SEOs........the TRUTH, please! - Page 3 - Contractor Talk - Professional Construction and Remodeling Forum

ABLE1 · 07-02-2009, 02:22 PM

Dang it!!! I believe that I was duped into reading this whole thread.

I saw SEO in the header and my first thought was Sewer Enforment Officer.

Ohhhhhh How wrong I was................................

Carry on...................................

scottwolves · 07-27-2009, 04:09 AM

there is no trick really, good wesbite designed for user not google!

zookies · 07-30-2009, 11:49 AM

I got a call from outrank.com yesterday, they sound pretty slick, but I bet they charge a lot. Since we are already ranked highly, I shot them down. Does anybody know what they charge? I bet it is a coupla grand just to start. They have ZERO reviews that I can find online.

I think that in addition to backlinks and a relevant w3c compliant design (covered by prior posters) that a consistent presence, traffic, and very slight tweaking and enhancements to the design over time will gradually move you up. Traffic is a challenge, because the less traffic you get, the lower you a re ranked and the less new traffic you will receive. So I see no choice but to consider adwords to generate traffic, even if the cost per click might run $ 5 or $ 10 - because traffic is the king

Pro Builder · 08-10-2009, 04:51 AM

So... content is king AND traffic is king? I am starting to wonder where my site will be ranked for "find contractors in slo" or "kitchen remodel in san luis obispo" or "bathroom remodel" for google maps and local yahoo searches...you know, after I do all this optimizing stuff. Suppose I everything "right" as prescribed in this thread. Should I be number one locally? Is there a chance I won't be? How can I control whether I am staying on top or not?

Seriously, is SEO really that simple? I know everyone here that does this for a living is telling me that it is easy but time consuming. Can someone please PM me and teach me a thing or two about this industry? I have the time and energy to get started, and I'd be willing to pay for results.

The one thing that I am really wondering is if SEO is so easy to do and easy to get into...how have prices not flattened out? Doesn't anyone in Mexico know SEO? I mean seriously, there has to be some 12 year old geeks that will undercur you like no one's business can. If it really is the most expensive "snake oil" out there, which alot of it sounds like, I have a local tech company (who's owner screwed me over REAL $$$ f'ing bad when I was 17) that I would like to compete with.

Anyone interested in bringing down the local schmuck? I'd like to offer local businesses more bang for their buck. I say its high time to take a few of his customers away.

msteinhoff · 08-10-2009, 07:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pro Builder

So... content is king AND traffic is king?

Good content brings good traffic. The better the content, the more focused the traffic. Traffic that does not bring dollars is not good traffic.

I have a Google Page Rank 4 web site (http://www.jannorris.com/) that got fewer than 3,000 visits in July and just 2,200 unique visitors. Obviously, that ain't a lot of traffic. Yet, the site makes money and places well for its targeted audience.

Create good content, optimize well and good traffic will come.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pro Builder

Should I be number one locally? Is there a chance I won't be? How can I control whether I am staying on top or not?

You can generally hit number one using smoke and mirrors. You won't stay number one, however. Worse yet, just being number one doesn't mean people are going to buy your product or service. This is where you bounce rate comes into play. I have driven lousy sites to number one search placement but the underlying content was horrid. As a result, bounce rate was better than 90% and average visit was under ten seconds. Sure, there was a lot of traffic but it wasn't converting.

Would you rather be the roofer who prepares two hundred estimates and gets two jobs or the roofer who prepares two estimates and gets two jobs? Quality of traffic is as important than quantity of traffic.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pro Builder

Seriously, is SEO really that simple?

As with any other trade, the mechanics are generally the easiest part. There is no magic. The art of the job takes a bit more effort but practice makes perfect.

Cheers,
Matt

Pro Builder · 08-11-2009, 12:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by msteinhoff

Good content brings good traffic. The better the content, the more focused the traffic. Traffic that does not bring dollars is not good traffic.

I have a Google Page Rank 4 web site (http://www.jannorris.com/) that got fewer than 3,000 visits in July and just 2,200 unique visitors. Obviously, that ain't a lot of traffic. Yet, the site makes money and places well for its targeted audience.

Create good content, optimize well and good traffic will come.

You can generally hit number one using smoke and mirrors. You won't stay number one, however. Worse yet, just being number one doesn't mean people are going to buy your product or service. This is where you bounce rate comes into play. I have driven lousy sites to number one search placement but the underlying content was horrid. As a result, bounce rate was better than 90% and average visit was under ten seconds. Sure, there was a lot of traffic but it wasn't converting.

