Website Optimisation
Discussion
Has anyone used a web optimisation company to improve their Google rankings?
If so, what were your experiences? Did you have a positive result? If so, how much did you improve and if you dont mind saying, how much did it cost?
Want to improve our Google listings, but web optimisation companies i speak to all want to charge a fair amount of money, but say there is no financial guarantee of improving ranking although they 'guarantee' they will get you in top 10 etc etc.
I dont really want to pay 000's and to have no guaranteed results!
Cheers,
Tim.
p.s. - I would prefer not to hear directly from individuals/companies that tell me they can do the same as i have already been told at the moment! - Looking more for recomendations/advice for now.
If so, what were your experiences? Did you have a positive result? If so, how much did you improve and if you dont mind saying, how much did it cost?
Want to improve our Google listings, but web optimisation companies i speak to all want to charge a fair amount of money, but say there is no financial guarantee of improving ranking although they 'guarantee' they will get you in top 10 etc etc.
I dont really want to pay 000's and to have no guaranteed results!
Cheers,
Tim.
p.s. - I would prefer not to hear directly from individuals/companies that tell me they can do the same as i have already been told at the moment! - Looking more for recomendations/advice for now.
There are a few simple rules for SEO.
Pick a list of keywords you want people to search for. They keywords should then be in your site in the following places (in order of priority):
1. domain name
2. virtual directories
3. page names
4. page options
5. page title
6. h1
7. first paragraph
8. rest of site
Once you have got that sorted, get a google site map done (dynamic if possible) register for google webmaster tools and submit the sitemap.
Finally, get as many people to link to you as possible (but not link farms). The more your keyword(s) is in the link the better. i.e. traffic information is better than www.ukvoyager.info The higher the site is ranked that links to you the better. i.e. a link from the BBC is gold dust.
See this for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank
Alternatively sign up to adwords!
That will be £10k please
.
Pick a list of keywords you want people to search for. They keywords should then be in your site in the following places (in order of priority):
1. domain name
2. virtual directories
3. page names
4. page options
5. page title
6. h1
7. first paragraph
8. rest of site
Once you have got that sorted, get a google site map done (dynamic if possible) register for google webmaster tools and submit the sitemap.
Finally, get as many people to link to you as possible (but not link farms). The more your keyword(s) is in the link the better. i.e. traffic information is better than www.ukvoyager.info The higher the site is ranked that links to you the better. i.e. a link from the BBC is gold dust.
See this for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank
Alternatively sign up to adwords!
That will be £10k please
.ukvoyager.info said:
There are a few simple rules for SEO.
Pick a list of keywords you want people to search for. They keywords should then be in your site in the following places (in order of priority):
1. domain name
2. virtual directories
3. page names
4. page options
5. page title
6. h1
7. first paragraph
8. rest of site
Once you have got that sorted, get a google site map done (dynamic if possible) register for google webmaster tools and submit the sitemap.
Finally, get as many people to link to you as possible (but not link farms). The more your keyword(s) is in the link the better. i.e. traffic information is better than www.ukvoyager.info The higher the site is ranked that links to you the better. i.e. a link from the BBC is gold dust.
See this for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank
Alternatively sign up to adwords!
That will be £10k please.
Great advice. Most of these SEO companies prey on convincing clients that they wouldn't be able to do it without their help and that there is some kind of 'black magic' about it.Pick a list of keywords you want people to search for. They keywords should then be in your site in the following places (in order of priority):
1. domain name
2. virtual directories
3. page names
4. page options
5. page title
6. h1
7. first paragraph
8. rest of site
Once you have got that sorted, get a google site map done (dynamic if possible) register for google webmaster tools and submit the sitemap.
Finally, get as many people to link to you as possible (but not link farms). The more your keyword(s) is in the link the better. i.e. traffic information is better than www.ukvoyager.info The higher the site is ranked that links to you the better. i.e. a link from the BBC is gold dust.
See this for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank
Alternatively sign up to adwords!
That will be £10k please
.The first stage is very DIY and very FREE.
If you want to go down the road of paying Google for search terms, this too is a DIY exercise but you may want to take someone with a 'marketing head' out for a beer just to be sure that what you regard as keywords are actually that. Depends on the complexity of your product/service. But pay more than a beer and you've been ripped off.
