Freelance Consulting - Online Marketing

Chet Zar · 25-10-2010 12:34am #1

Hey folks,

First off just wanted to say I really enjoy this forum and there are some great posters and very experienced people on here. One of the better parts of Boards.ie.

I'm currently in Canada but will be returning home fairly soonish. I will likely be studying and working through 2011. However, I have definitely gotten the entrepreneurial bug since probably mid-late last year and trying things out and experimenting with business ideas and concepts is something that is going to be on my radar for the foreseeable future.

One thing I'd like to do when I get home is set myself up on a part-time basis as a freelance consultant in the online marketing area - specifically to those with no knowledge or only a basic/rudimentary knowledge of areas like PPC, SEO, social media, blogging, web usability, conversion optimisation, etc. I have spent quite some time working for online companies in online marketing and product management positions and have a solid knowledge of online marketing industry and concepts. I'm young and you'll never catch me calling myself an 'expert' or 'guru' as so many seem to do these days - you know what I'm talking about

That said, I would have quite a lot to bring to the table to those starting out in online promotion and engagement who wish to promote their business or improve how they are doing in that area, i.e. whether they are:

-starting out from scratch and no nothing/very little about online mktg
-have done a little work in online mktg but need help or could do with optimising/improving what they are already doing (e.g why have I got no Facebook fans, what should I blog about, why am I paying so much for AdWords, etc, etc, etc.)

Having worked in the area for quite some time I sometimes presume that everyone knows all about FB pages/blogs/AdWords/SEO, etc these days, but I'm sure that's not the case for many business people, whether they be sole traders with a sole proprietorship or just regular SMEs. I'd like to help these.

So I'll stop rambling - would be good to get your comments on:

a) the demand/scope for this kind of service at present around Ireland

and

b) whether you've done/are doing something similar, even in a related field, and your experiences of it to date/advice you would have, etc.

If you were to ask for my USP I would say that I would be:

-flexible (you need me on the weekend, I'm there) and affordable; my thinking is that there are a lot of people/companies out there who could use some help, but can't possibly afford the big guys in the industry, especially in the current climate. I would offer a flat hourly rate, or monthly retainer - up to the client.

Cheers

Clearpreso · 25-10-2010 10:18am

Hey, very nice post and you have clearly thought this out.

There is a demand for this sort of thing, BUT, I would say the problem you will have is seeting yourself apart form the rest of the ever-growing pack of social media/online marketing experts.

You are very good at expressing what your USP/intentions are, so if you can put this together in a brief concise pitch, backed up by evidence that you walk the walk, then you should be ahead of the rest.

Ed

Chet Zar · 25-10-2010 10:53pm

Clearpreso wrote: »

Hey, very nice post and you have clearly thought this out.

There is a demand for this sort of thing, BUT, I would say the problem you will have is seeting yourself apart form the rest of the ever-growing pack of social media/online marketing experts.

You are very good at expressing what your USP/intentions are, so if you can put this together in a brief concise pitch, backed up by evidence that you walk the walk, then you should be ahead of the rest.

Ed

Cheers!

Agree with all of that. It's really all about being very clear about what you are offering, and targeting accordingly.

26-10-2010 6:15am

Heres my take chet:

If you were approaching me and saying I offer consultancy services, off what you have said there I wouldnt retain your services. Simply because theres nothing there in what you said that would make me thing 'sh88 this guy can really give my business a boost, or improve things'

Look at it this way, there 1000's of people who im sure would love nothing more then to do consultancy work part time. People who have worked for companies like you and could probably offer equally good advice. It doesnt make sense to me to hire you, I might as well just recruit someone part time, pay them a salary and be able to keep my eye on them and see what they are doing exactly.

So my advice to you if you really want to have a chance with this is be a bit bolder with your pitch. Tell people exactly what you will do to improve their business, tell them numbers. Tell them no improvement and your money back or something that will make them gamble on you. Your hourly rate etc might be a selling point instead of paying crazy industry rates, but you need more. More reasons for the person to believe in you and choose you.
As a random freelance consultant you need to build your own brand. The Chet Zar brand, and what the brilliant chet zar can do for your business.

If you were pitching me and you said to me "im not an expert" I would reply "what the **** are you doing here then?"

Your gona need to be very aggressive to make it work in Ireland, so you want to be like a starving tiger when you touch down in dublin airport!

26-10-2010 7:36pm

And check this out:

http://www.tomdoyletalk.com/2010/10/22/online-marketing-has-gone-to-the-dogs/

Chet Zar · 26-10-2010 7:39pm

Deleted User wrote: »

And check this out:

http://www.tomdoyletalk.com/2010/10/22/online-marketing-has-gone-to-the-dogs/

Got there before you - already read it couple days ago

Chet Zar · 26-10-2010 7:47pm

Deleted User wrote: »

Heres my take chet:

If you were approaching me and saying I offer consultancy services, off what you have said there I wouldnt retain your services. Simply because theres nothing there in what you said that would make me thing 'sh88 this guy can really give my business a boost, or improve things'

Look at it this way, there 1000's of people who im sure would love nothing more then to do consultancy work part time. People who have worked for companies like you and could probably offer equally good advice. It doesnt make sense to me to hire you, I might as well just recruit someone part time, pay them a salary and be able to keep my eye on them and see what they are doing exactly.

