Lonny
Supportive Member
- Joined
- Oct 2, 2008
- Messages
- 311
Anyone here have/like the service provided for SEO? I have been using local guys for a while, they were doing ok, but our organic rankings have turned, well rank.
SEO providers
- Thread starter Lonny
- Start date
idreadnought
Supportive Member
what is your budget range
Lonny
Supportive Member
- Joined
- Oct 2, 2008
- Messages
- 311
I am paying about $150.00 per month at the moment. I haven't the foggiest idea what a good SEO should go for. So, I budgeted for what was presented to me.
TomKing
Supportive Member
It costs a lot more than $150.
I use Joe from www.carpetcleaningwebsites. He is fare quick and gets great results.
I can give you 3 companies to stay away from. message me for a off line conversation.
Don't use anyone that buys the reachlocal platform and simply installs your basic information. That is a money pit.
have one way of doing things slow and expensive. They will want to change all your phone lines to tracking lines. They will try to take control of all your online log ons. If you leave they will dump your online presence in a heart beat. I learned the hard way 4 years ago.
You want someone that if you leave them what you have purchased is still going to be there.
Not that you just pay for a while and leave it is a constant battle to beat the google man down.
We are about $300k from just having a fulltime staff member for our social media management.
I use Joe from www.carpetcleaningwebsites. He is fare quick and gets great results.
I can give you 3 companies to stay away from. message me for a off line conversation.
Don't use anyone that buys the reachlocal platform and simply installs your basic information. That is a money pit.
have one way of doing things slow and expensive. They will want to change all your phone lines to tracking lines. They will try to take control of all your online log ons. If you leave they will dump your online presence in a heart beat. I learned the hard way 4 years ago.
You want someone that if you leave them what you have purchased is still going to be there.
Not that you just pay for a while and leave it is a constant battle to beat the google man down.
We are about $300k from just having a fulltime staff member for our social media management.
Last edited:
Hoody
Supportive Member
Nice post Tom.
idreadnought
Supportive Member
what market are you in? I am a little hesitant to give information unless I know the person doesn't do business in my market
Goomer
Member
It would help to know exactly what he claims to be doing every month, and what, if any plans he has for your site and Internet presence.....if anything. Sadly, often these monthly "maintenance" fees get applied to things that really require no "maintanence" at all, and absolutely nothing is done. Many of the "billable" seo tactics and actions from not-too-long-ago, which kept armies of seo guys busy are now taboo, but many still bill as if it's still the case and they are doing something for you.
The fact that your organic rankings have tanked could be that he, or one of your previous seo guys were utilizing seo tactics that the Googleman now frowns upon and will penalize your ranking for, or no one has ever done the basics correctly, as it should have been done in the first place. The factors and ranking landscape are constantly changing , so any good seo guy has to be on the ball and know how to try to make change things in your favor.
So again.....what exactly is he doing for you?
When was the last time you communicated with him?
Ask him about your rank.
Is he even aware that you dropped??
If you don't let these guys that you are paying attention to them, they won't pay attention to you.
Secondly, do you have full control/ownership of your domain??
The fact that your organic rankings have tanked could be that he, or one of your previous seo guys were utilizing seo tactics that the Googleman now frowns upon and will penalize your ranking for, or no one has ever done the basics correctly, as it should have been done in the first place. The factors and ranking landscape are constantly changing , so any good seo guy has to be on the ball and know how to try to make change things in your favor.
So again.....what exactly is he doing for you?
When was the last time you communicated with him?
Ask him about your rank.
Is he even aware that you dropped??
If you don't let these guys that you are paying attention to them, they won't pay attention to you.
Secondly, do you have full control/ownership of your domain??
Kind of bullshit that Mikey has bogarted Fred C. Fred gets into Mikeys pockets and kicks al the Carpet Cleaners to the curb. Fred C thinks its cute. But Mikey and him have hurt a lot of cleaners here by Fred not doing SEO work anymore. Ive dropped 3 pages since Fred has kicked me to the curb.
Golden Boy
Golden Boy
Hoody
Supportive Member
Okay I'll bite.
Here is what I've found...
1) Most of the sites I see look like crap, and don't have the proper information above the fold to even get the phone to ring.
2) They're stuffed with keywords in the content... that was 2010-2011ish... STOP DOING IT!
3) Utilize your heading tags(H1, H2, H3), and have them make sense with the content that is underneath them. Use your title meta tags, and description tags. Keyword meta tags don't mean a whole lot anymore.
