Is SEO all about effort, results or knowledge?

[strategicrankings]

I've been figuring out where to actually put this post but didn't find a related forum, so i've put it here and if necessary kindly move it somewhere else.

The question that i'm asking may be answered in 2 perspective; one from the client's and one from the SEO consultant or expert. Kindly give me your opinion about it.

Do you think that a client should hire you for;

1. Your knowledge
2. Your effort , or
3. Results you can produce

assuming you've got the 3 qualities which one do you consider the most important and why?

Thanks
Riley

[seobook]

your knowlege and efforts mean nothing if you can't produce results.

they should hire you for your results. if you have been doing seo for a good period of time hopefully the results are driven by your knowledge more than effort, though either alone can work well if you have a bunch of one or the other.

another think you can be hired for is your social connections. some people can quickly get sites listed in DMOZ even though they are not editors. some people have friends that are high level editors in certain other directories. some people have friends that will give them huge discounts on ad placements or link rentals. the social aspect is at least as important as the knowledge or effort. if lots of people like you and want to help you then you can be dumb as a rock and lazy to boot and still get by just fine.

[Incubator]

I agree with seobook, its all about conversions. One point that was left out was education through communication with the client. Efforts and knowledge is already assumed by the client if you are doing the contract, after all, that is how you will get the contract as well as maintain ongoing relations with the current client

Cheers

wC

[K.S. Katz]

I've always been ROI driven myself. Many clients may tell you that they want higher rankings or more traffic, but in actuality what they really want is more sales. Sometimes, they have a hard time communicating with the SEO because they have the wrong perceptions about SEO. That's where education comes into play.

[Terry Plank]

From the perspective of the SEO, I think the most important part of our work is being able help the client develop the best strategy for their Web site based on their particular needs. Like KS Katz said, they may be wanting sales and thinking ranking will do it all. It may be that their copy is getting in the way, navigation may be unclear and confusing, PPC may be a better approach etc. etc.

[David Wallace]

Do you think that a client should hire you for;

1. Your knowledge
2. Your effort , or
3. Results you can produce

Actually # 4 - All of the above!

[cuzco]

I would hope they pay for results which are achieved through knowledge. I find the effort decreases the more knowledge gained, but i’m not going to charge less just because it now takes half the time. :)

[David Wallace]

The reason why successful SEO is really about all three items (knowledge, effort and results) is because there are some sites/campaigns that will be very challenging. The initial "stuff" you do to optimize the site doesn't bring about the desired results. This is where knowledge and a lot of effort to continue at it will come in very handy.

Many of our campaigns see drastic improvement within 3-4 months. however, we have had a few that it took up to a year to finally start seeing good results and that was after a lot of applied knowledge and effort.

[St0n3y]

I believe that SEO is 90% knowledge and 10% work. But results matter 100%.

[Anthony Parsons]

I would say all three!

You need knowledge to know what your doing.
You need effort to utilise that knowledge.
From combining both "theory" & "practice" you achieve results.