You guys are far wiser than me. One of the challenges of being a 1 man show in the early days is that I'm prone to make a bone head decision every once in a while. I've learned quite a bit about SEO in the process so all is not lost. I tell my wife that if we learned a lesson we never have to learn again, it wasn't a complete waste. I know enough now to ask better questions and make sure it is easy to back out of these relationships with the SEO company without them ruining our online presence. They must perform or we back out, that's it. And we MUST be able to back out cleanly. 411 Locals was (still is with 1 ad) holding us hostage because I couldn't get the ads taken down. Our places page plummeted for almost a year and it cost us THOUSANDS of potential $. I spent about an hour and a half on the phone this afternoon with the old SEO, the new SEO, both at the same time on a 3 way call, and finally Google Places for Business directly. It should be cleaned up within 2 weeks but we will see. My "take home lesson" is that it should be the incredible product and service that our customers receive from us that should tie us together for a lasting biz relationship. Who you choose to do your SEO is an extremely important decision if your not doing it yourself.
The Clean Machine