4) STOP making spammy blog posts. Take time to actually write some great UNIQUE content that is going to be beneficial to your reader. If on your carpet cleaning page you list your steps and processes, make a blog post for it. For example - make blog post about the importance of dry soil removal and tips to keeping their vacuum functional, go along the baseboards to minimize filtration soiling, ect. Then back on the carpet cleaning page LINK YOUR BLOG POST TO IT in the pre-vac section. a) it can help your click through rate, and keep people on your site longer, google likes this. b.) and it also gives your blog post a backlink(an in-link) something else that is important to on-page SEO.
5) There are some really crappy looking sites out there, but they still out-rank some of the best looking. I've found that is due to the fact that the crappy site's on-page SEO is fantastic, and they do have great content.
6) Speaking of experience of the user, google really likes it when you have a website that is tablet/mobile friendly. You can go about this a few different ways a) Use a platform/framework + theme(if you're into wordpress and want a CMS) that does all of the hard work for you. b) Have someone build you a responsive(read auto-resize) website. The downside to that can be that when you get into responsive design, and the screen size gets smaller that limits the amount of information you can show nicely, so be very conscious of this, and what is important for your customer to see, and be able to do on your site. c) Use a service like duda-mobile and pay the 9-15 bucks a month and build yourself a nice mobile friendly website with their software.
If you've fallen off the face of the internet it could be that your site was de-index(blacklisted) by google and other search engines. If this has happened, buy a new domain, and move your site to it and start your SEO efforts over. You will spend a ton of time, and money trying to fix it, and chances are you won't be able to because you don't have control of the links you bought... I will get to that more in a little bit.
Now lets talk about off-page stuff...
1) Reviews - They play a LARGER factor now in SEO so be sure you're making an effort to get them. Utilize other review sites, yelp, angieslist, yellowpages, manta, ect. That has been a factor for a while now, and don't buy fake reviews (cough cough).
2) Directories - Its extremely important to be very consistent when you're adding your business to review sites, and directory sites like, google, bing, yahoo, yelp, yellowbook, manta, ect. Some of them have a nice search function for categories, others you have to look, but be sure to look hard. Pre-panda/penguin update you could sneak your business into other categories like real estate, but I don't recommend you do that. I would also recommend you spend the money to get a link from the BBB, or join your local chamber of commerce because you get a very credible link with them as well. There really isn't a such thing as high-page rank directory link so don't fall into that ploy that some SEO companies use. Look for other local business directories that aren't part of the major review sites. Local could even mean state-wide.
3) When you're choosing a company or doing the SEO yourself but sure you have COMPLETE CONTROL over the links. Meaning you're able to go in and change the anchor text if you want, change the link, or remove it completely. One of the biggest problems I see is people having backlinks to their site that have been de-indexed, and that will hurt your ranking a lot. It is important that you or your SEO company regularly audit that, and go in and remove the link if it is no good anymore. If you do business with a good company you won't/shouldn't have to worry about that, but it can still happen.
4) Speaking of links... There are some big strategies when it comes to link building, and I'm not going to go too great into this but will briefly explain it. Companies in India are basically providing Tier 3 links which are crappy spammy type links. They do have their purpose but there is a lot of foundation work that has to be done before they can be used. If you want to know more research tiered link building. I am currently building 4-5 sites that are going to be used for Tier 1/2 link building specifically for this industry and the clients I serve in it. I have thought about allowing a few other people to use the site for that purpose as well, but I'm going to be extremely picky of who, and the content will have to go through a series of tests and reviews to be considered. I'll possibly talk more about that at a later date.
5) Organic Rules ... Google has been moving more toward organic rankings, and will continue to do so to try and sell adwords. There is an update that has hit, but I haven't seen it reach our industry yet. The google carousel has replaced the 7-pack and this is where the results will now display horizontally across the top of the page, even before the ad space. What this means is the real estate that is below this, is ad space, and organic listings. If you want to see an example of this search for 'hotels'. I haven't a clue(yet) when it will reach our industry but if you don't start preparing for it now, you'll be behind your competition when it does.
6) Your site can appear more than once on the first page. Your 7-pack/places listing can show, an organic result can show of your domain, and you can also make an internal page (if you've created individual pages for each city & service that you offer), and even your facebook page could show up on page 1. For that to happen you may have to do a lot work to get them there. However if you appear 4 times on page one that gives you a lot of opportunity to be clicked on. Many of the big franchises do this by setting up great Tier 1 sites with the city name in the domain. The domain name doesn't matter so much from an SEO stand point, but does from a marketing/brand.