Would you rather be the roofer who prepares two hundred estimates and gets two jobs or the roofer who prepares two estimates and gets two jobs? Quality of traffic is as important than quantity of traffic.

As with any other trade, the mechanics are generally the easiest part. There is no magic. The art of the job takes a bit more effort but practice makes perfect.

Cheers,
Matt

What you say makes alot of sense. So it leads to another question: What kind of content converts into sales?

msteinhoff · 08-11-2009, 07:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pro Builder

What kind of content converts into sales?

That's the art component of SEO. It takes a bit more effort and time than the mechanics.

If you're not already using Google Analytics (or similar), do so. See what sort of traffic you're getting now. What pages are drawing traffic now? What pages have the highest and lowest bounce rates? What keywords are consistently bringing in traffic and are those your most desirable? Are there any pages where people are already spending a lot of time? What pages on other sites in my industry would I be most likely to read? What pages send the most traffic to your 'contact' page or response form?

With the answers to those questions, you can start writing and rewriting content. Tweak, tweak, tweak.

My only other suggestion is to ask for contact. I see so many sites that don't have a call to action. If you want people to call now, make sure you say 'call now' somewhere and provide a phone number. (Also, make sure the number they dial results in a real person and not a voicemail box.)

Cheers,
Matt

Lighting Retro · 08-11-2009, 08:04 AM

I've had pretty good success with it. The amount of effort you spend will be directly correlated to the competition in your heading and the key words you want to show up for. Happy to lend a thought or two via email if you like.

by the way, to verify that I know what I speak of, type in Lighting Retrofit and see who comes up first.

WestCoastVinyl · 08-11-2009, 12:13 PM

msteinhoff great advice!

Just wanted to add to content that converts.
content is relevant to the keyword phrases, but the message must be compelling
for the the customer to take action. (pick up the phone to call or opt in)
This type of content is what we call the long tail k phrases, and it does not
have a lot of traffic, its less but the conversion is high!

Heres a couple of post that you can check out to give you an idea about
title and content:

Title that Rocks and Converts
Capturing Motivated Buyers

cbscreative · 08-15-2009, 12:42 PM

Hmmm, another party where I have arrived late. A lot of great advice and explanations of advice has already been given, especially by msteinhoff. Not only was his explanation of page structure (titles and tags) well said, but the point about quality of traffic and converting to sales is exactly what I would have added if he hadn't said it. You can be #1 and still be broke. I also like what Carl said in post #40. These guys and others here like them have my vote for great advice.

To the point about being #1 or first page on Google and converting to sales, I should add one more thing that hasn't been said. Don't rely on it. Your other marketing should reinforce your business to drive sales. The reason you even want to be on the first page is because if someone sees your vehicle at a neighbors, gets a referral, or for some other reason is looking for you online, you'd better be on page 1 or you lose that opportunity. But don't rely totally on being on page 1.

Lighting Retro, your chances of someone using your name as a search term are much lower than using something like "lighting fort worth" or similar. I did a quick check and did not see you on page 1. If you can get page 1 results for targeted local searches like that, it will be much better.

For those who say the algorithms are always changing, that's true, but I echo the statements about some basics having not changed nor will they. I don't know if I've said this on this forum yet (probably have), but there is a rather simple method of determining good SEO advice from bad: pretend you are Google. Google wants their "customer" (the person searching) to find the most relevant results for their search. If your efforts to get on page 1 help Google accomplish this goal, you will never be punished. If you were Google and would not like someone using a tactic on you, it's bad advice.

Early in this thread, a few members said, hire a pro. While you need to be careful about snake oil, this is good advice. Trying to be your own SEO and stumbling around can cost you. If your business is construction related, spending your time doing something other than construction could mean lost opportunities that a pro will help you get. Speaking as someone who does get sites on page 1, local results for someone in construction trades is not difficult for me. Let's assume I had to charge you $2000 for my services. How many jobs would you need to recover this investment? How long would you spend trying to figure it out on your own while a good SEO person could get you to the top so you can make money?

To those advocating link exchanges, I would advise reading this about reciprocal linking.

MagicPoolSvcs · 09-27-2009, 11:43 AM

Traffic, backlinks, new content, and keywords are very important for Google.

msteinhoff · 09-27-2009, 04:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MagicPoolSvcs

keywords are very important for Google.

Quite the contrary. Google pretty much ignores meta keywords.

