7 replies to this topic

[bobmeetin]

I have a local Ma/Pa shop that I do the web development for and some basic on-site optimization.  They trust me.  Since Panda/Penguin they took a dip in both Local and Organic rankings. I redeveloped the site 3 months back, then started looking into what could be improved, founds some things, made some changes - and the site is moving back up but slowly.

 

The business owner got impatient, and decided to entertain a sales/marketing plan with a firm that does the whole package, organic, organic, PPC. It is monthly, costly, with a 12 month commitment.  I had an opportunity to review the plan after the fact - saw some line items that caught my attention.

 

In addition to some onsite keyword optimization and a few articles written they list:

 

1. 1000 web directory submissions
2. 60 search engine submissions
3. 1250 social bookmarking submissions
4. 6000 article submissions
5. 50 local seo submissions

 

Well that certainly looks like a lot of work to the untrained eye.  What do the folks on the list say?  I'll avoid my next leading question until next response.

[Jill]

Waste of money.

[qwerty]

The local submissions might have some value. There's a lot of talk of making sure your NAP (Name, Address, Phone) are listed consistently across numerous sites. But I don't know if there are 50 legitimate sites of that type for any given area. There's the obvious stuff like Yelp, Foursquare, G+, etc. Check out getlisted.org. I find it's not 100% accurate, but it has a good list of the sites it's important to be listed on.

 

But the rest of the stuff on the list is useless.

[bobmeetin]

I 'did' getlisted.org 2 months back. Things are still not synchronized though.  The business owner puchased a package (which is expiring in about 2 month) a year+ back through DK. Along with the package is a forced 800 number and originally a subsite. The domino effect is that DK feeds Yahoo local so the NAP is out of sync, has been for a long time. Given some real budget, not just managing the website, I could have, would have, gone after a few more local directory stuff.  In effect, this other company will be piggybacking on what I started. And I'm expected to be the 'point'.

 

There is some stuff they seem to know about, but this BS stuff on the list which provides a convincing, flowery, argument to the naieve, discredits the plan, IMHO.

[bobmeetin]

In addition to the original list they include 10 keywords optimized, 10 html pages optimized with copy, 15 static pages optimized and 20 articles written.  It seems a lot like much of this could be done in the first month, yet the contract runs for 12 months. What words should the business owner hear?

[qwerty]

Well, I think one of the words should be "BS." Is this proposal based on an audit of the site, or is it just some standard package they offer everyone? And what's the difference between the 10 HTML pages and the 15 static ones? Are the HTML pages actually 10 of the 15 static pages?

 

And what are the articles? Do they have a writer on staff who just happens to be an expert in the field the site is about? Are they going to outsource? Is the cost of outsourcing included in their fee? Does the site owner get to approve the articles? Do they guarantee they'll be completely original work -- no plagiarism, no spinning?

[Jill]

In addition to the original list they include 10 keywords optimized, 10 html pages optimized with copy, 15 static pages optimized and 20 articles written.  It seems a lot like much of this could be done in the first month, yet the contract runs for 12 months. What words should the business owner hear?

 

Sometimes businesses can't afford to do it all at once so spreading it out over a year can make sense in that way. 

[bobmeetin]

$1000/mo for 12 month commitment.  I can't answer Qwerty's  questions, but I was having some of the same questions. This is supposedly a nationwide firm; during a con call the SEO guy seemed to suggest that they had on-staff subject matter experts.

 

The biggest thing on the business owner's wishlist is to get more visibility with key phrases in organic and local results.  With local he is commonly in 6th position on page 1 of google. 2 years ago commonly 2nd or 3rd in Local/Places.  He has 3 google reviews (not all flowery); I have read elsewhere that 5 is a threshhold to bump you up a tad.  And of course yahoo and DK display the 877 number, so the NAP conflict.  Other than see these things and comment that this stuff may be part of the problem, I can't say for sure that it is. 

 

I do feel that getting some more quality inbound links will help in both Local and Organic.  I'm starting to ramble.