Making money from your website has a lot more to do than ranking well. SEO, has really turned into SEM(Search Engine Marketing) and that itself is still a very broad term to everything that it includes.
Here is what I've found...
1) Most of the sites I see look like crap, and don't have the proper information above the fold to even get the phone to ring.
2) They're stuffed with keywords in the content... that was 2010-2011ish... STOP DOING IT!
3) Utilize your heading tags(H1, H2, H3), and have them make sense with the content that is underneath them. Use your title meta tags, and description tags. Keyword meta tags don't mean a whole lot anymore.
4) STOP making spammy blog posts. Take time to actually write some great UNIQUE content that is going to be beneficial to your reader. If on your carpet cleaning page you list your steps and processes, make a blog post for it. For example - make blog post about the importance of dry soil removal and tips to keeping their vacuum functional, go along the baseboards to minimize filtration soiling, ect. Then back on the carpet cleaning page LINK YOUR BLOG POST TO IT in the pre-vac section. a) it can help your click through rate, and keep people on your site longer, google likes this. b.) and it also gives your blog post a backlink(an in-link) something else that is important to on-page SEO.
5) There are some really crappy looking sites out there, but they still out-rank some of the best looking. I've found that is due to the fact that the crappy site's on-page SEO is fantastic, and they do have great content.
6) Speaking of experience of the user, google really likes it when you have a website that is tablet/mobile friendly. You can go about this a few different ways a) Use a platform/framework + theme(if you're into wordpress and want a CMS) that does all of the hard work for you. b) Have someone build you a responsive(read auto-resize) website. The downside to that can be that when you get into responsive design, and the screen size gets smaller that limits the amount of information you can show nicely, so be very conscious of this, and what is important for your customer to see, and be able to do on your site. c) Use a service like duda-mobile and pay the 9-15 bucks a month and build yourself a nice mobile friendly website with their software.
If you've fallen off the face of the internet it could be that your site was de-index(blacklisted) by google and other search engines. If this has happened, buy a new domain, and move your site to it and start your SEO efforts over. You will spend a ton of time, and money trying to fix it, and chances are you won't be able to because you don't have control of the links you bought... I will get to that more in a little bit.
Now lets talk about off-page stuff...
1) Reviews - They play a LARGER factor now in SEO so be sure you're making an effort to get them. Utilize other review sites, yelp, angieslist, yellowpages, manta, ect. That has been a factor for a while now, and don't buy fake reviews (cough cough).
2) Directories - Its extremely important to be very consistent when you're adding your business to review sites, and directory sites like, google, bing, yahoo, yelp, yellowbook, manta, ect. Some of them have a nice search function for categories, others you have to look, but be sure to look hard. Pre-panda/penguin update you could sneak your business into other categories like real estate, but I don't recommend you do that. I would also recommend you spend the money to get a link from the BBB, or join your local chamber of commerce because you get a very credible link with them as well. There really isn't a such thing as high-page rank directory link so don't fall into that ploy that some SEO companies use. Look for other local business directories that aren't part of the major review sites. Local could even mean state-wide.
3) When you're choosing a company or doing the SEO yourself but sure you have COMPLETE CONTROL over the links. Meaning you're able to go in and change the anchor text if you want, change the link, or remove it completely. One of the biggest problems I see is people having backlinks to their site that have been de-indexed, and that will hurt your ranking a lot. It is important that you or your SEO company regularly audit that, and go in and remove the link if it is no good anymore. If you do business with a good company you won't/shouldn't have to worry about that, but it can still happen.
4) Speaking of links... There are some big strategies when it comes to link building, and I'm not going to go too great into this but will briefly explain it. Companies in India are basically providing Tier 3 links which are crappy spammy type links. They do have their purpose but there is a lot of foundation work that has to be done before they can be used. If you want to know more research tiered link building. I am currently building 4-5 sites that are going to be used for Tier 1/2 link building specifically for this industry and the clients I serve in it. I have thought about allowing a few other people to use the site for that purpose as well, but I'm going to be extremely picky of who, and the content will have to go through a series of tests and reviews to be considered. I'll possibly talk more about that at a later date.
5) Organic Rules ... Google has been moving more toward organic rankings, and will continue to do so to try and sell adwords. There is an update that has hit, but I haven't seen it reach our industry yet. The google carousel has replaced the 7-pack and this is where the results will now display horizontally across the top of the page, even before the ad space. What this means is the real estate that is below this, is ad space, and organic listings. If you want to see an example of this search for 'hotels'. I haven't a clue(yet) when it will reach our industry but if you don't start preparing for it now, you'll be behind your competition when it does.
