36 replies to this topic

[bewarne]

On the difference between coming up for the name of the company and coming up for their category/keyword/general business, one way of putting it in perspective for them is the difference between having a listing in the phone book "White Pages" and the "Yellow Pages". If someone knows you already, they can find you in the White Pages but if they are only looking for what you do, you might want a listing in the Yellow Pages so they can find you under your category/business type, etc. Do they have White vs Yellow page (not surely with those colors or nicknames) phone directories in New Zealand?

[David1221]

Hi Carica,

This definitely is no surprise at all. Being your neighbor in Australia, I deal with the every day people that think they know it all and that SEO doesn't work (Australia is very new to this market). Using all that feedback and the rejections, the best way to approach them is to apply basic terminology. Having done that, it has worked and people are slowly coming around to it.

In what why do I mean: "You have X, and thousands of people are searching for X. SEO is about bringing people to your website for X when they type it in the search engines. I have looked in the search engines for the term X, and X related words, you are no where to be found!"

With that approach, it really gets people thinking. You might want to provide some data to support your claim. A good way to do this is to have a short keyword list of say 5 keywords and their predicted search volume (state where you get your data). Then you may want to have a report showing where they stand for those keywords in 3 search engines, to point out that they have NO presence. This is a short proposal but it works!

I hope that helps.

[Jill]

("Sure, it can do your taxes and alert you when the ficus needs watering as well as integrate with your ancient C++ backend all for only $5k...")

Funny, we just lost a bid to that very company at that very price for a full redesign of an ecommerce site plus SEO. (No wait, they actually bid $4000 not 5!

Good riddance...

[Scottie]

That will end up in a lawsuit before it's all over...


In a company that operates like that, there are 3 stages in the client lifecycle: Loves us, Distrusts us, Suing Us.

[Jill]

Well apparently they hire designers from Croatia so maybe they can actually work that cheaply?

[MtraX]

It depends on the size of the site, deliverables and the length of the contract. Generally countries like India, South Africa and other 3rd world countries do have some jacked up folk who can work for 30-50% less while still delivering decent results. The problem is that allot of folk are jumping on the bandwagon who can't deliver, giving the rest of us a bad name.

If they knew who you really were though Jill (with all your experience on the subject) I think they will most definately kick themselves in a few months time... Experienced people generally get much more done within the allocated time. Nuff said.

MtraX

[Jill]

Thanks MtraX, I agree. But I figure it's their loss!