So my advice to you if you really want to have a chance with this is be a bit bolder with your pitch. Tell people exactly what you will do to improve their business, tell them numbers. Tell them no improvement and your money back or something that will make them gamble on you. Your hourly rate etc might be a selling point instead of paying crazy industry rates, but you need more. More reasons for the person to believe in you and choose you.
As a random freelance consultant you need to build your own brand. The Chet Zar brand, and what the brilliant chet zar can do for your business.

If you were pitching me and you said to me "im not an expert" I would reply "what the **** are you doing here then?"

Your gona need to be very aggressive to make it work in Ireland, so you want to be like a starving tiger when you touch down in dublin airport!

Thanks for the comments El Rifle.

First off - don't worry, I have no qualms about being bolder and certainly no worries when it comes self-promotion (you've seen my sig, right? :-)) or belief in what I can do! Really this post was just to get an overview of people's thoughts.

I'm hardly going to pitch and say 'I'm not an expert'. What I'm talking about is that you don't get to be an expert by putting that in the tag-line on your website - you get to be one when people recognise you as one. Let your work and your results speak for themselves. Take any of the real experts out there - you won't actually see them referring to themselves as such by and large. The word is so overused as to be almost meaningless. People should forget about being experts anyway - how about just have a passion for your work, always learning but knowing you can bring excellent, profit-impacting, results to anyone who chooses to hire you - and promoting yourself accordingly!

Chet Zar · 26-10-2010 7:49pm

Deleted User wrote: »

Heres my take chet:

If you were approaching me and saying I offer consultancy services, off what you have said there I wouldnt retain your services. Simply because theres nothing there in what you said that would make me thing 'sh88 this guy can really give my business a boost, or improve things'

Look at it this way, there 1000's of people who im sure would love nothing more then to do consultancy work part time. People who have worked for companies like you and could probably offer equally good advice. It doesnt make sense to me to hire you, I might as well just recruit someone part time, pay them a salary and be able to keep my eye on them and see what they are doing exactly.

So my advice to you if you really want to have a chance with this is be a bit bolder with your pitch. Tell people exactly what you will do to improve their business, tell them numbers. Tell them no improvement and your money back or something that will make them gamble on you. Your hourly rate etc might be a selling point instead of paying crazy industry rates, but you need more. More reasons for the person to believe in you and choose you.
As a random freelance consultant you need to build your own brand. The Chet Zar brand, and what the brilliant chet zar can do for your business.

If you were pitching me and you said to me "im not an expert" I would reply "what the **** are you doing here then?"

Your gona need to be very aggressive to make it work in Ireland, so you want to be like a starving tiger when you touch down in dublin airport!

Deleted User wrote: »

And check this out:

http://www.tomdoyletalk.com/2010/10/22/online-marketing-has-gone-to-the-dogs/

Funnily enough, I stumbled across this one last night as well - sums up my philosophy and what I'm driving at to a tee:

http://www.conversationmarketing.com/2009/07/10-questions-for-social-media-experts.htm

26-10-2010 8:12pm

Oh by the way, I put that there not to put you off, but to encourage you to get it right if you decide to do it yourself.

It's a good truthful read and from the people I've spoken to who own smaller agencies (usually found on pages 3 onwards on Google.ie) - it's difficult for them to make cash right now but they are getting by.

Chet Zar · 26-10-2010 8:20pm

Deleted User wrote: »

Oh by the way, I put that there not to put you off, but to encourage you to get it right if you decide to do it yourself.

It's a good truthful read and from the people I've spoken to who own smaller agencies (usually found on pages 3 onwards on Google.ie) - it's difficult for them to make cash right now but they are getting by.

Yep, cheers mate, that's what I figured alright.

I think anyone when it comes to anyone who is spoofing - they're going to be found out very quickly, especially in the online area.

The smaller agencies - out of interest are these web design/online marketing agencies, or just online marketing alone?

26-10-2010 11:18pm

Heres an email I got yesterday which I was very impressed with. Im almost finished a development and want to launch a website next year to handle the resales and the rentals. I got in 3 quotes that were less then what this guy has quoted me but I will go with him because I like what he has to say:

I understand your concerns as you have listed below. Let me take just a minute to explain the SEO that we offer.

Our SEO is not a 1 month or 3 month or even 6 month program. What we offer is SEO that is really good for the life of your website, be it, 6 months or even 5 years as many of mine.

The work that I have to perform on your website is fairly extensive, we need to go into the WordPress PHP programming and MySQL Database and write a program telling the PHP what we need it to do.

EXAMPLE of what you you registered yesterday - http://boracayapartmentsandcondossalesandrentals.com/index.php?news&nid=1 everything AFTER that Question Mark is in the database, and CANNOT be read by GOOGLE or any other search engine, so it is effectively useless from and SEO stand point.

Google and Yahoo no longer use Title, Description and Keyword Tags, mostly at this point they are also useless from and SEO stand point, but not always, just depends on what they decide to index.

