Hi, I'm just starting with a new company and don't know much about SEO. Do most people do it themselves or pay someone? Any advice is appreciated! Thanks!
I do it myself and focus on SEO basics like fresh updated content, keywords, and backlinks. Some people pay to have someone do it and I have tried that. But I've always had better results doing SEO myself.
Cyndi, Never pay for someone else to do this for you. It is a waste of your money. Plus I hate to tell you this but you should never rely on the search engines to bring you massive or any traffic that will make you tons of sales. You are pretty much competing with MILLIONS of other websites. You should always combine different strategies so that when one technique dries up, others are working well for you. You can do: PPC Article marketing Video marketing Press releases. Banner ads. Forum marketing. Blog commenting
Talfighel makes a great point. Besides competing with other websites you are also placing your site at the mercy of Google Panda and Penguin updates. If you have a serious business I would explore low cost paid traffic options like MSN adcenter or Facebook. Google Adwords is probably the best option but it is more expensive. If you dont have the budget to pay for targeted traffic then focus your marketing efforts on social websites and web 2.0 sites using article marketing. Search traffic is nice, but you don't want your business relying on it. I've seen Google's algorithm updates destroy a business over night.
Funny answers to the question of SEO but valid to a point. One can build a business entirely with paid advertising, but... the question was about SEO, DIY or paid? If you are asking about the company you work for, most pay outsiders. Depends on the size of the company and their advertising budget. For work at home and small business websites doing it yourself is easy. I think most of the members here do their own on page SEO and off page. The simple truth is quality unique CONTENT will always rule the search engines. And a picture (or video) is worth a thousand words is just as true as ever. That includes banner ads, far from obsolete they are still cost effective. With any paid advertising targeting your ad placements is key to success. Know who your potential customers are and give them what they "need". People search for information on the web over 2 million times per minute. (almost half of those are misspelled so google corrects them now, bummer) ((don't get me started on my dislike of some search results lately)) Anywho, create unique content and spice it up with pictures including (SEO) tags. Using WordPress can greatly enhance your search engine placement. Other programs also work just be sure you include a sitemap.xml and ping new posts.
Hi Cyndi You can learn basic SEO very easily. If it is your own website it is better to do your own as your site needs to convey your own personality. Is the site you want to do the SEO on in your signature? Study keywords and use Google keyword tool. Keep your word count to about 1000 per page. Get as many natural backlinks to your page as possible and you will be fine.
Cyndi, I too, think you should do SEO yourself, like robpenn said, you can easily learn the basics yourself and than just practice. You also need to check into getting an opt in page and start building an email lsit of loyal customers. [Links go in the signature - Admin]
A facebook page with useful information on the niche that you are in can be helpful as well. As far as SEO goes - do it yourself but let it be one of many strategies. NB: please check your link - it is not clickable.
Hi Cyndi For SEO. You can use Google Adwords. It'll teach you everything. Of course you have to pay. I believe you have allocated some money for your advertising campaign. As you know a company doesn't run by itself without advertising. Tips: What SEO really search in your website is your company's domain name, website title and website description. It won't know your content of the website.Make sure your keywords which you can check on Google Keyword Tools less competitive. Make sure you have your forum/blog in your website. I hope this will help
Whoa, that is so NOT true anymore, maybe back in 1990. Some of my top search traffic comes from words buried deep in a page, not a title. My top producing keyword/phrase is not in any URL, Title, or Description, only in the content. Granted the ones you mentioned matter but content is indexed and searchable these days. (some search engines results may be limited to the first 500 words of a page or post)
Make a blog and post often. Add images with your products with keywords in the alt attributes. You can get free traffic without paying for SEO or paying AdWords for position. You can even buy 2-3 hosting packages and 2-3 domain names (from different web hosting providers, to get different IP's, not even from the same IP class), and create blogs that have backlinks to your main blog with products (it will help in position on search engines).
A lot of home business entrepreneurs do it themselves, while some small businesses and up pay someone to do it for them. If you know of an reputable SEO firm, and you have money to spend you can definitely go this route. Notice that "reputable" is in bold. There are a lot of good-for-nothing "SEO" companies out there that will take your money and give you nothing in return. In my opinion it's best to know a little about SEO; it's really not that difficult to get the grasp of at all.
Hi Cyndi, I believe you should know the basic of SEO before going into any online business. Also, if you are just a beginner in the online business never pay for someone else to do SEO for you. You are just wasting money. However, if you know someone that is very good in SEO them you can take that way. Christian
There are many online services like seomoz.org/blog, searchengineland , seobook you can check these...
Inside my blog I use a plugin called "SEO by Yoast" Basically, you plug the keyword you're trying to rank for in each of your articles and it will show you where you need to include the keyword in order to optimize your post.
