Posted in Ever received an email like this:
“We are interested to increase traffic to your website, please get back to us in order to discuss the possibility in further detail. We are an SEO company that can bring huge amounts of traffic to your website.”
RealPageMaker receives several emails like this every day from SEO (Search Engine Optimization Companies) attempting to solicit business from our customers. I’ve been asked hundreds of times what these companies do, so here’s a brief explanation:
Keyword Analysis
Most of these companies will perform a simple keyword-analysis of the search terms you are trying to target. For example, if you’re a REALTOR® in Vancouver, they may attempt to target the following keyword phrases:
- “Vancouver Real Estate”
- “Vancouver Realtor”
- “Downtown Vancouver Condos”
- etc.
These companies will likely tout this as “highly complex” or “extremely involved” but really they are just using the free Google keyword tool.
Website Audit
After determining which keywords you are attempting to target, SEO companies will then perform a “website audit.” Essentially this means that they will analyze your website for keyword/keyphrase density in content and meta tags. Though they will probably sell you on how their tools are proprietary, they are most likely using an inexpensive website auditor tool like this one.
Backlinks
Some SEO companies attempting to solicit you through email might offer backlinks as part of their services. Backlinks are important if your website is to achieve a reasonable ranking for your targeted keywords and search terms. Here’s the problem: getting backlinks is fairly easy; getting GOOD backlinks takes work. It’s unlikely these companies will offer anything of quality.
Content
Some of these SEO companies might even offer to write some copyright content for you (though most won’t). Typically this content is canned, contains spelling and grammatical errors, and might even be copied from online publications like www.ezinearticles.com.
My problem with these services:
They charge too little to be of any use to you. Here are some SEO truths that most people don’t realize:
- SEO takes a lot of upfront work and usually costs several thousand dollars just for an assessment
- SEO is a continuous process: a one-time submission of your website to online business directories is not going to produce any noticeable results
- SEO is extremely competitive. There are lots of people investing significant sums of money to achieve the rankings you are competing for.
- SEO involves a customized and targeted strategy that companies charging a one-time flat fee will not be able to deliver
Your website can achieve a high ranking in Google, but it likely won’t come from someone attempting to solicit you via an anonymous form on your website. Good SEO companies are expensive, but justify their expense by generating tremendous results.
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I started an aggressive SEO campaign with an American SEO company last November. The process was relatively involved to begin with, but once we’d established the parameters of the campaign, they ran with it with minimal further input from me. The quality of their copy is crap (needs involved monthly reviews from me), but they’ve otherwise done a good job, and I’ve gone from invisible on Google to the top of page 2. I expect to hit page 1 for some of my targeted terms mid-year, at the current rate of increase.
I’m paying $2k-$3k/month – that’s about the going rate I discovered when researching around for SEO companies. Sounds expensive? Sure, but it’s already paying for itself with monthly increase in web-based transactions, and I expect that number to increase 15x once I hit page 1. I fully expect the market to become more competitive, and prices to rise, but the ROI is so astronomical at the moment ($40k/year for $200k+ net return), that it’s hard to ignore.
I tell many colleagues exactly this knowing full well that only 5% will take heed and try it for themselves. It will be these 5% that will own the market for years to come, and I’ll be among them. Best of all – no more vandalized bus benches and envelope stuffing!