EXAMPLE of What We Need to Create - http://www.wowphilippinestravelagency.ph/philippines/islands/visayas/aklan/boracay/hotels-resorts/artista-beach-villa/ if you look at this link will see SEPERATE FOLDERS - philippines / islands / visays / and so on. These folders are created and stored on your server, so when the GOOGLE Robots come to crawl your server they can READ each folder name, thus indexing the contents and therefore using these folder names as KEYWORDS.

LOL, when you say my competitors are much cheaper, well they are not my competition. My competion are websites ranked above and below me for my specific keywords. No offense intended, but these guys are not my competition, and they do not have an office filled with 22 people, pay 13 month pay, SSS, Phihealth, Pag-ibig, and others do not even have work permits or resident visa's.

I hire good qualitly people, I pay above average salaries, and my employees have been with me for 3 years and more. I offer a quality service, and SERVICE is what we sell.

Sorry for the rant,

I can offer the service for 55,000 peos, but that is the best I can do.

You know Gavin, you also offer a quality product, if people want cheaper, you have two options, start building with cheaper materials and labor and start offering a more inferior product or let the client purchase elsewhere.

Thanks, and I hope you understand,

Chet Zar · 27-10-2010 12:32am

Deleted User wrote: »

Heres an email I got yesterday which I was very impressed with. Im almost finished a development and want to launch a website next year to handle the resales and the rentals. I got in 3 quotes that were less then what this guy has quoted me but I will go with him because I like what he has to say:

I understand your concerns as you have listed below. Let me take just a minute to explain the SEO that we offer.

Our SEO is not a 1 month or 3 month or even 6 month program. What we offer is SEO that is really good for the life of your website, be it, 6 months or even 5 years as many of mine.

The work that I have to perform on your website is fairly extensive, we need to go into the WordPress PHP programming and MySQL Database and write a program telling the PHP what we need it to do.

EXAMPLE of what you you registered yesterday - http://boracayapartmentsandcondossalesandrentals.com/index.php?news&nid=1 everything AFTER that Question Mark is in the database, and CANNOT be read by GOOGLE or any other search engine, so it is effectively useless from and SEO stand point.

Google and Yahoo no longer use Title, Description and Keyword Tags, mostly at this point they are also useless from and SEO stand point, but not always, just depends on what they decide to index.

EXAMPLE of What We Need to Create - http://www.wowphilippinestravelagency.ph/philippines/islands/visayas/aklan/boracay/hotels-resorts/artista-beach-villa/ if you look at this link will see SEPERATE FOLDERS - philippines / islands / visays / and so on. These folders are created and stored on your server, so when the GOOGLE Robots come to crawl your server they can READ each folder name, thus indexing the contents and therefore using these folder names as KEYWORDS.

LOL, when you say my competitors are much cheaper, well they are not my competition. My competion are websites ranked above and below me for my specific keywords. No offense intended, but these guys are not my competition, and they do not have an office filled with 22 people, pay 13 month pay, SSS, Phihealth, Pag-ibig, and others do not even have work permits or resident visa's.

I hire good qualitly people, I pay above average salaries, and my employees have been with me for 3 years and more. I offer a quality service, and SERVICE is what we sell.

Sorry for the rant,

I can offer the service for 55,000 peos, but that is the best I can do.

You know Gavin, you also offer a quality product, if people want cheaper, you have two options, start building with cheaper materials and labor and start offering a more inferior product or let the client purchase elsewhere.

Thanks, and I hope you understand,

Tell me this is a joke?

27-10-2010 1:19am

Chet Zar wrote: »

Tell me this is a joke?

Whys that? In terms of what he's saying technically? Im not sure about the technical side of things with this, only that his current clients always appear in the top 3 results when their keywords are searched on google.

What I was trying to show you is how he pitched me agressively to get the business not really start a debate who can do the better SEO

Chet Zar · 27-10-2010 5:26am

Deleted User wrote: »

Heres an email I got yesterday which I was very impressed with. Im almost finished a development and want to launch a website next year to handle the resales and the rentals. I got in 3 quotes that were less then what this guy has quoted me but I will go with him because I like what he has to say:

I understand your concerns as you have listed below. Let me take just a minute to explain the SEO that we offer.

Our SEO is not a 1 month or 3 month or even 6 month program. What we offer is SEO that is really good for the life of your website, be it, 6 months or even 5 years as many of mine.

The work that I have to perform on your website is fairly extensive, we need to go into the WordPress PHP programming and MySQL Database and write a program telling the PHP what we need it to do.

EXAMPLE of what you you registered yesterday - http://boracayapartmentsandcondossalesandrentals.com/index.php?news&nid=1 everything AFTER that Question Mark is in the database, and CANNOT be read by GOOGLE or any other search engine, so it is effectively useless from and SEO stand point.

Google and Yahoo no longer use Title, Description and Keyword Tags, mostly at this point they are also useless from and SEO stand point, but not always, just depends on what they decide to index.

EXAMPLE of What We Need to Create - http://www.wowphilippinestravelagency.ph/philippines/islands/visayas/aklan/boracay/hotels-resorts/artista-beach-villa/ if you look at this link will see SEPERATE FOLDERS - philippines / islands / visays / and so on. These folders are created and stored on your server, so when the GOOGLE Robots come to crawl your server they can READ each folder name, thus indexing the contents and therefore using these folder names as KEYWORDS.

