Improving online presence google ad words etc

[strath44]

Hey folks, bit of help / pointers if you can..........

Our company has had a terrible online presence for years, I am now trying to massively improve that but not quite sure the best routes.

My current aims are rebuilding the website which is now much better and will soon have ecommerce as well, build a solid facebook page and get us up the google listings.

We had a digital consultant about 2 years ago which cost nearly 5 figures for a few months work and many things were started and setup but not finished as that project collapsed and it has lain dormant since.

Yell called yesterday and we currently have no advert with them even a free listing so they are coming out soon to "talk". They are pushing us to provide a service to get us higher up Googles listings which I think starts about £12 a week, anyone familiar with this?

Are there any better in house routes that are straight forward to apply and manage for adwords etc, I know the sky is the limit but what sort of money would this expect to cost?

[marshalla]

The magic abbreviation is "SEO" (search-engine optimisation).

Opinions vary, but Yell is probably not the best option.

See this thread for a more detailed recent discussion : http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=155...

[technodup]

Stay well away from Yell. I see you're in Perthshire, I can recommend a company which does some SEO work for one of the hotels there. They're based in Glasgow but spends a day a month (I think) at the hotel so they can see what's being done.

I think it actually results in less being done, but they like the personal contact as it's a bit of a minefield for the uninitiated.

[strath44]

Thanks you both for the responses and that link is very helpful - I will have a proper read tonight.

I would appreciate if you could PM me the details of said specialist that would be helpful thank you!

[Derek Withers]

Another vote for staying from Yell here. They recently visited us and the sales person was advocating an SEO technique that was about ten years out of date. Their websites are just templates with little effort put into them.

You can do a surprising amount in house. With a bit of reading online I have managed to rank on page one of google for several keywords recently. Its not a black art at all.

[technodup]

Derek Withers said:

You can do a surprising amount in house. With a bit of reading online I have managed to rank on page one of google for several keywords recently. Its not a black art at all.

I wouldn't disagree with that but as ever it's how long you want to spend on it and how much you're potentially losing elsewhere. Plus it's harder to keep on top of if you're not up to date with the various changes.

I'm sure I could read a few law books but I'd rather have a real lawyer batting for me. Likewise an accountant. And an SEO guy.

Anyway, PM sent.

[strath44]

Thanks, just out of interest the techniques you mention as being 10 years out of date that yell use what are they?

[Derek Withers]

She said that she would come up with some good keywords to put in meta keywords. I just checked and Google have ignored meta keywords since at least 2009. OK, its not quite ten years out of date but that's still a long time.

Whats the website in question?