6) Your site can appear more than once on the first page. Your 7-pack/places listing can show, an organic result can show of your domain, and you can also make an internal page (if you've created individual pages for each city & service that you offer), and even your facebook page could show up on page 1. For that to happen you may have to do a lot work to get them there. However if you appear 4 times on page one that gives you a lot of opportunity to be clicked on. Many of the big franchises do this by setting up great Tier 1 sites with the city name in the domain. The domain name doesn't matter so much from an SEO stand point, but does from a marketing/brand.
Making money from your website has a lot more to do than ranking well. SEO, has really turned into SEM(Search Engine Marketing) and that itself is still a very broad term to everything that it includes.
Last edited:
Russ T.
Supportive Member
Hoody, I did read all of that. Thanks SO much for sharing all the great info. It's posts like that, that keep me off the other boards. I sent you a PM. Thanks again!
The Clean Machine
The Clean Machine
Shane Deubell
Supportive Member
- Joined
- Jun 30, 2011
- Messages
- 4,052
Hoody
Supportive Member
Waldo - Im not doing anymore work in the cleaning industry(cleaning restoration, web ect) aside from the folks I do work for now, but I will echo Tom King's endorsement of Joe. Sharp guy who knows the industry and can be a big help to you. Since I still work for people in the industry I will be limited to what I say since their competition hangs out here.
Rob Anspach
Supportive Member
What is your site? I will give you a FREE critique and let you know what you are missing. You can accomplish a great deal with a small amount of money and stay on page one with less than what you are paying. Don't get suckered into paying more than what you are. And if anyone else would like me to critique their site and learn what they are missing, just send me your name and weblink to rob@robanspach.com.
FredC
Village Idiot
- Joined
- Jul 13, 2011
- Messages
- 27,051
Rob..... can you give us an example of one of your sites that doesn't suck?
or
maybe show us some of the sites you have built and optimized for carpet cleaners that are on page one?
or
maybe show us some of the sites you have built and optimized for carpet cleaners that are on page one?
idreadnought
Supportive Member
Dropped 3 pages? ouch that is like disappearing.
Fred can accept any customer he wants or doesn't want. I don't think many people around here actually appreciated the work he put into the seo. How many people gave him a christmas bonus cause he ranked you high and you got good work from it? If you want to keep good employees or good other people to support your business you should take care of them. Do you realize a good lawyer site or dentist site pays around 5-10 times what he was charging us cleaners?
Fred can accept any customer he wants or doesn't want. I don't think many people around here actually appreciated the work he put into the seo. How many people gave him a christmas bonus cause he ranked you high and you got good work from it? If you want to keep good employees or good other people to support your business you should take care of them. Do you realize a good lawyer site or dentist site pays around 5-10 times what he was charging us cleaners?
Vivers
Supportive Member
Think more like at least $500 a month for proper a SEO and your top say three keywords
idreadnought
Supportive Member
Dont get suckered into paying more than you are.... then go to my site... here is a clip from my site to give you a preview....
"For just $99 you can get me on the phone and we can chat. Think of it as a friendly kick-in-the-butt phone consultation that steers you in the right direction. Typically the calls range about 10-25 mins"
No offense but sounds like he is shilling his own service more than giving valuable information
Royal Man
Member
A lot of searches are by phones and other mobile devices. Since the screens are so limited that is where the top two - three adword slots rule and organic is less important. Just saying you have to play all the bases and get on page one multible times.
thecleaningdude
Member
Great post, thanks.
Regarding Carousel, it's been around for a while now I think. But seems exclusive to the hospitality and food industries? The Carousel feature makes sense for those types of businesses. But for a dentist, carpet cleaner or pest control company? Not sure.
Has Google announced that it will be used for any other category of local search?
Regarding Carousel, it's been around for a while now I think. But seems exclusive to the hospitality and food industries? The Carousel feature makes sense for those types of businesses. But for a dentist, carpet cleaner or pest control company? Not sure.
Has Google announced that it will be used for any other category of local search?
Hoody
Supportive Member
The majority of the categories are hospitality and food industries, yes. I have found some odd ball categories such as Piano Lessons, Deep Sea Fishing <city>, Museum <large metro city>, best comedy movies, and quite a few other odd ball searches will trigger a carousel search.