LOL, when you say my competitors are much cheaper, well they are not my competition. My competion are websites ranked above and below me for my specific keywords. No offense intended, but these guys are not my competition, and they do not have an office filled with 22 people, pay 13 month pay, SSS, Phihealth, Pag-ibig, and others do not even have work permits or resident visa's.

I hire good qualitly people, I pay above average salaries, and my employees have been with me for 3 years and more. I offer a quality service, and SERVICE is what we sell.

Sorry for the rant,

I can offer the service for 55,000 peos, but that is the best I can do.

You know Gavin, you also offer a quality product, if people want cheaper, you have two options, start building with cheaper materials and labor and start offering a more inferior product or let the client purchase elsewhere.

Thanks, and I hope you understand,

Deleted User wrote: »

Whys that? In terms of what he's saying technically? Im not sure about the technical side of things with this, only that his current clients always appear in the top 3 results when their keywords are searched on google.

What I was trying to show you is how he pitched me agressively to get the business not really start a debate who can do the better SEO

And I'm really glad for both our sakes you did show me. I think this is going to work out well

I get a perfect, real-world example of why 'pitching' and being 'bold' and 'aggressive' means nothing - and can possibly cost you - if you don't have the knowledge to back it all up. You can be as bold as you like or as understated as like as long as you know what you're talking about. Plus you get to not get potentially scammed by some shyster in Mexico. Is that where he's based?

Deleted User wrote: »

Our SEO is not a 1 month or 3 month or even 6 month program. What we offer is SEO that is really good for the life of your website, be it, 6 months or even 5 years as many of mine.

Amazing. This is where I hit the 'delete' button without any need to read any further (although the spelling mistakes in the email probably would have gotten me otherwise in any case). If you could pick one field where you absolutely cannot predict what is going to happen next in terms of changes that will affect your site and your business - SEO would be that field. Changes happen monthly/yearly and sometimes even weekly - but this guy can guarantee you a solution for years to come.

Deleted User wrote: »

The work that I have to perform on your website is fairly extensive, we need to go into the WordPress PHP programming and MySQL Database and write a program telling the PHP what we need it to do.

To his credit, he knows how to turn on the 'dazzle you with techno-babble' bit. So he must know what he's talking about...

Deleted User wrote: »

Google and Yahoo no longer use Title, Description and Keyword Tags, mostly at this point they are also useless from and SEO stand point, but not always, just depends on what they decide to index.

My personal favourite, and where my jaw hit the floor. Meta-keywords are no longer all that important (not right now anyway - unless something new comes along - see my point above on the fast-changing pace of SEO). The Title tag, however, is one of THE most important factors in influencing search engine position for your website. The meta-description is the snippet that you see on Google search results under the link to a website, giving the user an idea of what the site is about. While it doesn't affect rankings, it is hugely important for relevance and does seriously affect the chances of your site being clicked on or not.

Deleted User wrote: »

EXAMPLE of what you you registered yesterday - http://boracayapartmentsandcondossalesandrentals.com/index.php?news&nid=1 everything AFTER that Question Mark is in the database, and CANNOT be read by GOOGLE or any other search engine, so it is effectively useless from and SEO stand point.

Ouchies...not true. He's talking about dynamic URLs. Surfing the web like anybody else you'll have seen questions marks (?) in lots of web addresses/URLs (take a quick peek above to the URL on the page you're looking at right now - that's an example of a dynamic URL. And to say they cannot be read by Google is a myth. You can make them easier to read than the URL you have above, and you will want to make them descriptive, as he mentions - but to say that they can't be read is just incorrect.

Also, does he mean 'pesos'?

Still want to go with the most aggressive salesman, or base your choice on the best pitch?!

Also, just because those sites are in top positions for keywords when you type them in doesn't mean it's because of his work. Did he elaborate on that?

27-10-2010 6:38am

Well in terms of the technical side of things Im not going to argue it either way as I simply don't know which of you is right, and to be honest I don't care as long as my site gets top of the search engines

To give you more detail, I approached this guy because he does the SEO for 2 of my competitors and whenever you search anything Boracay his sites are in the top 3. That is the the reason Ive chosen him essentially. I simply want to get traffic to the site, via people who use google and yahoo search engines.
I have partners here in this business, who don't know much about SEO etc but like a low price, so I asked him to tell me why I should choose him instead of the cheaper quotes I got for half the price and that was his answer.

But to be honest with you calling him a shyster is neither here nor there really. I know the guy, Ive seen his setup, he has a good operation, and his clients are very happy with his service, so from my perspective if he can deliver me the same as what he has delivered them I will be happy.

What I do know is I liked the guys hunger for the business, and I liked his passion. Where I am based (the philippines) hunger and passion arent two qualities high on the agenda for companies. Im just trying to give you a tip on how to win business. I dont for a minute suggest you tell people your an expert if your not. But a consultant should be an expert shouldnt they or else they would not really be suitable to consult?
But I do suggest being very aggressive and bold in your sales one way or another. That I have experience in and can be 100% certain of. And if you don't do that, your going to find it tough, very tough.

