Comments on: SEO? Oh yes, our web design company handles that

By: Mark Hull

Mark Hull — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 15:34:09 +0000

Thanks for this post. I am always as honest as I can be with my clients. As a freelance designer I just don’t have the time to give the SEO service that I would like to. Infact I have not even had chance to do my own so I’m out sourcing to get it done. One would think potential clients would appreciate my honesty but thats never the case. I will point them to this thread in future.

By: Laura Godfrey

Laura Godfrey — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 09:25:42 +0000

When implementing SEO into your website, you must take into account everything you want your site to show up for on Google. Doing background work is essential. You need to do your research before letting a web design company take over. Most web companies believe they have the knowledge to improve your site and help it rank in the most effective way. In many cases this is simply not true. Most believe they can add keywords, meta tags etc and that is enough to increase your traffic. This is just the beginning. A proper design company would employ staff to identify what is required. The designers are only responsible for the core design and structure of a site.

By: Neuromarketing

Neuromarketing — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 14:48:42 +0000

When my company was offering SEO services to clients, we found the objection cited in the headline to cause a major lengthening of the sales cycle. Things always went something like this:

Us: You need to look at your positions in search results for your key terms – it doesn’t look like you are getting much free traffic.
Client: Our web design firm did that SEO stuff already.
Us: Really? Here are some rankings we checked…
Client: Those %$@#s… we’re going to make them fix this for free! Thanks for showing us those reports.

Us: How’s it going with your site traffic?
Client: We had to get our attorney involved, but the guys who designed the website finally agreed to fix the SEO they were supposed to do in the first place. Now we’re waiting for the traffic.

Us: How’s it going with your site traffic?
Client: We’re not seeing any more than we were before. We’re trying to find out if our web designers really fixed anything like they said they would.

Us: How’s it going with your site traffic?
Client: We need to talk…

Despite our efforts to explain what was involved in a real SEO project, we found many clients didn’t get it or were simply duped by firms that had only a minimal grasp of SEO.

Your post really resonated here, Patrick.

Roger

By: Alastair Campbell

Alastair Campbell — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 11:17:24 +0000

Good post. There is a clear shift in business owners thinking abround their website. Five years ago it was all left to ‘experts’ who would say what to do. Now more and more people are seeing that the more they get involved in their own online marketing the better it is for their results.

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 05:52:11 +0000

Patrick,can you give some advice about my web http://www.dress-gown-wholesale.com ,is there any ways to improve my page ranking?thanks

By: Nick Wilsdon

Nick Wilsdon — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 12:50:11 +0000

@Dave

Absolutely. It’s an easy trap. I’ve seen some great results though from sticking an internal staff member on the job (for simple sites anyway). Your job as the developer is to set them up with the tools they need, namely:

1. Copy of WordPress (with some SEO plugins + auto-update)
2. Ability to Change META Titles, Descriptions across their site

Then give them a copy of Aaron Wall’s Guide to Blogging (http://www.seobook.com/bloggers). It’s going to give them a better ROI – seriously

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 12:32:16 +0000

@Nick

Good points Nick. Nothing more I can add to that. You can see why people get lured into the ‘#1 on Google for just Â£100′ trap though.

By: Nick Wilsdon

Nick Wilsdon — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 12:23:33 +0000

@Dave

The bottom line is that no decent SEO is going to work in those price ranges. By scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of prices they end up getting taken advantage of. There are enough dodgy operators who hang around at that level, promise the earth and deliver nothing.

If a small business only has limited funds they need to work out how to do their own marketing. The best way is usually starting a blog and getting a member of staff to update it every week. If they learn the basics of SEO Blogging they can have an impact. Take those few hundred quid per month and put them onto that person’s salary If they then learn some basic structural SEO (get on forums like Cre8asite) and improve the site further, give them a bonus. The business will get a much better ROI than hiring a cheap SEO outfit.

You can’t push down the price of decent SEO work though. You don’t go to get a house built for $100k and then look for someone who will do the same for $1k. It just doesn’t work. If companies can’t afford the prices they have to do it internally. If someone is offering the same service for 100th of the usual cost, be suspicious.

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 08:42:31 +0000

I think there’s another side to this coin. I deal with really small businesses who just don’t have the budget to hire a good SEO. You can’t expect a one-man business who can barely afford a Â£500 website to spend thousands on SEO. They just can’t do it, and they don’t understand what they’re paying for.

If there are SEO’s out there who can do good work for a low monthly fee and who can explain (up-front) exactly what they’re going to do and the results the client can expect, I’d gladly hire them.

By: Richard Spencer Davies

Richard Spencer Davies — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 20:31:17 +0000

I agree with SpotOn SEO in that some form of certification would be a great thing. I’m a designer, and clients often ask for ‘SEO’, like its a bolt-on product like a flash anim or a contact form. SEO sometimes has a bit of a bad rep as an industry as well, thanks to a handful of firms employing black hat tactics. Saying that if someone told me their SEO company had a ‘link building department’ i’d tell them to run a mile!