Cheers,
Matt

J. Sullivan · 09-27-2009, 06:21 PM

It's not that Google pretty much ignores the keyword meta, they straight up completely ignore them.

Straight from the GoogleBots mouth....

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogsp...-meta-tag.html

nEighter · 09-27-2009, 08:25 PM

+ YouTube Video

Phelans · 10-13-2009, 04:58 AM

Finally..a sensible answer

Pro Builder · 10-14-2009, 01:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zookies

I got a call from outrank.com yesterday, they sound pretty slick, but I bet they charge a lot. Since we are already ranked highly, I shot them down. Does anybody know what they charge? I bet it is a coupla grand just to start. They have ZERO reviews that I can find online.

I think that in addition to backlinks and a relevant w3c compliant design (covered by prior posters) that a consistent presence, traffic, and very slight tweaking and enhancements to the design over time will gradually move you up. Traffic is a challenge, because the less traffic you get, the lower you a re ranked and the less new traffic you will receive. So I see no choice but to consider adwords to generate traffic, even if the cost per click might run $ 5 or $ 10 - because traffic is the king

I have a great marketing firm locally that has delivered impressive results to local contractors. Being the internet and all, this work can be done in many areas, as well.

Marketing and Advertising for Contractors

msteinhoff · 10-14-2009, 06:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pro Builder

I have a great marketing firm locally that has delivered impressive results to local contractors.
Marketing and Advertising for Contractors

My number one rule of thumb when hiring SEO experts is that their web page must place in Google. That company has a Google Page Rank of zero.

The company you suggest has a web address of OnlineSalesConsulting.com and their TITLE is 'Online Sales Consulting' yet, when I type 'online sales consulting' in Google, their web site isn't in the first 50 results.

Also a bad sign, Justin (the CEO) is using an @gmail.com address instead of an address hosted on his own domain. (My five-year-old has firstname@lastname.net. Certainly the CEO of a technology and marketing company could do the same.)

Google Analytics isn't being used on his site either as far as I can tell which makes me think he isn't serious about proving results.

Finally, though his web site is built with Wordpress (a very SEO-friendly platform), Justin hasn't taken the most minimal of steps as to turn on SEO-friendly permalinks, instead choosing to have has pages named as database pointers.

For an SEO/Marking company, the Page Rank of zero is a huge red flag. My own Backyard Raised Vegetable Garden has a Google Page rank of 3 and, believe me, ain't nothing that exciting about my squash. If I can do it, a professional SEO firm should be able to as well.

Cheers,
Matt

cbscreative · 10-14-2009, 02:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by msteinhoff

My number one rule of thumb when hiring SEO experts is that their web page must place in Google. That company has a Google Page Rank of zero.

The company you suggest has a web address of OnlineSalesConsulting.com and their TITLE is 'Online Sales Consulting' yet, when I type 'online sales consulting' in Google, their web site isn't in the first 50 results.

Also a bad sign, Justin (the CEO) is using an @gmail.com address instead of an address hosted on his own domain. (My five-year-old has firstname@lastname.net. Certainly the CEO of a technology and marketing company could do the same.)

Google Analytics isn't being used on his site either as far as I can tell which makes me think he isn't serious about proving results.

Finally, though his web site is built with Wordpress (a very SEO-friendly platform), Justin hasn't taken the most minimal of steps as to turn on SEO-friendly permalinks, instead choosing to have has pages named as database pointers.

For an SEO/Marking company, the Page Rank of zero is a huge red flag. My own Backyard Raised Vegetable Garden has a Google Page rank of 3 and, believe me, ain't nothing that exciting about my squash. If I can do it, a professional SEO firm should be able to as well.

Cheers,
Matt

Although the principle you outlined in qualifying SEO providers is very sound, there is also a danger you may not have considered. If you're just checking the credentials of an SEO company like you're suggesting, then you shouldn't have a problem.

However, if you are looking for an SEO provider and you use the search engines to find them, you could easily be taken for a ride. First of all, with the members here being contractors who usually only need to rank for local results relevant to their business, going with someone from page 1 of Google for something like "SEO company" would be overkill. You'd be paying well in excess of what you need for the service.

The hidden danger is some of the high ranking providers use questionable techniques to get their ranking. Although effective, the "bag of tricks" used to do this is very high maintenance because of the need to stay ahead of changing algoritms in search engines. If you sign on for something like this, prepare for an ongoing expense to stay on top.