As they say over here "Up to you Sir!"

Chet Zar · 28-10-2010 1:14am

Deleted User wrote: »

Well in terms of the technical side of things Im not going to argue it either way as I simply don't know which of you is right, and to be honest I don't care as long as my site gets top of the search engines

Ok. I'm right and he's wrong. How's that?

Deleted User wrote: »

To give you more detail, I approached this guy because he does the SEO for 2 of my competitors and whenever you search anything Boracay his sites are in the top 3. That is the the reason Ive chosen him essentially. I simply want to get traffic to the site, via people who use google and yahoo search engines.
I have partners here in this business, who don't know much about SEO etc but like a low price, so I asked him to tell me why I should choose him instead of the cheaper quotes I got for half the price and that was his answer.

If he can get you in the top positions for your keywords, then fantastic. Just as long as he isn't guaranteeing it. Just because he does SEO for these sites doesn't actually mean he got them there

Correlation doesn't equal causation. Loads of factors at play there, but I don't have all the details obviously.

Deleted User wrote: »

But to be honest with you calling him a shyster is neither here nor there really. I know the guy, Ive seen his setup, he has a good operation, and his clients are very happy with his service, so from my perspective if he can deliver me the same as what he has delivered them I will be happy.

Maybe a bit harsh of me - but that's why I said 'potentially'. I was just going by the email alone. For all I know he doesn't do the SEO and there are others in his company who do, and do it well.

[QUOTE=Deleted User;68705399What I do know is I liked the guys hunger for the business, and I liked his passion. Where I am based (the philippines) hunger and passion arent two qualities high on the agenda for companies. Im just trying to give you a tip on how to win business. I dont for a minute suggest you tell people your an expert if your not. But a consultant should be an expert shouldnt they or else they would not really be suitable to consult?
But I do suggest being very aggressive and bold in your sales one way or another. That I have experience in and can be 100% certain of. And if you don't do that, your going to find it tough, very tough.

As they say over here "Up to you Sir!"

[/QUOTE]

Hungry like the wolf!! Don't worry - I know my stuff and won't be afraid to big myself up!

28-10-2010 4:25am

Interestingly enough I've just told that guy he won't get the job. He was demanding 100% payment upfront and as the nature of SEO is ongoing work I thought it might be a bit foolish.
What he did tell me was that a brand new site will take a while to get up and running with SEO, so Im going to use my existing site sansonanddunne instead as I'd like to start seeing some results by January in terms of clicks.

So! if someone wants to pitch in for the business at 55,000 peso or lower (922 euro) Im willing to pay 50% down and the other 50% after 45 days.

Fionn101 · 28-10-2010 10:05am

3 good decisions right there El Rifle, and I get the point you were making about the sales pitch , thanks for posting that up.

Rgds,
Fionn

Axwell · 28-10-2010 1:16pm

Hi folks,

Just reading up on this now - Chet Zar will follow up with an email to catch up with you

El Rifle just some comments on the email you got back, im a freelance web and graphic designer so as such know enough about SEO as part of my work. By no means a guru and would never claim to be and to be honest considering all the factors involved in it would take most that say they are with a pinch of salt.

Deleted User wrote: »

The work that I have to perform on your website is fairly extensive, we need to go into the WordPress PHP programming and MySQL Database and write a program telling the PHP what we need it to do.

They dont write a program to do anything. While there is work to be done and it takes someone who knows what they are doing to do it there isnt any need to develop a program, its a matter of tweaking whats there already to improve the overall SEO. Rewriting content, improving the code of the site, using keywords and proper meta data and changing permalinks so that dynamic urls like the ones above can be read better.

Google and Yahoo no longer use Title, Description and Keyword Tags, mostly at this point they are also useless from and SEO stand point, but not always, just depends on what they decide to index.

Complete nonsense, most of the above are key factors in getting your site listed in Googles search engines and improving your rank and the SEO of the site (meta keywords arent anymore as TheEntrepreneur pointed out below). Also for the record no one knows for sure what algorithms Google use when ranking sites and basing them on SEO. What is known is a number of the factors that Google do take into account, such as title tags, meta tags, keywords and heading tags such as h1 etc. This is only a number of the factors though and not a complete and definitive list.

if you look at this link will see SEPERATE FOLDERS - philippines / islands / visays / and so on. These folders are created and stored on your server, so when the GOOGLE Robots come to crawl your server they can READ each folder name, thus indexing the contents and therefore using these folder names as KEYWORDS.

Again inaccurate. The dynamic urls can be read by Google but they dont equate to specific keywords and give you the benefit of having a url that has specific keywords describing the content on that page. Even the person using the site wouldnt be able to tell exacly what is on the pge from looking at a dyanmic url, having a url saying /property/2-bed-apartments/dubai is obviously more clear than ?p1225.dubai.html. They arent put in folders as described below. The url gets rewritten using permalinks which basically converts it from a dynamic url to a static one with a proper readable title including the keywords as part of the title of the page or article. This is more readable for Google and when someone searches for those keywords as part of a search in Google it is more likely to find your page than previously when there was the dynamic address with the ?p2434.html etc

LOL, when you say my competitors are much cheaper, well they are not my competition. My competion are websites ranked above and below me for my specific keywords. No offense intended, but these guys are not my competition, and they do not have an office filled with 22 people, pay 13 month pay, SSS, Phihealth, Pag-ibig, and others do not even have work permits or resident visa's.

