[thelist] [SEO] maintaining listings

[Chris Marsh]

Benjer

> >But your response appears to beat around the bush a lot, as
> if you are
> >unsure of what you should really be doing.
>
> "The search engine optimisation service you have quoted us on"
>
> This is the initial setup/build/submitting of the website
> which we have already laid out in detail and they understand
> anyway. the question is:
>
> "but how do we keep the service at the top of the main
> searches? is there a cost effective service out there and do
> we need one in your view?"
>
> which is what I was trying to address.... cost-effective
> being the main issue.

IMHO there needs to be qualification as to whether or not maintaining
search engine listings for a particular organisation is cost-effective.
Once upon a time I was quoted a cost of what worked out to about $10k
per month for the first year to make sure that we were top of the major
search engines. The company quoting us were impressive, and I have no
doubt that they would have delivered around 95% of what they were
promising. The question was, would we make more than $120k in a year
from search engine referrals that we wouldn't have made unless we were
listed in the top spots? It's not even as simple as recording the
referrals; it is possible that some of these users would have found us
anyway through affiliate programs, word of mouth or by simply drilling
down through the listings a bit further. The reason that I was confident
of their service delivery was that a lot of this money was going on a
whole team of guys working day to day on our listings. Against my
recommendation the company went for a bargain basement solution. These
guys did what they said insomuch as they got us the number one spot in
around 25 search engines. It was just unfortunate that nobody had ever
heard of the search engines that we were listed in. When I questioned
the company representative as to who made the decision and how the
decision was made as to which search engines were targetted, the smug
git threw me a fishing metaphor which caused all jaws in the room to
drop at the lack of interest this guy was showing in his client's
questions. I have been asked through permanent jobs and contracts alike
to provide an ongoing SEO service many times, and have always refused on
the grounds that management of expectations is so difficult due to the
lack of control over listings, and the lack of money forthcoming. If I
were you I would do the initial optimisation, and advocate a business
analysis of how much revenue would be generated from search engine
listings. If the analysis comes up positive, recommend that they contact
a company that specialises in SEO, but distance yourself.

Regards

Chris Marsh