SEO Rates?! Not so sure about my Indian guy.... :)

The Absolute

Hi guys,

I've recently taken over a small scale online business from a friend who could no longer dedicate time to the site, so I'm reviewing their system here and the first thing that stands out is the 'web guy'...

My friend isn't too internet savvy, and has outsourced all of the SEO/Marketing stuff to some Indian guy who they don't know. Sales are very low at the moment, basically it's been dwindling over the past few months as my friend's time investment dropped and dropped.

Anyway... This Indian guy is requesting $175 a month, which I think is ridiculous! Especially when that may in fact amount to all of the profit...

What do you guys think? I really don't know what's reasonable. I just want to be up in the search rankings for three or four keywords. I can do other networking myself.

mneylon

You haven't provided enough details.

What is the guy doing for the $175?

How much is the business turning over per month?

Is the business selling online?

What vertical is the business in?

Blindside87

For $175.00/Month you should be topping your niche if the guy is good.

$175/month is quite high in India.

Find out what he is actually going to do for that.

There are tonnes of different ways (good and bad) to so SEO and it's not a one size fits all service so ask him what he is going to do.

flynnlives

to find out if he is actually doing anything is to check the site backlinks, he could be building poor links which could explain why things are getting worse.

PM me and il take a quick look if you want

Pablo

Sadly I've never seen good work from India for SEO, I'm sure there are some good companies, but it's not the ones that contact you via SPAM that's for sure.

These companies tend to do forum / blog spam, link directories for links, and these are vey low level parts of the food chain and won't help your website much.

Your friend would be better paying someone $175 to write 4-5 articles a month and posting them on your blog.

tricky D

Run a mile. Instead check some of the threads here for recommended reading material.

RobGJ

$175 does seem a bit steep but it all depends on what he is doing.. What sort of organic traffic are you getting? Are you getting the right kind of organic traffic? What sort of reports are you provided with re the SEO work undertaken?

JJ10

A lot of the guys mentioned there really is not enough info to give any real opinion. If you want to PM me I'd like to try to help. What Pablo said tends to be very true. the cost is not something that alarms me, it would be more a quality of work issue that is the worry...

mark8511

What I think here is - you need to do the following things

If you want to continue with seo then please measure your current situation. ( your keyword rankings, Links and organic traffic your website getting).

you can get a free analysis of your website from any seo company in Ireland like - ringjohn, proseo, onlinetraffic, justsearch and so on, most of them provide a free seo analysis of your website.
http://www.seoireland.org/free-seo-audit/

Then ask the guys what they will be doing in $175 ( the task they will perform).

and most Important is that they must understand your niche market and products because then only they will be able build good links.

Be sure that all the new links are quality links and coming from high authority website and not from link farms.

It is very important not to link a Spammy website, it may harm your website reputation on google.

eCeltic SEO Dublin

A good SEO company in Dublin even with an Indian office could not offer quality service that cheap.
When it comes to SEO there are still hundreds, if not thousands of companies claiming to be experts and offering cheap service… the reality is that quality service simply does not come that cheap...
SEO is about building quality links and creating high quality pieces of content, which people actually want to read.
It would be interesting to see what exactly these guys are offering you in terms of a package..
The cheapest I would think a quality SEO service could cost in Ireland is between 400€–500€ per month. That is an agency offering SEO services.
To give you an idea of the cost of service, we recently had so much work we considered hiring a freelance writer … for 1 piece of content that is an A4 page written on a topic of our choice cost €175 - There is no way you should be buying a month’s SEO for that even if it is in India...if I was you, I would ask for a list of the links they have created for you and check them out… I will be surprised if you are happy with the nonsense they must be rolling for $175 a month!!!

RedFly

eCeltic SEO Dublin wrote: »

A good SEO company in Dublin even with an Indian office could not offer quality service that cheap.
When it comes to SEO there are still hundreds, if not thousands of companies claiming to be experts and offering cheap service… the reality is that quality service simply does not come that cheap...
SEO is about building quality links and creating high quality pieces of content, which people actually want to read.
It would be interesting to see what exactly these guys are offering you in terms of a package..
The cheapest I would think a quality SEO service could cost in Ireland is between 400€–500€ per month. That is an agency offering SEO services.
To give you an idea of the cost of service, we recently had so much work we considered hiring a freelance writer … for 1 piece of content that is an A4 page written on a topic of our choice cost €175 - There is no way you should be buying a month’s SEO for that even if it is in India...if I was you, I would ask for a list of the links they have created for you and check them out… I will be surprised if you are happy with the nonsense they must be rolling for $175 a month!!!

Definitely agree here. Although even still on the low side. Maybe with complete client buy in and dedicated client resources

I've yet to come across an SEO "agency" operated out of India that hasn't gotten their client banned or penalized by Google or violated their webmaster guidelines blatantly in some way. I'd be more than happy to eat my hat if I could be shown evidence to the contrary.

jmcc

If recent reports are to be believed, Google has begun to shift away from a links based model towards a concept model. This means that the whole link building exercise indulged in by sweatshop SEOs is going to take a major hit over the next few months. This makes the outsourced SEO deal look iffy and it could be building up problems for the website. There are many people who claim to be expert in SEO but the reality is that they haven't a clue about how search engine algorithms work or how search engines detect and deal with their brands of SEO.

