My name is John Kline and I have been optimizing websites for search since 2001 as an SEO Specialist. I know the importance of ranking a website in Google, today more than ever. The competition is stiff, and now with websites dumping loads of money for paid ads in order to be seen at the top of Google has made showing in the organic search results more important than ever. Google's Pay Per Click program, AdWords is very expensive, and more often than not, there is a poor return on investment (ROI). Too many business website owners don't realize how important SEO is for generating leads, sales and clients.
Using PPC isn't all bad. However, in combination with the business website showing high in the search results in addition can be even more profitable. I tend to trust an ad more when I see the site in the search results. Than I'm more likely to follow the link, not the ad. Hence, no cost to the advertiser.
But what about the businesses that cannot afford PPC? Many of my SEO clients are presently law firms. It's a fact that in order to outbid competition for keywords relating to a law practice is very expensive. Most smaller law firs cannot a afford $7.00+ for each click. A monthly AdWords budget of $10,000 just isn't possible.
So what are their options? SEO of course. They spend almost 1/10th less when they buy SEO services than using PPC. Their ROI is than much higher as a result of spending a lot less to get the same amount of visitors as PPC.
So how do you find a good SEO specialist? This can be tough, although it certainly doesn't need to be. Here are a few things to consider.
1. If the price is to good to be trure, THAN IT IS! There are plenty of SEO hacks out there who will offer SEO for "cheap". Then you pay them and get nothing as a result. I've been doing SEO long enough to say that most of them live in Counties where 10 bucks can take them very far. I'd rather give $10 away to anyone who truly needs it, but wouldn't want them to touch my website.
2. Keep it personal SEO firms are big, and the clientele is many. So many in-fact, that their ability to focus on your business needs are greatly diminished. If "Bob" receives a pay check every month from the big SEO firm and has 10 clients to "take care of" each month. Those clients are lucky to have 5 hours a week spent on their site. Do you think "Bob" cares how your site performs? No, of course not. He still gets a pay check every month. One client drops off, and he's assigned another.
3. Don't become a hostage! Many of these SEO companies lack transparency. In-fact, they rely on it. They certainly don't want to give too much information to the client. If the SEO client doesn't learn about real SEO, then they remain in need of the companies services. In worse cases which I've seen, clients have been threatened by big SEO companies. "continue or I will undo everything I've done". This is a dirty as it gets! The client already paid for the results and has the right to walk away without worrying about sabotage!
So in conclusion, I recommend you buy SEO services from an experienced freelancer that can spend the time on your business website that it deserves. You should be able to ask questions, know what they are doing and WHY. You should be able to pick up the phone, send an email, get on Skype, and send a text message when ever you need to. AND get a timely response.
John Kline, SEO Services