More waffle, the size of the company and the benefits he pays for etc are irrelevant. A lot of his email is technowaffle to try and make out the job is a mammoth task that his and only his company could ever do to such a hgh standard and gaurantee results. The fact is no one can give you 100% gaurantees with SEO. You can definitely improve a sites overall SEO and work continually at having new fresh content to keep Google coming back and indexing the site and the new content and keywords etc but your competitors can also be working on their sites at the same time, getting more traffic etc which will in turn of course affect your site. The amount of competition in your market will always affect how your site ranks as will the domain you choose to have the site on, add to that all of the SEO i mentioned above with page titles and everything else and you can see a lot of factors are involved.

SEO is an ongoing thing and if you hire someone to work on it then you should be paying them for specific goals. You want your site to be listed in Google for example and to appear when people look for relevant keywords and terms relating to your business and the domain you have. Thats stage 1 of the project, stage 2 is ongoing SEO to try and put you ahead of the main competitors and this is something that can only be really achieved by ongoing work and tweaking the website. So as such you should be paying for that based on results and reevaluating the sites rank and performance every 3 months against your competitors and analysing what keywords are being searched for and how you are generating traffic to the site. There is no instant magic dust that can be sprinkled on the site or program written for a couple of peso's that will gaurantee all of this. If there was then everyone would be buying it and the highest bidder would be the one in the number 1 slot.

Feel free to pm me if you have any specific questions on any of the above or your own upcoming site.

28-10-2010 6:12pm

Axwell, just one thing:

"What is known is a number of the factors that Google do take into account, such as title tags, meta tags, keywords and heading tags such as h1 etc. This is only a number of the factors though and not a complete and definitive list."

Googles Does Not Pay Attention To The Meta Keywords Tag

Axwell · 28-10-2010 6:14pm

Keywords and Meta Keywords are two totally different things. You are linking to an article about meta keywords which are keywords in the head section of the webpage using a meta tag - keywords which I refer to are keywords within the body content of your webpage along with the heading tags.

Deleted User wrote: »

Axwell, just one thing:

"What is known is a number of the factors that Google do take into account, such as title tags, meta tags, keywords and heading tags such as h1 etc. This is only a number of the factors though and not a complete and definitive list."

Googles Does Not Pay Attention To The Meta Keywords Tag

28-10-2010 6:19pm

Axwell i'm well aware of the differences however during the conversation you replied to the following quote:

Google and Yahoo no longer use Title, Description and Keyword Tags, mostly at this point they are also useless from and SEO stand point, but not always, just depends on what they decide to index.

with this

Axwell wrote: »

Complete nonsense, all of the above are key factors in getting your site listed in Googles search engines and improving your rank and the SEO of the site. Also for the record no one knows for sure what algorithms Google use when ranking sites and basing them on SEO. What is known is a number of the factors that Google do take into account, such as title tags, meta tags, keywords and heading tags such as h1 etc. This is only a number of the factors though and not a complete and definitive list.

I'm just stating that you're wrong.

Axwell · 28-10-2010 6:33pm

You are being pedantic to be honest. Instead of saying all I should have said most of the above (excluding Meta Keywords) if you want to be exact. I have edited the post to avoid confusion for El Rifle..

The point still remains most of what this guy was telling El Rifle is the typical waffle from a self proclaimed SEO "guru". Only €922 euros for lifetime SEO :rolleyes:

28-10-2010 6:43pm

Axwell wrote: »

You are being pedantic to be honest. Instead of saying all I should have said most of the above (excluding Meta Keywords) if you want to be exact. I have edited the post to avoid confusion for El Rifle..

The point still remains most of what this guy was telling El Rifle is the typical waffle from a self proclaimed SEO "guru's". Only €922 euros for lifetime SEO :rolleyes:

Not really dude, just being correct and exact; it's important.

The same way the guy El Rifle dealt with doesn't have a ****ing notion at what he does.

The work that I have to perform on your website is fairly extensive, we need to go into the WordPress PHP programming and MySQL Database and write a program telling the PHP what we need it to do.

A client doesn't need or want to understand this sort of ****. They just care about results. I guess that's what happens when you go to an agency in the Philippines ???

Axwell · 28-10-2010 6:52pm

Deleted User wrote: »

A client doesn't need or want to understand this sort of ****. They just care about results. I guess that's what happens when you go to an agency in the Philippines ???

I think a client should still try to be somewhat informed so they know a guy like the one El Rifle spoke to is talking complete waffle. Otherwise they could end up paying a gazillion peso's with the promise of being rank 1 for every related keyword possible without ever seeing the results.

Unfortunately some people believe they can get the same quality of service abroad for cheaper than getting it from providers here, whether it be the Phillipines or anywhere else. Im sure sometimes they do but generally I find it doesnt work out. Thats a debate for another day though..

