SEO service question

[joecline]

I'm about to go under contract with a search engine optiomaztion company for a 6 month term. the agreement lists many search engines. The company charges a fee based on the number of top 10 listings on about 10 search different engines using 30 keywords. I nixxed several of the engines due to small market share. (i.e. do I care if I appear as number 1 link on a site that no one sees?).

I'm wondering what serach engines I should target my rankings with as a final set. Ultimately, I think I care about Google, Yahoo, and MSN, but I'm not sure if I should include others. I know that Yahoo and Google power the vast majority of sites. Does that mean if I just go for rankings in those two that the other sites will propagate since they are powered by Google or Yahoo?

Finally, I am wondering if it's a good idea to choose a smaller group of keywords that are in hot contention to make sure I'm not being charged to be at the top of a keyword that is not searched often. Seems like I should just pick the keywords that I really want to drive traffic as opposed to ultra specific keywords that I don't need an SEO to optimize to be listed.

Any help would be great!

Joe

[Marcia]

Joe, is the optimization being done on your site's regular pages, is that how it's supposed to work if you do this?

Basically, a site ranks for keywords on it's content pages (and PR & anchor text) - as it normally works.

[joecline]

Yes. They are going to modify my existing pages for the purpose of increasing my rank. I'm not exactly sure how they go about dong it for the set of keywords I choose. I assume that they try to get specific doorway pages for the important keywords and then let the links drive them to the other relevant pages on my site.

[Anthony Parsons]

Joe, if they use doorway pages, then stay away from them. Doorway pages do not comply to search engine editorial policies and will only do more harm than good. That's if they mentioned doorway pages.

If the company is reputable, then their should be no problem. You answered your own question reference the engines, Google, MSN and Yahoo are the three to be concerned about. As you said, they feed the majority of anything important. That is your starting point.

Keyword terms are not picked generally for their contention Joe, more for their relevancy. You may sell, "blue golf shoes" not green, so therefor you should not be ranking for "green golf shoes", "golf shoes" or "golf" because its not what you sell. Many people want to rank for as much as possible, but SEO's, when doing their job correctly, will ensure your site ranks for relevant content so as not to spam the engines with irrelevant nonsense. They are protecting your site if that is the case. If not, then do some research yourself in word tracker, and discuss it with your SEO.

[joecline]

Thanks Anthony. I'm not sure they use doorway, just sounded like a good word at the time. :) I have just enough knowledge (read familiarity) to be dangerous so I may have mis-stated that.

[seobook]

make sure you know the exact keywords and engines before you purchase.

Google, Yahoo!, & MSN are some of the biggest sites right now. AOL is also big and also uses results extremely similar to Google's

[ATopMarketing]

Yes. They are going to modify my existing pages for the purpose of increasing my rank. I'm not exactly sure how they go about dong it for the set of keywords I choose.

Joe,

I am going to offer 3 pieces of advice:

1) You should know exactly what and how they are going to do it. You are hiring a company to deliver a service. You should know exactly what techniques will be used, and why they are important. It is their responsibility to provide this information to you.

2) Enforcing a contract in court is difficult, long, stressful and EXPENSIVE. Are you paying any money upfront? If yes, beware. As a consumer, I always believe that if a vendor offers me good service, they do not need to tie me down with a contract.

I would work with someone who gets paid when you see results. And by results, I mean increased sales generated from your site. If your vendor is confident in their ability to deliver value, they should not have a problem tying their compensation to your financial results.

3) ARBITRATION - Does your contract have an arbitration clause? In most cases, arbitration is easier, faster and MUCH less expensive than regular legal proceedings. I like having arbitration clauses that mandates that the loosing party pay all legal fees and arbitration costs. This highly discourages unethical behavior in both sides, because both know that a breach of contract will cost them dearly, and that the other party can much more easily recover their money

Marcelo :cool:

[St0n3y]

I'm wondering what serach engines I should target my rankings with as a final set.

If you are paying per ranking I would pay only for Google, MSN, Yahoo, AOL and Ask/Teoma, as those are the top 5. Though Ask/Teoma produces only a fraction of the results as Google so you'll want to make sure you get your value overall.

Finally, I am wondering if it's a good idea to choose a smaller group of keywords that are in hot contention to make sure I'm not being charged to be at the top of a keyword that is not searched often. Seems like I should just pick the keywords that I really want to drive traffic as opposed to ultra specific keywords that I don't need an SEO to optimize to be listed.

This can go either way. We work with our clients to select the "best" keywords to target. We try to find keywords that generate traffic while also targeting the audience. Targeted keywords are going to produce a higher hit per sale ration, but if you are choosing terms nobody is searching the sales will be nil. Non targeted terms can produce a lot of traffic, but much of that traffic will not stick around as they find that you don't offering specifically what they searcher is looking for.

Whatever you decide on keywords, be sure you have the keywords set and the SEO doesn't change them or try to charge you on "alternate" terms they think are relevant but were not part of the initial selection process.

[joecline]

Thanks for all the insight. I really appreciate it!

Is there a good tool that can help me find out how many times a specific set of keywords is queried on google/msn/yahoo?

[St0n3y]

Try wordtracker. wordtracker.com.

[I, Brian]

joecline, if they can achieve commercial rankings on such a wide spread of search engines, by modifying you pages, then it sounds suspiciously like they are looking to emply methods such as cloaking/doorway pages. If so, you must make very certain that you are aware of the risks involved in using such methods.

