We are looking to tighten up our site and basically wanted feedback on anyone that has used, or intends to use an SEO company.

What do you look for in an SEO company?
What sort of services do you want to see offered?
What sort of budget do you have allocated to SEO?
Do you understand that SEO is not an overnight solution? What sort of time frame would you expect results?

Thanks in advance!

I personally do a lot of my own SEO, and have not had the large enough scale project in the past to need to outsource.

From a standard user perspective I think people want "first ranked on google for our keyword". They probably don't realise how much work there is and would only maybe allocate, say $100 a month maximum. Furthermore they DO often expect it to be overnight and are dissapointed when it takes some weeks/months.

Remember this is from a small business owner low budget perspective, from what I have seen in the industry.

Personally I think in three weeks you can EASILY get first page results and after a couple of months consistent NUMBER ONE rank is possible.

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Scott Nugent
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Results and also that there website has perfect on page SEO and good rankings for their targeted keywords.

If your sites looks average and doest rank well I wont use you.

Time frame, price would all be different for each project...

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I'm Jamison Banham - Freelance Web Designer - Find me on Twitter!

I don't think ranking for SEO is a great indication of how well a company will perform SEO for their clients. It says more about how good their sales process is, and that they're willing to take on large volumes of clients and leech juice out of the client's site by including a footer link back to the agency's site. Either that or they're buying links by the truckload or using some other suspect tactics.

Thanks for the responses guys,

I'm not sure if the vast majority of people understand exactly what is involved with SEO and it would be interesting to get some feedback from people in that group, perhaps small business owners are the most likely candidates.

Thanks for your input.

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This is true, some of the higher ranked SEO companies do look dodgy for the reason above.

Previous results of client work and perfect onpage SEO is still a must, for me anyway.

Most clients wont know a thing about SEO so as long as you can show good results of previous SEO work you should be fine.

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I'm Jamison Banham - Freelance Web Designer - Find me on Twitter!

This is definately true. If you want to work in this area (small business, who often page large sums to the yellow pages) than word of mouth is your best friend.

Local businesses in a particular area tend to network with one other, so it's just a matter of getting one and then planting the seed for the rest.

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Yeah when u deal with bigger clients they wont care if you rank for SEO as an exact term, they want too see industry level case studys from players in the market, with proven results. As said above in regards to sites ranking for SEO terms i know and have alot of friends who work at the companys/ own them these terms dont drive a whole heap of clients it is more a marketing/ promo thing you can boast about.

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Hi James,

You say that ranking high for seo terms doesn't really drive clients, if not, how are these companies gaining their clients?

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What I mean is terms specifically like "SEO" are not going to bring in huge clients, more so long tail terms get what I know.
This is from a guy who ranks very high up on page one for this term and has so for a long time, he could have just been talking it up.

For most bigger companies you get clients from referrals, from direct media suppliers (ie PPC, offline media connections, global media contacts, tenders, they see you speaking at a conference, the list is endless) You are never going to get a big client go to google with a 500k a year budget and be like hmmm who is ranking number 1 for this term I will use them...
No way they do is pick the 5 most respectable companies in the market and then say pitch for the business.

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Check out my sites: Sydney SEO and Social Media|SEO Australia |Professional SEO |Life Insurance Cover |
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For Professional SEO and Social Media Consulting from a well known local consultant, Linkbuilding and more email: contact(at)professionalseo.com.au (Say you are from DNTrade, too be looked after!)