A pretty vague list is :
- Venues
- Museums
- Clubs
- Bars
- Restaurants
- Best restaurants
- (type of food) Restaurants
- Colleges
- Food Delivery
- Movie Theaters
- Bowling Alleys
- Events
- Fast food
- Stadiums
- Hotels
- Grocery Stores
- Video Rental
- Art Galleries
- Things to do in (city)
- Wine / Liquor stores
- Golf courses
- Dog Parks
- City Parks
- Bakeries
- Sports Team Rosters
There hasn't been any other announcements of other categories as of yet. Right now carousel results show for barely 1% of the unique search queries that are made world wide. From all that I've read how you do SEO now, and how to prepare for the possibility of carousel are pretty similar. It seems those that have physical locations may have a bit of an advantage, and how close they are to the center of the city may play into it as well.
TomKing
Supportive Member
This is probably one of the best post on this subject. Thank you.
I enjoy hearing from a real business owner not some guy who wrote a pamphlet and then claims to be a national expert. There are to many of those running around the country.
Steve you should post some pics of your business. Some of the national experts have lack luster businesses at best.
I enjoy hearing from a real business owner not some guy who wrote a pamphlet and then claims to be a national expert. There are to many of those running around the country.
Steve you should post some pics of your business. Some of the national experts have lack luster businesses at best.
TomKing
Supportive Member
That is just the start. For a 2-3 truck company it will quickly approach $1000 and more. Especially in larger metro areas. you might be ok in smaller towns with less again there are no set rules for every town or region of the country. You need to understand the basics of SEO and what it takes to get it done. Steve's post gives you the start.
Hoody
Supportive Member
Thanks for the kind words Tom. You and I met at the last Mike Fest in Nashville. I am actually carpet cleaner(restoration actually) turned web guy, and still running the business from my home. I've hit my local market hard, and I'm about 6 months from hiring my first employee, and about 12-18 months from a physical location(that is the goal anyway). I know most of the prop. managers here in my town and am starting to negotiate space and rates for a retail space. The last year I have had a rapid rate of growth where the business can now support an income I am comfortable with while still being able to invest.
The cleaning and restoration industry was really good to me, and still is with the select few I choose to work with/for. I won't be on the board as often as I use to be as my efforts are concentrated elsewhere, but I will pop on from time to time to share some tid bits if I can or when Mikey whines on FB that he misses me.
Shane Deubell
Supportive Member
- Joined
- Jun 30, 2011
- Messages
- 4,052
Best place to start lonny is from the beginning.
What is the population of the town your business is located?
Is this your main service area?
Russ T.
Supportive Member
One of the challenges we have is that we are located in a very small town, about 2500 people. We live in close proximity to Ames, IA (9 miles north) and Des Moines is about 25 miles south with the northernmost and largest suburb of Des Moines being 10 miles south of us. We are in an awesome spot to serve central Iowa but I have at least 8-10 competitors that are located within these larger markets. Any advice to get high placement on the map? Adwords is great, but expensive. I'm sure it will be a large part of what we do for the near future.
The Clean Machine
The Clean Machine
Shane Deubell
Supportive Member
- Joined
- Jun 30, 2011
- Messages
- 4,052
Somethings you can try, i said try ....
1. A new physical location, if you can rent an address or use a family/friend. Then you can reset your google marker at this location and change any directories you have filled out. Basically let everyone online know THIS is now my location.
2. Youtube videos 10-20 of them
3.Blog on your website dedicated to this specific town, add to it couple times week.
4. Page dedicated to this town, not sure how effective this is anymore but if the competition is weak you might get lucky.
5. Hire a "professional" and cross your fingers/toes.
6. Completely new website for this area.
Russ T.
Supportive Member
Thanks Shane. Hoody said we could talk on Wednesday so I'm looking forward to that too. I'm willing to change things up quite a bit if I have to. I'll shell out a little more $ if that's what it takes. We have put in our best year yet in 2013 but my strengths and weaknesses are becoming more apparent. I really like and excel at being in the field and creating a positive experience for our customers, I guess that's why I do this.
We have 2 vans at the moment and I'm ready to grow a bit...I think ;-). I appreciate the time you guys put in here to help other people (and their families) out.
The Clean Machine
We have 2 vans at the moment and I'm ready to grow a bit...I think ;-). I appreciate the time you guys put in here to help other people (and their families) out.
The Clean Machine
Shane Deubell
Supportive Member
- Joined
- Jun 30, 2011
- Messages
- 4,052
.
Hoody
Supportive Member
One of the bigger mistakes people make is trying to promote their website in cities where people aren't searching for that service.