You wouldn't happen to be using Traffic Power (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=431), by any chance?

[joecline]

not using traffic power. :)

[paulatukcamera]

As a new web site owner back in 1998, I started learning about the SE techniques that are still mentioned on these forums - even as I write this, there is a discussion going on in an adjacent thread about what exactly should be put after a H1 tag!

One "expert" once said to me "put a load of keywords in a html comment tag at the top of your page for search engine success" - so I did! It didn't take me long to learn there were no such tricks! If it were trickery, then many of these "experts" would have it easy. If it just involves fiddling with the furniture, it cannot bring long term succes - short term perhaps. That is why these forums are full of "hot tips" and "extremely worrieds" who have dropped 8 places in Google and can't find themselves in Zen search! (What an excellent SE that was - the Road Kill Index listed as one of their top sites was the most purposeful use of statistics I have ever seen!)

Words like "optimisation" make me shudder. Since when would a Car salesman offer to "optimise" the performance of the vehicle he is selling you?

This is an invented discipline and like all invented disciplines, it has to invent a language that confers respect and a hierarchy that puts certain people and techniques at the top of the tree. It is mainly bogus, because it lacks any sort of experimental proof. It is, in the main, a load of unproven theories. It attempts to have an air of respectability, but many of its proponents, if prodded, will fall back on the authority of a mother addressing her three year old . "Why, because I say so"

Examine the claims closely. OK, the following example is from the "sleazy" end of the SE spectrum, but I think it demonstrates how easy it is to "con" people who know little. One of my clients said yesterday that she had just paid £200 for a url (something like disability-holidays-spain.com) that the salesman said would take her to the top of all the search engines! Wouldn't have fooled you would it? Or perhaps it would - if I wrote you a pseudo-gateway page that cleverly pretends it's an integral part of your web site, with its own unique url so as to deceive the search engines. I could dress it up real well - you would never rumble me!

There is but a simple (and boring) answer - forget "optimisation" concentrate on content. If you want to be top for your chosen key words then you need a site that has "worth". You will know it has worth, when hundreds of ordinary people say "go there, it is informative on that subject, it is really good". It will take you a long time, but there can never be any short cuts for endeavour!

If you are failing to rank in the search engines, you don't need a painter & decorator, you need a builder. If you can't afford a builder, learn how to do it yourself.

I await the storm!

Paul

[joecline]

I agree with some of what you are saying. I suppose it would be nice to have a site that ranks really high based on content, but for instance, my existing site is very flash and frames based. It has tons of relevant content, but due to design it barely comes up when i enter the URL in google. :) Anyway, the competitors in my area for my keywords are using reciprocal link exchanges to get ranked really highly. While I don't like that, if that's what I need to do to stay in business, I will. My strategy is to use the link building to get up in rank initially, but to hire a college intern to create real estate content on the site to get longevity. I do have a sneaking suspicion though that my competition's link building will be hard to beat with just content alone.

joe

[David Wallace]

The company charges a fee based on the number of top 10 listings on about 10 search different engines using 30 keywords.
If they are charging "per top ranking - per engine" then the only ones you need to be concerned with at the moment are Google and Yahoo IMO.

Keep in mind that Google also powers AOL, Netscape, Go.com and iWon among the better known search services. Yahoo powers All The Web, Alta Vista and the editorial results at Overture.

The only other two crawlers are Ask which is powered by Teoma but is not currently updating its index very frequently and Wisenut which powers Looksmart and again does not update its index that frequently.

MSN is currently powered by the dying Inktomi index until they ever get their own crawler live and out of beta so there is really nothing you can do there right now. Last time I checked, HotBot and Lycos are also still powered by the Inktomi index.

Who did I miss? Excite, MetaCrawler and WebCrawler - all crawlers.

So if they are charging you by search engine, Google and Yahoo should pretty much sum up the major ones and if you are concerned with the only other two, then add Teoma and Wisenut to the mix.

Hope that helps.

[Anthony Parsons]

Joe, you could get wrapped up for weeks in opinions. If the company is reputable, you feel comfortable and believe your investment is safe, then get too it and have your website marketed and ranking accordingly. If you have doubt, then keep shopping.

[DigitalRoad]

Joe

I think you've pegged it right with Google, Yahoo and MSN. Ask Jeeves can also send a bit of traffic your way and is worth adding to your list if there's only a slight incremental cost increase. Don't pay for sites like AOL and Iwon as your rankings will naturally get picked up at those sites.

In the real world the keywords which send the most traffic often don't convert the best. However, lower converting, high traffic phrases may convert enough to justify using. This is where the experience of your SEO firm should come into play. When determining keywords, you should be looking at a combination of traffic, relevance and conversion to determine your final list. Just a note on Wordtracker. It doesn't necessarily indicate the level of traffic you'll be receiving on Google and Yahoo but is best used as a guide.

While I don't like that, if that's what I need to do to stay in business, I will.

Just make sure you don't sanction some reckless optimization scheme which keeps you up with your competitors today but may see your firm completely removed from the search listings tomorrow. Instead utilize a sound linking strategy and address your frame/flash/content issues.

Jon

[St0n3y]

Words like "optimisation" make me shudder. Since when would a Car salesman offer to "optimise" the performance of the vehicle he is selling you?

I'm not in the used car business, but I would not expect my car to be "optimized" any more than I would expect my website to have its transmission fixed. Two different industries. Two different terminologies. Two different services.

Though I prefer "Web Site Marketing" over "Search Engine Optimization".