What may come into effect in the next year or so is a link context algorithm or tweak to search engine algorithms. This is where a search engine builds a kind of social network for inbound links on a website. It is an extremely powerful method as websites have their own link ecology or link social network. (Most website link social networks tend to be quite insular and localised (either by geographical region or by topic). The rate at which sites acquire new inbounds is also important. Spammy SEO has a fingerprint that is highly visible when a site's inbound links are graphed with a timeline. Now if that Link Acquisition Velocity is combined with the site's link social network, then links from splogs, blogs, and linkfodder directories will be really apparent. Google could, if it wanted to, effectively demolish the sweatshop SEO business in a matter of hours. This method can also be used to detect compromised websites and problem sites so it could be that Google may accidentally hit this kind of sweatshop SEO by accident as its primary target could be the drugs/warez/porn sites that use compromised sites to drive traffic from search engines.

Regards...jmcc

RedFly

jmcc wrote: »

If recent reports are to be believed, Google has begun to shift away from a links based model towards a concept model. This means that the whole link building exercise indulged in by sweatshop SEOs is going to take a major hit over the next few months. This makes the outsourced SEO deal look iffy and it could be building up problems for the website. There are many people who claim to be expert in SEO but the reality is that they haven't a clue about how search engine algorithms work or how search engines detect and deal with their brands of SEO.

What may come into effect in the next year or so is a link context algorithm or tweak to search engine algorithms. This is where a search engine builds a kind of social network for inbound links on a website. It is an extremely powerful method as websites have their own link ecology or link social network. (Most website link social networks tend to be quite insular and localised (either by geographical region or by topic). The rate at which sites acquire new inbounds is also important. Spammy SEO has a fingerprint that is highly visible when a site's inbound links are graphed with a timeline. Now if that Link Acquisition Velocity is combined with the site's link social network, then links from splogs, blogs, and linkfodder directories will be really apparent. Google could, if it wanted to, effectively demolish the sweatshop SEO business in a matter of hours. This method can also be used to detect compromised websites and problem sites so it could be that Google may accidentally hit this kind of sweatshop SEO by accident as its primary target could be the drugs/warez/porn sites that use compromised sites to drive traffic from search engines.

Regards...jmcc

Pretty damn close. It's why we don't offer "SEO" as a product/service at all any more. SEO isn't a thing anymore (despite what our website says). It's a channel. There's simply no way to safely build links to a website without involving the owner in content production/marketing.

I've been to so many pitch meetings where we were told to hit the road because we were significantly more expensive than the Indian crowd and because we demanded that someone within the organization participate in the content strategy. They wanted a completely hands off service which i warned about. Needless to say, they went with the Indians and/or outsourcers. Organic search channel optimization is not something you can completely outsource 100%.

Funny, a year later, I get phone calls from the same people... "We've been banned by Google, can you help?". Most I feel genuinely sorry for and I try to educate small Irish business owners when I meet them about this as best I can, but one particular business, well known, owned by two stuck up south side doctors... I could hardly contain my "I told you so".

link8r

India / outsourced / links-by-VISA are over. Even paid link friendly sites with benefits (sites who sold ads without marking them as no follow) are having to play be the rules (although its their clients who get demoted/penalised).

There are a lot of agencies that are banned now - many of them just concentrated on SEO.

SEO isn't over, nor has it changed all that much. I read all the same reports and statements as everyone else here, but remember a few things:

1. SERPs haven't changed that much (maybe for SEO they've changed a lot)
2. Yes, Google will try new ways to measure authorty
3. They're devaluing easy to get links, links of no value - not to say links are dead or over - if they were, serps would be radically different.


What's actually happening is we're going back to pre-2007 SEO - where nobody knows. Is that better?


I read this week, that companies should stop targeting search users because Social+Content is better. Trust me, social media is easier but social media marketing (measurable) and SoMe Sales are a lot, lot harder.

Companies target search users because over 2-3 billion people use search engines and its still growing. Social Media doesn't yet provide massive reach - in fact, I'm more pessimistic than ever before. TV is better the Social Media. 99% of people using social media dont know why or how to use it.

I think we're having our best year for SEO - I think too many companies value the channels they have from search, the way it suits their clients and how it can be grown and managed responsibly.

farrell2121

Has anyone had any dealings with ProSeo ? They advertise Malahide phone number and address but are actually based in Monaghan

link8r

With any SEO company - check that they haven't been penalised

markscullyie

Any reputable agency will have no issues with disclosing who their clients are.

Do a little bit of research into each of them by checking their backlink profiles, types of content they have been building, organic visibility (SEMrush), on-page SEO & overall website structure etc.