HTH offline (and I'm not an SEO company!)
Edited by V8mate on Monday 1st September 18:58
I have paid for "guaranteed" top ten rankings. Paid the money but did not get the results or a refund! This was from a well know PHers so if you do get people offering their services mail me and I will let you know which one I would suggest avoiding.
If I did do it again (I really don't have the time or knowledge) I would only pay after results were achieved. Funnily enough when you ask for this option they tend to give you a load of reasons why they can't possibly do that! Go figure.
If I did do it again (I really don't have the time or knowledge) I would only pay after results were achieved. Funnily enough when you ask for this option they tend to give you a load of reasons why they can't possibly do that! Go figure.
Greenie said:
I have paid for "guaranteed" top ten rankings. Paid the money but did not get the results or a refund! This was from a well know PHers so if you do get people offering their services mail me and I will let you know which one I would suggest avoiding.
If I did do it again (I really don't have the time or knowledge) I would only pay after results were achieved. Funnily enough when you ask for this option they tend to give you a load of reasons why they can't possibly do that! Go figure.
That is exactly what the companies i have spoken to have said - They say pay us e.g. £1000 and we guarantee to get you in the top 10 google rankings for these key search words.If I did do it again (I really don't have the time or knowledge) I would only pay after results were achieved. Funnily enough when you ask for this option they tend to give you a load of reasons why they can't possibly do that! Go figure.
I say - So does that mean if after e.g. 3 months i'm not in top 10 i get a refund?
They say they don't offer refunds, but they can assure me they will get me in top ten!
If they were that confident or were actually able to guarantee their work then they should be able to give a guarantee. They then seem surprised when i tell them i'm not interested!
ukvoyager.info said:
There are a few simple rules for SEO.
Pick a list of keywords you want people to search for. They keywords should then be in your site in the following places (in order of priority):
1. domain name
2. virtual directories
3. page names
4. page options
5. page title
6. h1
7. first paragraph
8. rest of site
Once you have got that sorted, get a google site map done (dynamic if possible) register for google webmaster tools and submit the sitemap.
Finally, get as many people to link to you as possible (but not link farms). The more your keyword(s) is in the link the better. i.e. traffic information is better than www.ukvoyager.info The higher the site is ranked that links to you the better. i.e. a link from the BBC is gold dust.
See this for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank
Alternatively sign up to adwords!
That will be £10k please.
Is there a guarantee 1st page of google for that £10k?!Pick a list of keywords you want people to search for. They keywords should then be in your site in the following places (in order of priority):
1. domain name
2. virtual directories
3. page names
4. page options
5. page title
6. h1
7. first paragraph
8. rest of site
Once you have got that sorted, get a google site map done (dynamic if possible) register for google webmaster tools and submit the sitemap.
Finally, get as many people to link to you as possible (but not link farms). The more your keyword(s) is in the link the better. i.e. traffic information is better than www.ukvoyager.info The higher the site is ranked that links to you the better. i.e. a link from the BBC is gold dust.
See this for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank
Alternatively sign up to adwords!
That will be £10k please
.Thanks for the tips, i had a rough idea of what we needed, but just not sure how to do it myself. I think a bit of a redesign of our website may be in order!
Use adwords already, which works but is proving fairly costly. I'll have to see if i can get some of our customers to put some links up for us on their pages too.
Thanks again everyone for the tips!
Timja said:
Greenie said:
I have paid for "guaranteed" top ten rankings. Paid the money but did not get the results or a refund! This was from a well know PHers so if you do get people offering their services mail me and I will let you know which one I would suggest avoiding.
If I did do it again (I really don't have the time or knowledge) I would only pay after results were achieved. Funnily enough when you ask for this option they tend to give you a load of reasons why they can't possibly do that! Go figure.
That is exactly what the companies i have spoken to have said - They say pay us e.g. £1000 and we guarantee to get you in the top 10 google rankings for these key search words.If I did do it again (I really don't have the time or knowledge) I would only pay after results were achieved. Funnily enough when you ask for this option they tend to give you a load of reasons why they can't possibly do that! Go figure.