Chet Zar · 28-10-2010 7:44pm

Nice post Axwell and +1 to all (after the update

)

El Rifle, glad to hear of your decision. What a chancer that guy.

What Axwell was saying is spot on, especially in relation to the time investment involved in SEO and the massive range of factors and tactics involved. It really is something you could spend an infinite amount of time on - that's why coming up with targets and deliverables and making it an ongoing effort is so important. For example, when it came to my own site/blog (it was a site built on a free template before I turned it into a Wordpress blog), I've done some basic SEO work and it appears in top positions on pages from Ireland on Google.ie for lots of terms relating to 'moving to Canada blog', 'job situation in Vancouver', etc.

Now although I appear at the top of the search results on pages from Ireland for 'moving to Canada blog'; try searching for my blog on pages from Ireland with 'emigrating to Canada blog' - I'm nowhere to be seen.

Now go check the home page on my blog and check how many times the word 'emigrating' or 'emigrate' appears, as opposed to 'moving' or 'move'. That tells its own story, but is only one element to getting my blog to rank highly for my target keywords. If I had access to the source code I'd be able to add meta-data myself and overall be able to play around and with the site a lot more. However, a lot of the SEO is already built in by Wordpress and the fact that it is a blog and updated frequently with fresh, new, unique content is also a huge factor when it comes to SEO.

Once you've got a good site in place, fully-optimised for SEO (site map, meta-data in place, no server issues, clean IP, good site structure, good navigability, overall great usability), next step is getting great quality links from good, reputable sites, and ensuring you are updating the site fairly frequently with new, engaging content.

Also then the likes of Facebook and Twitter play a huge part in driving traffic, increasing the possibility of getting more quality links and traffic (e.g. when people 'retweet' on Twitter, or share a link on Facebook, their friends then pass on links/visit your site etc) - so you need to be on there and actively participating.

The above are the most important aspects to SEO but of course are time-consuming (albeit very enjoyable to work on!), and I've seen some good results just from a small time-investment in linking strategy and social networking. As mentioned it's far from an exact science and requires constant experimentation and research (ongoing competitor analysis - what are my competitors doing, what keywords are they using on their site, and keyword research - which keywords are users searching on, which keywords should I be focusing on).

28-10-2010 11:19pm

So guys, am I being unrealistic in trying to get SEO done for this site for 1000euro?

This site is by no means a big deal, its more so a service im putting in place for clients who bought from me so they can rent their apt or resell it after completion when I am gone and doing other things. Not something Im going to make any money from, hence I want to spend the minimum on it.

By the way, whats baffling here is that this guys clients are so successfull depsite the almighty pasting he is taking here! I thought maybe it was only in .com.ph but then I searched .co.uk "boracay apartments" and the top 4 results are all his clients!
If I search Boracay accomodation (note there are over 200 hundred hotels on the island from $5 a night to $500 a night) he has two clients up on the first page. which I would think is pretty good going against companies like asiatravel, shangrila, tripadvisor etc.

Axwell · 29-10-2010 1:20pm

Deleted User wrote: »

So guys, am I being unrealistic in trying to get SEO done for this site for 1000euro?

It depends on what you are expecting results wise for your money. Assuming there is no SEO at all then to improve on that and to cover most of what we mentioned above then no. But to have ongoing SEO work for life which is basically what he was saying to you in his email then yes.

Deleted User wrote: »

By the way, whats baffling here is that this guys clients are so successfull depsite the almighty pasting he is taking here! I thought maybe it was only in .com.ph but then I searched .co.uk "boracay apartments" and the top 4 results are all his clients!
If I search Boracay accomodation (note there are over 200 hundred hotels on the island from $5 a night to $500 a night) he has two clients up on the first page. which I would think is pretty good going against companies like asiatravel, shangrila, tripadvisor etc.

It depends on the size of the market and the search words. On Google.co.uk "boracay apartments" returns only 500k results (only 295k on google.com), might seem a lot but its not huge. Then as you filter down through the results and see as you go past the first few pages its mainly someone with an apartment to rent on a generic rental website,reviews of people that have been there or replies on forums and the like.

Actual specific websites about a block of apartments take up the main results on the first few pages because all the content on each site is purely focused on the term you searched for "boracay apartments".

The companies you are naming above have big sites with lots of resorts and areas and somewhere deep in all that is a review or a booking page for a few apartments in boracay.

The sites ranked higher up and on page one are sites purely focused on Boracay and apartments there. Every page on the site (5 page websites for example) is dealing with boracay and apartments for rent and the amenities etc. Thats more keywords per page, more page titles, more h1 tags and content all focused on boracay and apartments there. With asiantravel and tripadvisor boracay is just a handful of pages in a huge site with lots of locations. The homepage of each of the smaller sites focuses on boracay apartments, the homepage of any of the big sites you named doesnt.

