29 replies to this topic

[SEO-Richard]

There's a lot in the U.K press at the moment about outsourcing of jobs to India and elsewhere. Dyson, for example, has moved his factory to Malayasia since it's cheaper...but also jobs that can be done via a telephone are going, mainly call-centre work.

Next, from what I've been hearing on the radio, it'll be higher-paid IT work that'll be disappearing off our shores. No bad thing from India's point of view (I use India as an example) since they need the money. Still, from the IT professional point of view in the U.K ..... maybe it's not so good. It's a trend that is likely to accelerate, too.

In fact, the new thing in the U.K is for the middle classes to break into trades like plumbing. That's because no one abroad can take their jobs away from them. (As an ex-plumber, their view of what it's like to be a plumber is extremely rosy-tinted, but I can see why they're doing it).

Which brings me to my point: if someone in India could do an SEO job as cheaply and well as I could, why should anyone in the U.K pay me?

I'm setting up in the SEO line of work (yellow pages will hopefully kick-start a few jobs my way, but mainly it provides an impetus for me to get off my butt as the ad. comes out in February) and I've been thinking long and hard for the direction to go in.

Firstly, mainly, it's away from simple keyword optimisation techniques and towards a whol-site marketing approach. I've had that confirmed for me really here.

Still, I'm thinking - long-term, I reckon a lot of companies are going to use the internet as a super-Yellow pages. They can display more information, they can be found on precise keywords - for anything slightly difficult to find I personally prefer using the internet. And geographical searches provided by the SEs might lead a lot of small companies to also think that way.

Do you reckon that a good area to specialise in is going to be local SEO, for small businesses, where they value seeing you face to face? It sounds alarmist to be thinking along these lines already, but who would have thought a few years ago that call centres would come into existence, or that a few years later they would start going abroad?

[powerofeyes]

Hello Richard,
I am one person who can give you answers for this question not only because I am from india but I have many successful SEO, development and web design projects under my belt. Ok coming to outsourcing projects to india i bet you no one can do a cheaper as well as better job than IT professionals in india. This is not only that we need money but the training we undergo is absolutely great.
You know how much I got for my first SEO project from a US client, you wont believe me 90$ for full optimization for the total site to rank from adding tags to content generation to link building to report generation etc. All these for a upfront payment of 90$ and a monthly pay of 13$. And this site today ranks on top of search engines for 9/10 keywords the client gave me related to his site. He was very happy about the results and now from this single site my SEO career grew and today i am charging upto 1000$ upfront payment and almost completed 25 sites.
But still I know people like Jill(7500$), Jim Boykin(5000$), bruce clay(more than 5000$) etc who charge very high for their SEO projects. This is where we indians come into picture people who cant pay so high for SEOs like them come to us and we charge almost 10 times lesser than they do and still give almost the same results. The quality of the report generation wont be as good as Jill but the quality of work is there. And also we may not become as popular like Jill but we do have the potential to handle any kind of complex and large SEO projects.
And coming to large businesses we do get lot of IT outsource projects for small to large companies. For example my friend's company handle lots of projects from european and US states. One project which they recently completed was taken for 20,000 dollars and handled by a team of 5 people it was a work flow application Using wap and lotus notes. Do you know how much they demanded in US for this project 180,000 dollars. Quality, quantity everything was the same just that the development charge is so high compared to india.

also jobs that can be done via a telephone are going, mainly call-centre work.

I live in chennai one of india's largest centre for call centre network we have call centres here for many multinational companies, some of the leading companies having call centres and customer care units in india are INKTOMI(handled by satyam computers), Lycos etc.

Next, from what I've been hearing on the radio, it'll be higher-paid IT work that'll be disappearing off our shores. No bad thing from India's point of view (I use India as an example) since they need the money. Still, from the IT professional point of view in the U.K ..... maybe it's not so good. It's a trend that is likely to accelerate, too.

One other reason we are getting more IT projects compared to the previous because indians have reduced travelling to western countries in search of jobs due to the vast build up of IT companies and IT job scope in india. After september 11 attacks we saw a big boost in outsourcing projects to india and now many IT professionals started settling here to furnish their IT career. We indians do need money as any other person in the world. May be our computer knowledge value is much less than people in foreign countries. We never feel bad that we are paid 10 times less than what big IT companies in US get we are suffcient with ourselves with what ever we get,
And from this post i would like to say to all US and UK companies keep outsourcing projects to india we will do projects really cheap for you ,

thanks,
VIJAY.

