Critisizing other SEO's

On Fri, 6 Jan 2006 19:31:39 +0100, "Stacey"
<Remove-the-Y-stacey (AT) staceyssimplestuff (DOT) com> wrote:

"Jill L." <TotallyMunged (AT) TooManyUsenetEmailHarvesters (DOT) com> wrote in message
news:sq9tr1logm9udcvo1n4dsoi0bqt99ng4gc (AT) 4ax (DOT) com...
On Fri, 6 Jan 2006 18:21:56 +0100, "Stacey"
Remove-the-Y-stacey (AT) staceyssimplestuff (DOT) com> wrote:

"T.J." <no1 (AT) home (DOT) invalid> wrote in message
news:dpm7ci$cvo$1 (AT) nwrdmz01 (DOT) dmz.ncs.ea.ibs-infra.bt.com...
I have a directory site and allow people
to submit their sites to it,
I give them a quick check over and if they are
blatantly abusing the google guidelines I email them
a link to the guidelines and tell them that is why I
won't include them.
This inevitably leads to them emailing back saying their
site was done by a 3rd party and wanting to know what
the 3rd party are doing which could cause problems.
I usually tell them just to read the guidelines and discuss
things with the SEO's.
More and more often though they email me back wanting
to know more.
Would it be ethical to tell them the tricks the SEO's are pulling
or should I just keep out of things?
What would you do?

Spill you guts for a price! :-) Actually, you are already helping them out
enough for free. If they want more I see no reason that is unethical to
tell
them what is wrong. It is up to you.

But you shouldn't be doing SEO for free
to loads of strangers,

So you're basically telling him to turn away potential customers?

Am I? Don't think so! I told him don't do it for free. Please read before
going on a rampage! Also I SAID...."If they want more I see no reason that
is unethical to tell
them what is wrong. It is up to you. "

Especially a customer who is primed, and ready to listen to your sales
pitch? I dont' understand

That is just it you don't understand!

Cat-fight! Wait till I get popcorn...

BB
http://www.crystal-liaison.com/fontanini/index.html kruse (AT) crystal-liaison (DOT) com
Home of the gifty shiny!

"Stacey" <Remove-the-Y-stacey (AT) staceyssimplestuff (DOT) com> wrote:

"Jill L." <TotallyMunged (AT) TooManyUsenetEmailHarvesters (DOT) com> wrote in
message news:lmjtr11h6c470g5kcr1jhqhjjgnuh42k29 (AT) 4ax (DOT) com...
snip

Now you can try to convince John and Stacy that giving away 15
minutes of "free advice" is a worthwhile investment. ;o)~ It's

First, it's very, very important to actually *measure* the time. Quite
some people call 2 hours of actual work "15 minutes". I have given paid
SEO advice, and I thought I could do it in one hour. Most of the time it
took close to two, and I didn't add the time to mail stuff, and reply to
questions. Don't forget that a free advice of "15" minutes, can result in
an email with questions that take another "5" to answer.

just a part of the "cost of getting clients" who will then pay you
well for hours and hours of SEO work.

I asked money for my SEO reports, and only in one case it resulted in a
several hours of extra work.

Now if you could understand what I said maybe you would understand
better. I said when they come back don't keep giving them freebie
answers(basically).

Yup, before you know it you're spending "minutes" and "minutes" on free
advice giving to several maybe (never) customers, and hence have no time
to look for better customers.

These are to the same people. He gave them advice
in the email already, again what I said: "Actually, you are already
helping them out enough for free.

Yup.

" When they come back then there is
a price.:-) He also wanted to know if it was unethical and I told him
I didn't think so. :-) Stacey

Indeed. If you're going to a shop, and ask if the apples are of good
quality, is it unethical if the shop owner asks money for them?

--
John Perl SEO tools: http://johnbokma.com/perl/
or have them custom made
Experienced (web) developer: http://castleamber.com/

Big Bill <kruse (AT) cityscape (DOT) co.uk> wrote:

Cat-fight! Wait till I get popcorn...

Hurry, I am jumping in, and again I have the Thunderbolt, the Rocket
Launcher, and the Quad Damage ;-)

--
John Perl SEO tools: http://johnbokma.com/perl/
or have them custom made
Experienced (web) developer: http://castleamber.com/

"John Bokma" <john (AT) castleamber (DOT) com> wrote

Big Bill <kruse (AT) cityscape (DOT) co.uk> wrote:

Cat-fight! Wait till I get popcorn...