I say - So does that mean if after e.g. 3 months i'm not in top 10 i get a refund?
They say they don't offer refunds, but they can assure me they will get me in top ten!
If they were that confident or were actually able to guarantee their work then they should be able to give a guarantee. They then seem surprised when i tell them i'm not interested!
I am happy to spend 10 mins helping people out on how to increase the SEO of their site. PM me with the URL and short list of keywords and I'll take a look. 2 conditions, I wont garantee anything, and I wont charge anything either! You can always post it on here and let the wider have a go...
Dont forget, Google is your friend: http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/
Timja said:
I think a bit of a redesign of our website may be in order!
It is only the TEXT portion of the site that a SE uses. It doesnt care about brand, CSS, images et al. This is what the BBC home page looks like to a SE. You can get the same view in FF by selecting View > Page Style > No Style. It is this view that the SE cares about. Not your lovely eye catching logo, brand and styled text.Googles link:www.mybrilliantsite.com is also a good tool for the links that Google know (and care) about.
Anyway, thats £15k you owe me now...
.In addition to the points raised above, especially the URL one! The age of your URL, i.e. when it was first registered seems to make a bit of a difference, so get them registered as soon as 
I've always made sure that the text on sites I've created are crafted as well as can be in terms of the underlying meta tags, text content and heading. You then need to build up a legitimate number of links to and from your site.. Mostly to, but of course most sites are "happy" to reciprocate, hence the from links.. Getting your URL in press releases and news items is also a really good way to create inbound links as can be using forums, having it in your post footer.. In forums that are ideally related to the subject matter of course.
I've never paid for SEO, but over the years have worked out what works and what doesn't and then stuck to it.
Another item that helps is to have the content being updated on a regular basis on the homepage, search engines (Google in particular) recognise that the content has changed and it indicates to it that the site is living as opposed to static.
I've always made sure that the text on sites I've created are crafted as well as can be in terms of the underlying meta tags, text content and heading. You then need to build up a legitimate number of links to and from your site.. Mostly to, but of course most sites are "happy" to reciprocate, hence the from links..
Getting your URL in press releases and news items is also a really good way to create inbound links as can be using forums, having it in your post footer.. In forums that are ideally related to the subject matter of course.I've never paid for SEO, but over the years have worked out what works and what doesn't and then stuck to it.
Another item that helps is to have the content being updated on a regular basis on the homepage, search engines (Google in particular) recognise that the content has changed and it indicates to it that the site is living as opposed to static.
Edited by ginettag27 on Tuesday 2nd September 10:29
As a piss take i got a rent boy site ranking number one in google in weeks and it was like that until it got taken down. Those m8's never took the piss again i can tell ya Both my sites rank number 1 for many search terms, tbh it's a piece of piss. Fancy websites don't = good ranking, clever wording and domain/page names DO. Content matters
Both my sites rank number 1 for many search terms, tbh it's a piece of piss. Fancy websites don't = good ranking, clever wording and domain/page names DO. Content matters One tip I've picked up is to make your site accessible as possible (i.e to screenreaders for the blind). Typically a consequence of this is that your page will have a good structure and the information is available as text, which suits search engines best.
Make use of alt parameters in images for example. You can structure your website in HTML so that the most important parts come first in the source then use CSS to visually position everything as it would appear to someone viewing the site normally.
Make use of alt parameters in images for example. You can structure your website in HTML so that the most important parts come first in the source then use CSS to visually position everything as it would appear to someone viewing the site normally.
ukvoyager.info said:
Timja said:
I think a bit of a redesign of our website may be in order!
It is only the TEXT portion of the site that a SE uses. It doesnt care about brand, CSS, images et al. This is what the BBC home page looks like to a SE. You can get the same view in FF by selecting View > Page Style > No Style. It is this view that the SE cares about. Not your lovely eye catching logo, brand and styled text.Googles link:www.mybrilliantsite.com is also a good tool for the links that Google know (and care) about.
Anyway, thats £15k you owe me now...
.The problem is that I hate the design of the site, but for "glass bottles" we are number two (in the UK anyhow), but for other terms, we are not so high.
Google Analytics is working well, our bounce rate is about 25%, which isn't too bad, considering the crap design side of things.
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