[BrianR]

Do you reckon that a good area to specialise in is going to be local SEO, for small businesses, where they value seeing you face to face?

That's exactly what I do, Richard, and I'm pretty sure that's what OldWelshGuy does too. Owners of small businesses like to eyeball you before doing business with you, which is fine by me!

BrianR

[dragonlady7]

> call centres

Yes, by outsourcing they save money, but you get what you pay for: irate customers.

If I have to call for telephone support, and I get someone in a far-off country who doesn't speak English, I will not be happy.
I will avoid purchasing from that company in future if at all possible.

I'm just remembering a friend's lengthy telephone ordeal with a Gateway support call centre. "No beep?" "No, no beep. When I push the button, the computer doesn't beep." "No beep?" "No." "Oh. Ah, no beep?"
That was the only thing he could freaking say.

Cheaper is cheaper, sure, but eventually things even out. Initially, it was cheaper to make cars in Asia. Now, Toyota, Nissan, and Honda all have manufacturing plants in the U.S.
Take from that what you will, but my buddy's Corolla was made in Ohio. Union workers, too.

[cline]

Oddly enough the majority of my clients are in the UK and I'm in the US, and I've never met any of them except for a long-ago former co-worker who got me my first UK client. The rest has been word of mouth.

There are several key skills involved in SEO. One of them is an above-average command of language, another is understanding the market. The first of these is exceedingly difficult for non-native speakers; the second has the potential to be difficult for non-residents. Both of these are handicaps for operating from countries such as India. On the other hand, they can charge a lot less. It's a trade-off.

[powerofeyes]

Hello Cline,

Both of these are handicaps for operating from countries such as India. On the other hand, they can charge a lot less. It's a trade-off.

This is your own speculation. I don't think any people doing business with us think this way. Frankly saying we do have some of the best experts in english. For example I have a copywriter working for me to write SEO contents and her command in english is excellent and to say far far better than some US people, i never said this but my clients they give feedback on the writing of my copywriter.
May be i am not great in english but I have other expertise like Developer, web designer, SEO etc.

It's a trade-off.

Nooo it is not a trade off we satisfy our clients in all the best possible ways as good as you do in US sometimes even better. Rates are much less because cost of living in INDIA is much less compared to US and UK. We can be happy with 1000$ per month for a good average living in india but atleast you need 3000$ to be comfortable in US it is as simple as that. don't compare our english and market understanding to the work we do. Whatever SEO projects we take we first go on for a broad market research on the products client targets.
I never say all indians all good likewise you do have so many SEO practicioners in US who always depend on doorway pages, hidden text, cloaking to rank their client's pages so if you have bumped across those crowd in india then your idea might be right. But you cant point those words to all indians,
thanks,
VIJAY.

[crendogal]

I think there are regional issues in some SEO projects that require at least some familiarity with geography as well as local trends and slang that make it more difficult for someone non-local to do as good of a job as a local. I know I'd find it difficult to optimize a site based in India that needed to appeal to the folks over there, so expecting someone in India to be able to do a good of a job as I can of optimizing a site that needs to appeal to my neighbors is probably true as well.

That said, most of my SEO clients are in the USA, but not local to me -- and I depend heavily on the client for suggestions for regional nicknames (like "wine country" for the Napa area) and spend least some time looking at their local Chamber of Commerce and other regional business & tourism sites to make sure I'm getting a good feel for their area.

Just because someone is in India doesn't mean they can't find the same websites I do, or ask the same questions of the client that I do. But where slang and trends are concerned, locals have a big advantage. If you're marketing globally, and marketing on non-trend terms and non-slang terms, then selecting a company that's not local shouldn't cause any additional SEO problems. But if you suspect you'll get SE traffic from geographic or local cultural terms, or need to appeal to a specific demographic, then stick with an SEO who has familiarity with your target market.

[projectphp]

You sell benefits. Indians sell cheapness, the 1st world needs to sell other things. Sell usefulness, timliness, ease of interactions etc. Also, use patrioticism. Many people will buy locally out of a patriotic sense of duty. No harm in taping into that.

And if you can't beat em, join em!!! Have you thought about being the UK head of Indian SEO company? You get the work, and outsource to India. Win-win.

A client who wants to pay US$250 for SEO isn't worth having, so instead target Blue Chips, target friends, family and people you have worked with in the past who may not know how cheap Indian IT Labour is.