Hurry, I am jumping in, and again I have the Thunderbolt, the Rocket
Launcher, and the Quad Damage ;-)

LOL!! Bill I am more of the dog variety than a cat.:-)

Stacey

"Luigi Donatello Asero" <jaggillarfotboll (AT) telia (DOT) com> wrote

"Stacey" <Remove-the-Y-stacey (AT) staceyssimplestuff (DOT) com> skrev i meddelandet
news:dpmm7g$vlq$03$1 (AT) news (DOT) t-online.com...
"Jill L." <TotallyMunged (AT) TooManyUsenetEmailHarvesters (DOT) com> wrote in
message
news:sqdtr19mcq8qds3qib44ir58cstoms1ms2 (AT) 4ax (DOT) com...
On Fri, 06 Jan 2006 17:51:43 GMT, Jill L.
TotallyMunged (AT) TooManyUsenetEmai...ters (DOT) com> wrote:

snip
. I did in the past but some of
my techniques are real good and no one has thought of them yet

You might consider close your mouth with a password then, this way you
could
be sure not to let the cat out of the bag....
Miaou...

Nah, they are locked up without a key.:-)

Stacey

"John Bokma" <john (AT) castleamber (DOT) com> wrote

Jill L. <TotallyMunged (AT) TooManyUsenetEmailHarvesters (DOT) com> wrote:

On 6 Jan 2006 18:48:39 GMT, John Bokma <john (AT) castleamber (DOT) com> wrote:


snipped lots of points by John about how TJ should not give away
basic "free" SEO advice to users of his directory, that I think makes
business sense to give away

Doing things for free (or discounts for that matter)? Yes, true
insanity. It's very simple: you do work, how much is that worth? And are
you good at it? Then ask more.

Just to make my point about business websites being mainly about
converting visitors into customers.... ( and we're not talking hobby
sites here).


....why, exactly do you give away--- "for free", SEO tools (scripts
and sample code), at your website? Don't you consider "Doing things
for free" "true insanity"?

Yes, I indeed make very small Perl programs available on my site. Most are
programs I use in-house, so they are already there :-D. Some other Perl
advice are just notes I decided to jot down on my website (now and then I
use my own pages to look up things :-D)

However, those are write-once, pleasure many things. You can't compare
that with giving each customer advice for his/her website. In short: in 2
hours I can make many people happy v.s. it takes me 2 hours for everyone.

I have done SEO advice, and asked money for it (not much), and it ended up
with taking too much time, so I can guess what a time waster free advice
is going to be. ( I still do help people with SEO, and still offer the SEO
report writing, only don't advertise it too much :-D. )

Anyway, SEO is serious consulting stuff. Yeah, outside this group it's
often considered selling pipe dreams, but I see SEO as something very
serious, often involving many skills: HTML, CSS, programming (PHP/Perl),
MySQL, knowledge of Apache (and other webservers), etc. It's hard to do it
good and cram in in an hour, even harder to give many people free advice.

I have been into business long enough to know that giving free custom
advice rarely gets you customers. And if it does, it's often because I
gave some free advice to a customer, who recommended me to others because
of and the good work I did, and the little extra.

It takes me less than 5 minutes to look at their site and know
whether grey hat techniques are being used and less than 2 minutes
to send an email saying it has been rejected because of this.
As I check the sites over anyway, it effectively takes me 2 minutes.
Even if I do nothing else, they are aware that they have had the
human touch, which can only help my directory.

"T.J." <no1 (AT) home (DOT) invalid> wrote:

It takes me less than 5 minutes to look at their site and know
whether grey hat techniques are being used and less than 2 minutes
to send an email saying it has been rejected because of this.
As I check the sites over anyway, it effectively takes me 2 minutes.
Even if I do nothing else, they are aware that they have had the
human touch, which can only help my directory.

Like I said, measure it, for real.

Also, nothing wrong with this, but if your directory is growing, and you
add all this time up, how many customers do you get back, and also, if you
have customers, do you still have time for the checking?

Also, I can imagine that some people email you back, with questions. Are
you going to answer those as well, for free?

--
John Perl SEO tools: http://johnbokma.com/perl/
or have them custom made
Experienced (web) developer: http://castleamber.com/

Jill L. <TotallyMunged (AT) TooManyUsenetEmailHarvesters (DOT) com> wrote:

On 6 Jan 2006 21:39:36 GMT, John Bokma <john (AT) castleamber (DOT) com> wrote:

Big Bill <kruse (AT) cityscape (DOT) co.uk> wrote:

Cat-fight! Wait till I get popcorn...

