outsourcing

[findtim]

I use Elance.com for all my outsourcing at the moment and am posting so others can give me better ideas.

I have a few projects up for grabs at the moment and i have been ASTOUNDED at the quality of proposals and the speed inwhich they they say they can achieve top 3 rank for desired search term, + the tiny monthly cost, + the "no result no pay"

when i say desired search term i mean i HAVE a realistic expectation, i don't have www kangaroocarparts .com .au and wish to rank number 1 for the search term " brisbane optometrist"

i can't tell you the domain names these people are bidding on to rank so i'll make it up so you get the gist.

fake name: www dot sydney florist dot com dot au

so , after just 4 days i have over a dozen TOP quality ( in my mind) offers to get me to rank for such a difficult name within 3 months.

the general common cost to me is between $150 - 250 USD, mostly from Indian based companies WITH proven .com.au results and i have checked checked checked

BUT, also they are all " no result no pay" , this is NOT PPC, this is organic results.

they say if a deal is to good to be true then it probably is but one of my outsource coders (malaysia) that i have done ALOT of work with and now trust says even at that rate they are LAUGHING.... they will be the best paid people in their city !!!

i have a client in melbourne that uses "a local seo company " ( i'm not sure if its allowed to state them? ) and is paying $495 a month and has not seen any significant results from what i had already done for her.

( at the time she wanted more seo i couldn't do it for her as i was fully booked)

the guarentee of no win no pay is soooo tempting and they have already done it for other ozzie businesses.

anyway i just wanted to start a conversation.

tim

PS: i have INSISTED everythign be "white hat seo"

 

[johno69]

I have used freelancers many times to help with work flow, and actually just posted another project in the past 5 mins.

It's still best to shop around. I wanted some things updated, and was quoted $1500 and 4 weeks. I have someone working on it currently, they have 95% completed it in 2 days and I'm paying $150 total.

Sometimes it's just a lot easier and more cost effective to outsource some work than to actually spend the time on it myself.

I'm interested in how your project goes though, i've not started the SEO stuff yet.

 

[findtim]

So True, when i post a job abd i have posted @ 65 so far with about 70% acceptance from me , ( some just blow out of budget so i go back to doing it myself) but the quotes range fro $3 an hour to $60 and hour !

I don't want to rip people off but i have an understanding of the local economics of these countries and even at $10 an hour these guys are TOP NOTCH and their own cost of living is soooo lowww.

below this line i will tell you a story so if you are not in the mood then you don't have to read as one of my beliefs is "history tells the future"

-----------------------------

in 1991 i was in africa, tourist hitchhiking from SA to Cairo, i got to Uganda and the place was a train wreck, the inflation had gone through the roof most of the paper currency was 50pound notes, a tomatoe was 50pound, a capsicum was 50pound etccc , a coke was 350pound a bus trip was 6000 pound. I went to the bank and cashed $30 USD....... i took my day pack, the stack of 50pound notes i got was around 1 metre high !!! and hardly fit into my day pack, then i found out that the government had bought out a 1000pound note to solve this problem, which helped me but that was just 3 cokes !!

then one day i was walking through the market to get some tomatoes,avos and caps to make a guacamole and this women was there saying 50pounds for an avo but i looked to my left and another women had a tea towel folder, underneath was 1 pound, 5 pound, 10 20 notes and the REAL price of an avo was 5 pounds... but not to the "white guy"

So i had been paying 10 times the real price, at the time 50pounds ugandan equal 1/8th of a cent australian.

So the questions are and i'm goign to put my head on the block here:

JUST because there living expenses are less then ours should we feel guilty about using there services that are farrrrrrrrr cheaper then in australia?

and , just because they have low expenses it doesn't mean they are not better then an australian at doing to job.

now for a short rant:

the government is selling off australia, mining, farming, gas etccc so we need to maximise our profit margins to pay for the increase in our living expenses whilst the governments fill their pockets .... and i'm not talking about any political party as whoever is next will just do the same

just type into google " alan jones press club video"


ned i hope i have done this correctly by not providing a link

BACK to outsourcing, i'd really love others opinions on this and don't hold back as I am struggling with this myself, do i pay 4 times more to support an australian or not?

by the way whilst writting this rant i have just got an email in that is telling me that a major SEO company is dropping its prices as they have now moved there SEO core business to indonesia !

funny how the universe works.

tim

 

[James]

Would be interesting to know the term these guys ranked for in 4 days. If they can rank for something in 4 days it is probably a lower tier term from my professional experience.

Really depends what you are after for with your business, if you want some one local who can meet up with and work closely with your business.

Sure enough many outsourcing companies contact our businesses on a daily basis yet the thing is they are limited and tend to struggle to build back link profiles from .com.au sites, often they build links via "mini nets" for an instant rank.

But really SEO is changing to a degree it is not so much about building just links you have many other areas which come into play and are important elements into the mix which you need to take consideration on.

 

[findtim]

yes james thats the issue, mini nets and potentially dodgy backlink farms.