Quite frankly though, if your biggest worry is competition from India, you have your worries out of wack. If 30% of business gets outsouyrced to India, with the rate SEO is growing, that means next year there will still probably be more work out there than there is today.

[SEO-Richard]

Wow, thanks everyone.

Vijay, thanks for your reply. You've given me a really interesting perspective. I'm going to print your reply, and think about it.

projectphp

Quite frankly though, if your biggest worry is competition from India, you have your worries out of wack. If 30% of business gets outsouyrced to India, with the rate SEO is growing, that means next year there will still probably be more work out there than there is today.

I agree with you, but I'm throwing an idea in the air. I want to see what comes of it. I'm thinking now that the technical side can be handled from India or China or Malyasia; all that needs to be done in the UK is the cultural side - graphics, copy.

And the idea of being head of an Indian SEO co. ..... maybe I should move to India! Fascinating place.

[BrianR]

Thankfully, different people are motivated by different things, and always will be. Take the car market as an analogy:

Here in the UK, you can buy a car called a Perodua Nippa for about £4500 (I think!). From memory, the entry model BMW sells for about 3 times that price.

The Nippa does what a car is supposed to do: it drives you from A to B. So does the BMW. But is it worth 3 times as much as the Nippa? Probably not.

But all I can tell you is that there are a LOT more BMW 3 Series sold in the UK than there are Perodua Nippas. So that tells me that price isn't everything.

BrianR

[Leann_Pass]

The country of the outsourced work is not nearly as important as the quality of the outsourced work. You can get GOOD work from those in the US or Canada or UK or India, you can get SORRY work from the same countries.

WHO is doing the work matters the most. Make sure you are on the same page and that all the I's are dotted and all the T's are crossed. Communicate to make sure all expectations are understood by all parties. A GOOD company or individual who does GOOD work is what matters. Where they live does not have to be much of an issue.

Having a good working relationship and open communication is always important with outsourcing. If you have a particular problem communicating with those in other countries, then outsourcing to them isn't for you! If you don't have that communication problem and you can get GOOD work done by someone in another country..........then there really isn't a reason not to.

JMO, as usual

[cline]

Leann has it right. The problem is that it's harder to find certain things of certain quality levels in certain places. That's not to say they cannot and do not exist.

[MakeMeTop]

Frankly, I thank the sums that you were talking about for Bruce Clay, Jill et. al. were way under the mark.

I charge, on average, around $3K per month.

How much does it cost me to set up a campaign? For a well known car rental company I am spending around $5K per region on paid spidering alone. They want this done and it comes out of my charges. I just don't believe a company that wants to spend thousands on paid inclusion will feel comfortable paying $90 to a company to handle the optimisation for them.

I could, of course, be wrong!

However, people will take up outsourcing. Let's face it, many of my clients are media agencies outsourcing SEO for their Fortune 500 clients.

On another subject, it will be interesting to know if people looking for SEO actually look for it in the Yellow Pages

As many UK companies roll back their Yellow Pages spending and ramp up on SEO spend, it will be ironic if the Yellow Pages becomes an effective way to promote SEO!

Edited by MakeMeTop, 10 November 2003 - 07:08 PM.

[powerofeyes]

Hello Makemetop,
I have a question which i have thought of asking you for a very long time. Can you tell me what is the point in spending so much on PFI - in your words 1000s of dollars.
Many of my client sites I dont even pay a penny but still they get spidered regularly and ranks just fine. And one site which sells 20,000 products it gets spidered every 48hours all we do is buy a PPC for 25$ in overture. Ok this may be just an ignorant question can you tell me what is the difference here.
thanks,
VIJAY.

[DianeV]

My guess (and I'm not answering for Barry) is that it's a matter of a broader range of keywords. And even a little bit of PPC can land you up front in MSN.com without a LookSmart listing.

My thought with regard to outsourcing is this: my company provides a broad range of services; we are extremely hands-on with our projects, and generally outsource only advanced programming and Flash. My preference is in knowing the person to whom I'm outsourcing, and being able to discuss (at least via telephone) projects at length when needed. For this, I'm not crazy about the idea of racking up phone bills for international calls.

I'm not really looking for the cheapest outsourcing outlet; I'm looking for quality along with specific qualities.

I'd also like to know that, if something goes wrong, I have some recourse beyond chasing someone in another country.