Also just something to note, there is very little PPC advertising being done using Google Adwords by any of the sites. Its all on basic SEO alone within the sites. On the right hand side of the results you will see advertisements for different sites. When I did the search when writing this post the adwords didnt go past page one for PPC campaigns on Adwords. Most terms I search day to day have pages of adwords with everyone fighting to try get their ad to the top and increasing the cost per click.

gg1 · 29-10-2010 10:33pm

Hey Chet Zar, I hope your plan works out for you. I have just started a company and my website (www.FirstDate.ie) requires SEO work. If you need some work experience on someone's site in order to get a testimonial I would be delighted to engage your services..:)

Chet Zar · 30-10-2010 8:26am

gg1 wrote: »

Hey Chet Zar, I hope your plan works out for you. I have just started a company and my website (www.FirstDate.ie) requires SEO work. If you need some work experience on someone's site in order to get a testimonial I would be delighted to engage your services..:)

That looks great...interesting site and venture you've got there and would be delighted to help

I'll shoot you a PM.

Chet Zar · 30-10-2010 8:34am

Axwell wrote: »

It depends on what you are expecting results wise for your money. Assuming there is no SEO at all then to improve on that and to cover most of what we mentioned above then no. But to have ongoing SEO work for life which is basically what he was saying to you in his email then yes.

It depends on the size of the market and the search words. On Google.co.uk "boracay apartments" returns only 500k results (only 295k on google.com), might seem a lot but its not huge. Then as you filter down through the results and see as you go past the first few pages its mainly someone with an apartment to rent on a generic rental website,reviews of people that have been there or replies on forums and the like.

Actual specific websites about a block of apartments take up the main results on the first few pages because all the content on each site is purely focused on the term you searched for "boracay apartments".

The companies you are naming above have big sites with lots of resorts and areas and somewhere deep in all that is a review or a booking page for a few apartments in boracay.

The sites ranked higher up and on page one are sites purely focused on Boracay and apartments there. Every page on the site (5 page websites for example) is dealing with boracay and apartments for rent and the amenities etc. Thats more keywords per page, more page titles, more h1 tags and content all focused on boracay and apartments there. With asiantravel and tripadvisor boracay is just a handful of pages in a huge site with lots of locations. The homepage of each of the smaller sites focuses on boracay apartments, the homepage of any of the big sites you named doesnt.

Also just something to note, there is very little PPC advertising being done using Google Adwords by any of the sites. Its all on basic SEO alone within the sites. On the right hand side of the results you will see advertisements for different sites. When I did the search when writing this post the adwords didnt go past page one for PPC campaigns on Adwords. Most terms I search day to day have pages of adwords with everyone fighting to try get their ad to the top and increasing the cost per click.

Exactly, it would be nigh on impossible for those sites to not appear in top positions. As I was saying earlier just because he works for them doesn't mean he got them there.

It really depends on what exactly you are looking to achieve though El Rifle. Let me/us know and we can see what we can do - it could turn out to be as simple as running a PPC campaign or doing some basic SEO on your main site.

YouProduce · 30-10-2010 3:05pm

Hi Chet Zar,

Great thread, very useful. I am setting up a website and except for a web marketing course in a county enterprise centre I have no experience with SEO. So this has been really enlightening.

I'm wondering how deep you entrepeneurial spirit goes, are you more interested in freelancing and staying on the fringes, or are you interested in starting something yourself and taking a calculated risk?

As my thread today says, I'm desperately searching for either a progammer or someone that can manage my SEO. I think in the business I can outsource either/or, but not both.

I've an excellent programmer on board atm but he is a bit of a serial entrepreneur with a number of other businesses so he can't commit to the project long-term.

PM me if you are interested in discussing the concept, I'm a little guarded about describing it as its easily replicable.

If not then goodluck anyway. Ireland is one of the least web-active countries in Europe so there is huge demand for people with your skillsets. The problem is that people don't generally want to invest to heavilly at the moment, and small firms (maybe naively) are trying to do SEO themselves to keep their cash-flows healthy.

My business is trying to solve that problem for a certain kind of business which has been slow to become web-active, for maybe obvious reasons.

Rock Paper Scissors · 31-10-2010 10:19am

SEO is all well and good but the most valuable asset you can build in online business is a mailing list IMO. Building a good relationship with your list can be worth its weight in gold and your not relying on google for traffic.

Axwell · 31-10-2010 2:23pm

Rock Paper Scissors wrote: »

SEO is all well and good but the most valuable asset you can build in online business is a mailing list IMO. Building a good relationship with your list can be worth its weight in gold and your not relying on google for traffic.

To create a mailing list you need people visiting the site signing up to it, if they cant find the site (bad or no SEO) then you wont have a mailing list to begin with.

Its the SEO that brings the taffic to the site, a mailing list is only a form of bringing the same people back and keeping them interested. SEO is constantly bringing new people/traffic to the site.

Rock Paper Scissors · 31-10-2010 2:39pm

Axwell wrote: »

To create a mailing list you need people visiting the site signing up to it, if they cant find the site (bad or no SEO) then you wont have a mailing list to begin with.

I have to disagree with you there mate. I have used PPC & PPV to help build my list. Ezine articles has been great to me too. I have 1 article that gotten 100k views and brought me about 13k subscribers (double optin) I have had great success with facebook for list building also, joining niche related groups etc. There are loads of other methods for building a responsive list fast. You dont even need a website to build a list if you use awebers self hosted option.

Freelance Consulting - Online Marketing

Comments