As you found out ranking for your vegetable garden, sound SEO principles don't change every time Google upgrades their algorithms, and it's the same with local results for most contractors. I strongly advise qualifying your SEO company, but sites that rank high for SEO terms requires a large team of people didicated to the single task of getting (and keeping) that ranking. Someone has to pay for that, and your needs as a contractor probably don't justify that cost.

Let me put it this way, getting you on page 1 of Google for contracting in your city...no problem. Getting you on page 1 of Google for any SEO term, even just for your city...expensive. Hiring the company who ranks high for something as cutthroat as SEO...also expensive.

Pro Builder · 10-15-2009, 01:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by msteinhoff

My number one rule of thumb when hiring SEO experts is that their web page must place in Google. That company has a Google Page Rank of zero.

The company you suggest has a web address of OnlineSalesConsulting.com and their TITLE is 'Online Sales Consulting' yet, when I type 'online sales consulting' in Google, their web site isn't in the first 50 results.

Also a bad sign, Justin (the CEO) is using an @gmail.com address instead of an address hosted on his own domain. (My five-year-old has firstname@lastname.net. Certainly the CEO of a technology and marketing company could do the same.)

Google Analytics isn't being used on his site either as far as I can tell which makes me think he isn't serious about proving results.

Finally, though his web site is built with Wordpress (a very SEO-friendly platform), Justin hasn't taken the most minimal of steps as to turn on SEO-friendly permalinks, instead choosing to have has pages named as database pointers.

For an SEO/Marking company, the Page Rank of zero is a huge red flag. My own Backyard Raised Vegetable Garden has a Google Page rank of 3 and, believe me, ain't nothing that exciting about my squash. If I can do it, a professional SEO firm should be able to as well.

Cheers,
Matt

Great eye, Matt. Look a little deeper. When was this site established? a few days ago. Does this person have any other websites that rank highly? This is not my only site. Does it actually have a page rank of 0? No, it has a page rank of N/A which is very different. Show me a site 3 days old and a page rank of 8 and I will worship the ground you walk on. There are not google analytics? News to me! SEO plug ins? Sure...coming shortly. How many backlinks does this site have? 2 or 3? The backlinks from this site have not even shown up yet.

All red flags that the site that is being promoted is less than 3 weeks old. It was literally indexed by google a day before your research on it. Is that cause for concern? Maby, but probably less so when SEO is something I did long before the creation of a site.

Accordingly, SEO and adwords are two different things. One being completely controlled by google, the other completely controlled by the client's wishes and the adwords specialist' skills.

While I do offer SEO, that would be the point of optimizing my site slowly. I don't do shady black hat methods. I go for lasting staying power. With a site that was literally created days before being criticized...it almost looks to me like a track coach shouting at a newborn about squash's page rank. I haven't even added a squeeze page or youtube interviews or a portfolio.

So SEO would be the least of my worries. The site is still under construction.

Thanks for looking out.

Pro Builder · 10-15-2009, 03:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cbscreative

Although the principle you outlined in qualifying SEO providers is very sound, there is also a danger you may not have considered. If you're just checking the credentials of an SEO company like you're suggesting, then you shouldn't have a problem.

However, if you are looking for an SEO provider and you use the search engines to find them, you could easily be taken for a ride. First of all, with the members here being contractors who usually only need to rank for local results relevant to their business, going with someone from page 1 of Google for something like "SEO company" would be overkill. You'd be paying well in excess of what you need for the service.

The hidden danger is some of the high ranking providers use questionable techniques to get their ranking. Although effective, the "bag of tricks" used to do this is very high maintenance because of the need to stay ahead of changing algoritms in search engines. If you sign on for something like this, prepare for an ongoing expense to stay on top.

As you found out ranking for your vegetable garden, sound SEO principles don't change every time Google upgrades their algorithms, and it's the same with local results for most contractors. I strongly advise qualifying your SEO company, but sites that rank high for SEO terms requires a large team of people didicated to the single task of getting (and keeping) that ranking. Someone has to pay for that, and your needs as a contractor probably don't justify that cost.

Let me put it this way, getting you on page 1 of Google for contracting in your city...no problem. Getting you on page 1 of Google for any SEO term, even just for your city...expensive. Hiring the company who ranks high for something as cutthroat as SEO...also expensive.

thank you for those fine points, cbscreative. to put it bluntly, ranking for SEO keywords is something that would take about the same amount of work as helping 100 contractors rank for their keywords. Which one makes me more money? I'm sure you already know...