Re: How to find and choose an SEO firm?

Greg,

Not sure how up to date your information is but there are some
items wide of the mark that I wanted to throw up for discussion
from the group.

Your points 3 and 8 are way off the mark. Alta Vista still gets a
reasonable amount of traffic from experienced net users, so
ignore it at your peril

I am also concerned that you believe that Netscape has 20% of the
browser market, certainly all of the log files I have analysed
indicate it to be a lot less than this.

You think Ask Jeeves is crap ? AOL/Compuserve?/MSN have 15% of
search market between them ? Don't think so, figure is almost 25%
and that 10% of the global search market is enormous.

In terms of competitors, I'm not sure what others do but I
normally insist on signing a confidentiality agreement with
clients prior to discussing anything specific with them. I want
to protect their knowledge as well as my own. If you allow
companies to pick your brains without obtaining some sort of
committment to conduct business with you it's leading towards
trouble. Trust is an important ingredient in the equation. How
long do you think people will last in the industry if they do a
bad job and "rip people off" ?

As a professional my ethics would not allow me to discuss what I
do with other companies specifically. Information is likely to be
sensitive.

I see no reason why I would not be able to conduct business with
two companies who operate in the same arena, the quality of the
service they get from you is the most important thing. No two
companies operate identical business models. Besides if it came
down to it, then there are a number of my peers here who I would
be more than happy to pass work on to if it became an issue.

Jim Banks
Web Diversity Limited
Search engine optimization, domain name management, hosting
http://www.webdiversity.co.uk

On Mon, 28 Jan 2002 18:07:08 GMT, webyourbusiness (AT) attbi (DOT) com (Web
Your Business) wrote:

In article <a3181c$hdq$1 (AT) suaar1aa (DOT) prod.compuserve.com>, "Bob Cook"
captcook (AT) compuserve (DOT) com> wrote:

Wow...

I am in the process! ... and I am finding it daunting.

Information overload vs a bad decision...Hmmm.

I'm finding the task of finding and choosing a good SEO firm while staying
within a budget is not an easy or quick task. It is balancing the likely
degree of success vs the cost and time to achieve it, in a secretive,
competive, unpredicatable environment. There is intellectual property
involved. There is a steep learning curve involved. There is the need for
secrecy. Yet there is the need to have tangible information. It's
competitive, between SEO's, between the SEO and the SE's and directories,
and ultimately between the websites for ranking. Best methods? Worst
methods? The need to know vs the need to conceal, budgetary constraints,
time constraints, whew boggles the mind....Yet one has to wade through the
thicket to gather enough information to settle on what are the best
practices, and who may be the best SEO for your budget ! ...Hmmm....we shall
see I guess...

Only you can decide Bob - you are the one with the budget, but I'd caution
you only one thing - ask for reference sites, and if the company has
current programs in place for your competitors, don't sign up with them -
how can any company legitimately guarantee results on a whole bunch of
competitors? We don't take competitors. ;{)

Once small thing more... take care of a lot of this:

http://www.webyourbusiness.com/advic..._engines.shtml

and your spend will be better spent and more effective. Plus your SEO
specialist will have less billable hours into your site.

regards

Greg




Bob

www.Ocean-Pro.com
Professional Yacht Delivery
Offshore Sailing Instruction
Naples, FL 800-329-4884