" 4 days" was in relation to the time span i have had the job out for quotes not the rankings , the ranking criteria has been set at milestones monthly with top 3 by 3 months, success payments at the end of each month

i have also made sure the quotes are not giving me "long tail" search successes as thats all to easy, even i can do that.

seo is changing: you are so right, with the google panda update and now the google+ update there is so much talk about sites "dropping from the sky" onto page 3 who where there yesterday on page 1 and I am making sure these past tactics are not being used in what they are quoting me.

what seems to still be important is CONTENT, which i always concerntrate on when building a website but google seems to be making a shift away from that.

James what are your thought on this shift to overseas outsourcing? These guys are good and australian companies are using them.

 

[johno69]

These guys are good and australian companies are using them.

That's a key point. When you order a service these days, do you REALLY know who is actually doing the work?

 

[James]

yes james thats the issue, mini nets and potentially dodgy backlink farms.

" 4 days" was in relation to the time span i have had the job out for quotes not the rankings , the ranking criteria has been set at milestones monthly with top 3 by 3 months, success payments at the end of each month

i have also made sure the quotes are not giving me "long tail" search successes as thats all to easy, even i can do that.

seo is changing: you are so right, with the google panda update and now the google+ update there is so much talk about sites "dropping from the sky" onto page 3 who where there yesterday on page 1 and I am making sure these past tactics are not being used in what they are quoting me.

what seems to still be important is CONTENT, which i always concerntrate on when building a website but google seems to be making a shift away from that.

James what are your thought on this shift to overseas outsourcing? These guys are good and australian companies are using them.

I remember when I started doing SEO 8 years ago their were thousands of outsourcing companies, have things changed? No...

But as I said in my prior thread, people want consultants to come into their business and work with teams on a face to face basis.

People want some one who can answer 100s of random online marketing questions.

The thing is with link builders most of the time they are going to be limited to link building only they are not going to assist on all the other areas of SEO because SEO is not just link building as you said content is a key factor and many more factors.

Example of what SEO's do in today's market:

But I can tell you we have been seeing and uptake in businesses who have outsourced SEO services, the quality of the work has resulted in a loss in rankings or even de indexed sites, I have even consulted one company who hired a overseas firm who built links on adult websites for a financial based website.

Another important oint is no one can "guarantee any thing with Google"

For further reading: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35291

 

[soj]

just type into google " alan jones press club video"


ned i hope i have done this correctly by not providing a link

Feel free to post link Tim

Ranting and raving is allowed occasionally ............

 

[findtim]

exactly why i started this thread and thankyou james for jumping on board, i now only do my own SEO as i can't stand the grief from clients for unrealised expectations even though i have done the work, at least when i build a website there is that "there it is" signoff, basically these days i say " i will do your basic seo which means you will be listed on google... if you rank yippee and if you don't then i know someone that can do that for you for a fee.

this helps me sleep at night !

but funnily enough most of the websites i build end up top 3 before the website is even finsihed but at least i have covered my arse.

how top 3? because i carefully pick my clients. I don't deal with highly competitive search terms thus win win.

eg: kangaroo yo yo's , just joking but thats the type of client i hunt LOL

james: "face to face" is DEAD on a 1 client basis ( small/medium business), I changed my business 6 years ago from F2F to no contact and lost 30% of my clients, i knew that was going to happen and planned for it, my clients back then felt I had lowered my service to them but what i knew was to increase my client base i had to improve my productivity, i lost 30 % but now i have that back without the need to be F2F and my stick rate is 90% p/a because i give them what they have been accustom to... no contact. This is why i live in melbourne adn have only 2 clients in melbourne , my other 300+ are scatered across OZ and 90% i have never ever met.

we do not expect telstra to come to our shop so we can pay the bill, nor electricity etccccc so WHY do we need to do F2F in our services????

I have had NOOOOOO hassles, when a new client wants to met me i simply say NO, i say if you can not communicate with me via email or phone to achieve the website end result then you will have a problem communicating with your client base and thus i'll teach you as we go through to succeeding the end result of your website build.

Having said that i'm flying to the goldcoast in a few weeks to be F2F with one of my clients and their 20 franchisees , but thats because its 20 people/ businesses, the HYPE you can create in a room is worth the effort and thats what the bosses pay for.

based on the seomoz layout of SEO you posted SEO OP is now a whole new identity and will continue to get worse for webdesigners like me, as in realtiy it has for years but now its really hit HOME.

Just got another quote in for the SEO of the site, i've had this offer before from others but it is " We offer a Guarantee of optimizing the website for Free of Cost. This means, if we've quoted 3 months time duration to rank the website Top 10 in Google and if we've not ranked the website Top 10 in Google by the end of 3rd month, from 4th month onwards, we shall optimize the website for Free of Cost till we rank the website Top 10 in Google for your chosen keywords. Also, the 3rd month payment in Escrow shall be released for our withdrawal ONLY AFTER we rank the website Top 10 in Google."

a lot of competition out there !

tim

 

[James]

Yeah I usually deal with large scale business so top 4 telco in Australia, finance, Businesses with over 500 physical locations.

So their is a need for Face to Face SEO from a training from these types of businesses, on going SEO consulting and every thing.

I am not too worried about outsourcing companies what so ever, good luck to them they have their niche and I have my niche.

Once you start the work post up the URL I can easily define the style of strategy these guys are using to show if it is black/white/grey hat.

 

[findtim]

thanks for to offer of review, i'm hoping to get the site running in a few weeks

tim