Unfortunately in Ireland in particular, the more generic 'SEO' searches you conduct in Google.ie returns a lot of poor qualities agencies.

link8r

Inline with Mark - check their LinkedIn and see who's recommending them

link8r

It's also worth Googling. I found this. I thought it was really interesting.

http://www.justanswer.co.uk/law/7lp6c-claim-against-s-irish-company-via-uk-courts.html

RedFly

link8r wrote: »

It's also worth Googling. I found this. I thought it was really interesting.

http://www.justanswer.co.uk/law/7lp6c-claim-against-s-irish-company-via-uk-courts.html

Wow, now that IS interesting. Nice find. Not completely unexpected to be honest. All you have to do is look at their link profile. Unfortunately, pre-penguin tactics still work in Ireland. For now at least.

I've met with a few potential customers who decided to go with this crowd. The long game wasn't for them.

To the OP, as someone who works for a digital marketing agency, I didn't want to chime in for obvious reasons. I think I should now though as we don't really offer "SEO" anymore. SEO is not something you can actually outsource safely.

Content marketing is basically the new SEO and advice on that can be outsourced, but you'll have to do the heavy lifting yourself to be honest. You're FAR better off investing your money in education, some creative writing classes, a camcorder and some books on storytelling. We turned down ~50 potential SEO clients in 2013 and gave that advice instead. The majority have come back to me to say thanks for the advice.

SEO is no longer an off the shelf product/service. Those that still think it is are going to get burned.

link8r

@RedFly definitely no surprises at all, agree with everything you posted!

Peterdalkey

I have spent a lot of time recently trying to understand SEO and it appears to me that SEO has been largely involved in fixing bad or poor site builds. Things like wrong/missing/unoptimised tags H1-6, fixing image information etc, poor quality content and the like.

It is always going to be a huge ask to find a website builder who would know the specifics of any industry with all the attendant nuances of the most popular terms/words/phrases. This information must come from the site owner and their full engagement but most business owners do not feel sufficently competent to lay down the realities to the techie designers/builders. Sadly they are often just happy to pay the money and make the issue go away and the owner can tick the box and say, yep we have the internet side sorted! Clearly there is still a lot of work out there to be done in this specific area and business needs expert help to do it properly. The upside is that once it is done, it is easy to keep it up to date and clean with new postings.

The building of quality links and the constant work that is required to have freash quality content is the key and RedFly has pretty much nailed what you need to do, in my opinion. If you are serious about eCommerce and web generated business/traffic, the old adage of "as you sow, so shall you reap" was never more true. As the web grows, the competition becomes greater and the greater the effort required to top the SERP rankings.

Atomico

RedFly wrote: »

Wow, now that IS interesting. Nice find. Not completely unexpected to be honest. All you have to do is look at their link profile. Unfortunately, pre-penguin tactics still work in Ireland. For now at least.

I've met with a few potential customers who decided to go with this crowd. The long game wasn't for them.

To the OP, as someone who works for a digital marketing agency, I didn't want to chime in for obvious reasons. I think I should now though as we don't really offer "SEO" anymore. SEO is not something you can actually outsource safely.

Content marketing is basically the new SEO and advice on that can be outsourced, but you'll have to do the heavy lifting yourself to be honest. You're FAR better off investing your money in education, some creative writing classes, a camcorder and some books on storytelling. We turned down ~50 potential SEO clients in 2013 and gave that advice instead. The majority have come back to me to say thanks for the advice.

SEO is no longer an off the shelf product/service. Those that still think it is are going to get burned.

I saw that link on Just Answer a while back alright....yikes.

Funny how more and more the conversations go along the lines of "well yes there is a lot we can do for your SEO, but we will have to explore you taking the lead on the content side of things....we can work with you on that, and we can even explore getting a copywriting company to help us produce quality content...'

"Oh, but I'm no good at writing articles..."

link8r

Peterdalkey wrote: »

I have spent a lot of time recently trying to understand SEO and it appears to me that SEO has been largely involved in fixing bad or poor site builds. Things like wrong/missing/unoptimised tags H1-6, fixing image information etc, poor quality content and the like.

It is always going to be a huge ask to find a website builder who would know the specifics of any industry with all the attendant nuances of the most popular terms/words/phrases. This information must come from the site owner and their full engagement but most business owners do not feel sufficently competent to lay down the realities to the techie designers/builders. Sadly they are often just happy to pay the money and make the issue go away and the owner can tick the box and say, yep we have the internet side sorted! Clearly there is still a lot of work out there to be done in this specific area and business needs expert help to do it properly. The upside is that once it is done, it is easy to keep it up to date and clean with new postings.

The building of quality links and the constant work that is required to have freash quality content is the key and RedFly has pretty much nailed what you need to do, in my opinion. If you are serious about eCommerce and web generated business/traffic, the old adage of "as you sow, so shall you reap" was never more true. As the web grows, the competition becomes greater and the greater the effort required to top the SERP rankings.

Well put - yes, SEO at the start must be fixing whatever is blocking a search engine but you quickly move out of that.

We have worked with very good web engineers who pay really strong attention to coding, speed, caching, tagging, HTML quality etc. but don't understand the search engine/search user relationship.

Building sites and developing an architecture for search is really expansive - and the most fun for us!