Hurry, I am jumping in, and again I have the Thunderbolt, the Rocket
Launcher, and the Quad Damage ;-)


Thus illustrating why BB has been in my kill filter for over a year
(even when I was just a lurker)...

... his signal to noise ratio is about 1/70.

And there he shall remain.

Bill? You just scored 5 points! And 10 because you got kill filed in the
first place. I wonder if you get bonus points for getting kfed by a lurker
:-D. Heck, I am in a good mood, so 5 extra :-D.

--
John Perl SEO tools: http://johnbokma.com/perl/
or have them custom made
Experienced (web) developer: http://castleamber.com/

"John Bokma" <john (AT) castleamber (DOT) com> wrote

"T.J." <no1 (AT) home (DOT) invalid> wrote:

It takes me less than 5 minutes to look at their site and know
whether grey hat techniques are being used and less than 2 minutes
to send an email saying it has been rejected because of this.
As I check the sites over anyway, it effectively takes me 2 minutes.
Even if I do nothing else, they are aware that they have had the
human touch, which can only help my directory.

Like I said, measure it, for real.

Also, nothing wrong with this, but if your directory is growing, and you
add all this time up, how many customers do you get back, and also, if you
have customers, do you still have time for the checking?

Also, I can imagine that some people email you back, with questions. Are
you going to answer those as well, for free?

My site is a small business directory, the people enquiring
are small businesses, the products I will be displaying on
the site are small business related.
What do you think ;o)

"Jill L." <TotallyMunged (AT) TooManyUsenetEmailHarvesters (DOT) com> wrote

<snip>

Bottom line: Your advice to TJ to "allow one free email, then start
charging for your SEO services" is much too simplistic in the real
world. SEO is a complex service and requires some explaining of the
various flavors and depths and different techniques involved to make a
sale. One free email might work fine selling products like rugs, but
for an service it's not gonna 'cut the mustard' most of the time.
It just doesnt reflect the real world investment in time needed to woo
and convert a web visitor into an client willing to drop $5k and up.

Believe it or not I have repeat customers willing to drop some money. Even
when I didn't sell rugs. I have had other jobs selling other things. I also
have worked in a Nursing home selling services and doing computer work. I
believe that is your line of work(Geriatric Care) if I am not mistaken.
Also, just to let you know your website without the www on the domain goes
to another site the Sherrill house. Not very good for SEO purposes. Thought
I would pass on some free advice to ya.:-) Plus, I can see you really need
quite a bit more links. Although, I am not seeing your keyword density level
as strong as you had said before back in Dec. There are some changes I can
see that can greatly change your website. Your title for one for starters,
get rid of the last bit after the hyphen. Your banner logo doesn't have any
Alt Text, which could help more as your banner is in the <h1> field. Your
use of your headings are somewhat confusing with the links also. Not to the
bots but to the human visitors. Not knowing that the links are there for the
"about" page etc. In general, what you have for headings with the links
though are a bit much for anchoring your keywords in for better ranking. I
would pull away the links and put them into your navigation with appropriate
keyphrases. That is all the freebie stuff I allow myself to give at this
time.:-)

I know just how to grab them(potiental customers) and reel them in. I am a
talker and work well on the phone also. My emails and advice plus my phone
consultations and even home visits are a lot different than here on the NG.
Selling rugs can be hard also as people do not see them and they have to
trust me with the money they give me for custom work. Doesn't matter that my
rugs don't cost 5k, but one designer was willing to shell out $3000 for a
custom 11 by 14 rug. She had to be convinced that I could do it for her
clients and not make her design company look bad. I didn't end up doing it
as I couldn't find the amount of fabric needed with the colors silver and
orange. Very retro and mod look she was going to give her clients. And the
shag rug was no where to be found.:-) Now, if I could convince a top notch
California designer of handing me a $1500 deposit, then I suppose it is
about the same. Selling is selling, especially when you have to earn trust.
That wasn't the 1st time a designer had contacted me either.

Do I understand SEO. Yes, I do. I have enough top SERPs to prove it, and I
have even helped others. Do I offer some free advice. Yes I do. Look through
this NG and Google Support and see all the free advice given. Do I offer
free advice to others outside of this NG. Yes, I chat with people and have
become online friends. Several of them I have been chatting with for over a
year. We discuss what we think is up or not going on etc. You make it seem
as though I don't understand the complex dealings of SEO, sorry but you are
wrong.

another pocket change post from the peanut gallery,

Well, I added some peanuts instead. I thought you might be hungry.:-)

Stacey