cases), although to do a good job requires either lots of elbow grease or a sizable budget, but the principles are the same. Let's not go disparaging these folks universally, after all, the Newsweek article was about two mom & pop businesses, SEOmoz and Oppedisano's, and they're both doing pretty well on the web :D
"First of all -- a good SEO is a professional; why not charge a professional (~$50-100) rate?"
Andy - I was feeling guilty about charging $300/hour until I saw some top guys in the industry charging $600-$800 an hour. With ROI the way it is, is it any wonder that the supply and demand for SEO would dictate this type of pricing?
Rand - this is a great list. I actually think if this were expanded on a bit more it could potentially get mad crazy links from some of the social bookmarking sites and SEO bloggers. The social bookmarkers seem to have an affinity for lists, such as "10 ways to improve your PC," and things of that nature.
The only option I disagree with is buying an old copy of dreamweaver. If keeping a tight budget is an issue, build the site yourself. Anyone can learn HTML in about 20 minutes. If you don't want to learn, there are a bajillion free html editors out there.
"With ROI the way it is, is it any wonder that the supply and demand for SEO would dictate this type of pricing?"
Hey, that's a free market system! Embrace it :-) Pay cash for a house with it :-) Retire at 30 on it :-)
Bookmarked :)
Before I did anything above, I would suggest paying a copywriter $500 to write 10 pages of quality content specifically for their business. That's $50 per page - enough for a decent American copywriter.
Spend $500 on getting those pages uploaded and internally linked to, including the creation of a sitemap.html file if they didn't already have one. This would take a freelance designer from Craig's List about 10 hours - tops. At $50 per hour, you could get a pretty good one, although not the best. But we're talking mom-n-pop here - no PHP, Flash, or crazy backend content management systems.
With the remaining $1,000 you could pay a freelance optimizer - not the best, but at least competent - to do some very basic SEO on your Titles, Meta Tags, and Site Navigation.
I see all of those suggestions at the top of this blog entry about hiring some of the biggest names in the business. I don’t understand. I thought this was for a mom-n-pop website? Those options would allow them to do one thing or another. This gets them content, design, AND some optimization. It’s more than enough to get them listed on the first page for “purple widget store in obscure neighborhood,” and possibly even a mid-sized city.
However, if they have any tech know-how and can read, I agree with the suggestion of buying an "SEO for Dummies" type book and an older version of Dreamweaver.
They just need to be sure to save ALL of the original files in another folder on their computer before changing the website.