Investing in SEO

fergal_d

I am in the process of setting up a number of web sites at the moment and am considering investing is a company to deal with my SEO...

Could you reccommend a company for me or some good seo tactics

McPants

Hi Fergal, I recommend me and my company! I do the SEO for t2 a Carlow based web design and development company. I have a proven record of getting sites ranked for keywords. Have a look at my work blog for more info on the kind of work I do! If you are just after some hints and tips you'll find them in Rita's SEO times.:)

link8r

I'd recommend searching for "SEO" or "Search Engine Optimisation" in Google. Anyone can claim they're good at SEO - but IMHO if you're good at it you should rank for it!

forbairt

If you want to go a funny old way there was recently a competition held to rank for the term Geansai Gorm within one month by Damien Mulley

Paul from www.Blackdog.ie won the competition with his entry www.mybluejumper.com

(unfortunately he's travelling for the next few weeks and won't be back probably until the new year ... still you could always drop him a mail)

On a different note a number of the firms / people I respect in terms of SEO don't rank well for the term SEO (they are too busy ranking their customers)

(disclaimer: I entered the competition and came 4th I think ... I don't however offer SEO nor is it really something I want to do for the moment)

I've seen some good results from http://www.2bscene.ie/ who did some seo/sem for one of my clients. (ranking them at number 1 I believe in a pretty short amount of time)

I will however say it'll all depend on your keywords. If you're trying to rank for apple good luck if you're trying to rank for Jamaican Ski Resort .. you'll probably have a lot of success

blue4ever

If anyone is interested in the ‘deconstruct’ (as such) have a look at the attached PDF’s. The first, ‘gean_seo’, looks at the top ten in terms of the keyword ‘geansai gorm’. It breaks down the appearance in titles, metas, alts – all the areas. So it’s an interesting comparison of each persons strategy approaching this.

The second is the Link analysis of the sites and where they got the inbounds. I have to say, hats off the ingenuity of some of the participants on the link front.

Make with this as you will – I just thought as there had been a fair amount of chat about the event it would be interesting to be ‘revisionist’ with the data.

fergal_d

blue4ever wrote: »

If anyone is interested in the ‘deconstruct’ (as such) have a look at the attached PDF’s. The first, ‘gean_seo’, looks at the top ten in terms of the keyword ‘geansai gorm’. It breaks down the appearance in titles, metas, alts – all the areas. So it’s an interesting comparison of each persons strategy approaching this.

The second is the Link analysis of the sites and where they got the inbounds. I have to say, hats off the ingenuity of some of the participants on the link front.

Make with this as you will – I just thought as there had been a fair amount of chat about the event it would be interesting to be ‘revisionist’ with the data.

forbairt wrote: »

If you want to go a funny old way there was recently a competition held to rank for the term Geansai Gorm within one month by Damien Mulley

Paul from www.Blackdog.ie won the competition with his entry www.mybluejumper.com

(unfortunately he's travelling for the next few weeks and won't be back probably until the new year ... still you could always drop him a mail)

On a different note a number of the firms / people I respect in terms of SEO don't rank well for the term SEO (they are too busy ranking their customers)

(disclaimer: I entered the competition and came 4th I think ... I don't however offer SEO nor is it really something I want to do for the moment)

I've seen some good results from http://www.2bscene.ie/ who did some seo/sem for one of my clients. (ranking them at number 1 I believe in a pretty short amount of time)

I will however say it'll all depend on your keywords. If you're trying to rank for apple good luck if you're trying to rank for Jamaican Ski Resort .. you'll probably have a lot of success

thanks a million guys, some great info there...

since I made this thread I have been studying SEO and other forms of advertising and have done pretty well... That comp for geansai gorm is a great idea...

Was it just a once off comp? I wouldn't mind trying out my new found SEO skills in a comp like that.

was there a prize?

badinfleunce

Do it yourself. Use the google tool to get keyword ideas. Then check the competition. Can be a bit time consuming but it is worth it. Look at
competitor websites and then use the niches that you found during your keyword research to optimise your site using your competitors model to develop your strategy. This will rank you first for your keyword or keywords.

fergal_d

badinfleunce wrote: »

Do it yourself. Use the google tool to get keyword ideas. Then check the competition. Can be a bit time consuming but it is worth it. Look at
competitor websites and then use the niches that you found during your keyword research to optimise your site using your competitors model to develop your strategy. This will rank you first for your keyword or keywords.

dont forget link building and keyword density

Pablo

@ blue4ever : Cheers for sharing your analysis, some nice comparisons there. I guess this data was taken on Dec. 1st ? I changed the front page a number of times during the competition.

@ fergal_d : I'm all booked out at the moment.

pauldiv

If you have time you should do the SEO yourself because it is not that difficult and anyone can learn how to get a page into the top 10.
There is so much wishful thinking about SEO being some sort of black art when it isn't.

If you are willing to spend a month preparing yourself to learn something new then there are a couple of articles at my own site that will point you in the right direction. I also have an example showing a gap in the market for Corgi registered plumbers in Ireland and I explain how to do it.

Remember SEO is not just about getting the top spot in Google. Your pages will come up in the search engines for many keywords and phrases that you never thought about. It is important that your listings look like they will give the searcher what the seek. That is how you turn clicks into cash.

Otherwise you pay just an SEO 'expert' and if you do make sure you understand that he is being paid for results, so learn about the metrics that are used in the industry to measure success. Dont let him rumble you with BS.

fergal_d

pauldiv wrote: »

If you have time you should do the SEO yourself because it is not that difficult and anyone can learn how to get a page into the top 10.
There is so much wishful thinking about SEO being some sort of black art when it isn't.

If you are willing to spend a month preparing yourself to learn something new then there are a couple of articles at my own site that will point you in the right direction. I also have an example showing a gap in the market for Corgi registered plumbers in Ireland and I explain how to do it.

Remember SEO is not just about getting the top spot in Google. Your pages will come up in the search engines for many keywords and phrases that you never thought about. It is important that your listings look like they will give the searcher what the seek. That is how you turn clicks into cash.

Otherwise you pay just an SEO 'expert' and if you do make sure you understand that he is being paid for results, so learn about the metrics that are used in the industry to measure success. Dont let him rumble you with BS.

Thanks for the advice pauldiv,

Ya I'm going it alone, I have a good knowledge of it now and I learning more every day. Might do some freelance work like the guys at blackdog.ie once I have perfected my techniques

pauldiv

Glad you are taking the plunge Feargal. You can do it.
Let me know how you get on sometime.

ditpaintball

Take a look at http://www.crawltrack.net/

Its a another handy tool for gathering spider information for your site to see how poeple are getting to it and also what pages they are visiting. Also use google analytics - its another great tool to help you see how you are doing.

I use them on my site a lot.