What are you guys paying for search engine optimization?

[diamond brian]

I think I've landed with someone--just checking the market for SEO. My guy is at $500 initial and $100/mo.

Of course that doesn't mean s**t if he can't land me in the top 10 every month.

 

[steve frasier]

it is included in the price I pay from Andrechelle

 

[Chris A]

depending on the size of your market that could either be a great deal or prison rape, how many seperate cities are you trying to conquer?

 

[Greenie]

it is included in the price I pay from Andrechelle

Exactly.

How many hours a month do you have to read MB to miss the Cermaks's work?

 

[Royal Man]

I consistently rank in the top 1or 2 spots (organic listing)and sometimes both #1 and #2 top or the 1 and 3 spot.

My cost just the 14 bucks a month for the site and zero for optimization. Market of 200K


Dave Yoakum-

 

[bobkinnarney]

Brian, if you do great work and have a good personality, and deal with people on their level with no bs, why pay $100 a month? It will all come around back to you. But then again I have been in this biz for 34 years, so I could be wrong.

I really could care less where my web site is listed. Word of mouth is still the most powerful way to gain new customers. Might take a little longer to achive. Any relationship takes time and effort. In the end you will end up with the best customers and do not have to put up with the price shoppers. Damn, I should be a guru and sell this info!

There is no magic bullet. Everyone has to start somewhere. With that being said, read and dissect what is on the bb's. The above average guy will figure out very quickly what works for him and what does not. The average guy will spend money to be convinced that he needs a guru to mentor him along. Which is ok, but he will still be an average guy because he can not think for himself. So he will keep paying the money to some one who does not know his strengh and weaknesses in hopes of making a living.

Optimaztion is not a bad thing. Can be very helpful to start with but it is not the end all. Don't expect miracles. Not all traffic is good traffic.

 

[Royal Man]

"There is no magic bullet"

But, the more bullets you have in your holster the better.

Being in the top spot for searches is a very good bullet to have.

Then you can also, do the other stuff that sets your company apart.

Better to have a machine gun aimed at your community than a single shot.

They can then find you from different sources.

 

[XTREME1]

$0 and do my area search

 

[Jeremy N]

$0 and do my area search

Interesting. In the 5 spot on google Mikeysboard is listed for carpet cleaning in Marshfield MA

 

[The Preacher]

I consistently rank in the top 1or 2 spots (organic listing)and sometimes both #1 and #2 top or the 1 and 3 spot.

My cost just the 14 bucks a month for the site and zero for optimization. Market of 200K


Dave Yoakum-

care to share how you do that? i'm in a market of about 250k.

 

[XTREME1]

are you signed in to your google account?

I don't have an account

 

[XTREME1]

I am #1 in my area

 

[Royal Man]

I'm usually # 1 if you just do my state/carpet cleaning or the name of my city/carpet cleaning without the state.

Not bad for zero.

 

[diamond brian]

Thanks for the replies.

Adwords has been good to my little company, but I'm trying to ween myself off. At least one of my competitors continually clicks on my ads, driving my costs way too high. Clicks here run me over $7.00 each.

Thank you Bob for your advice. I do quite well for a fledgling company, but definitely want to be in your position someday. Actually, all was well until about this time last year. Since then, I've sold a van and laid off 2 employees.

I know Andrechelle does fine work. My website is really nice too, I'd just like to wean off Adwords and get more "natural" clicks.

So, nobody here pays for SEO?

 

[steve frasier]

if you are going to pay for it why not just pay to be in the sponsored results

 

[Jeremy N]

I tried to talk to Andrechelle (twice) about a website. She claimed that he would get back to me with some analysis and some sort of proposal but I never heard back from her.

Oh well, I'm a broke muther anyway, so...

 

[diamond brian]

if you are going to pay for it why not just pay to be in the sponsored results

Steve, I am currently averaging about $400/mo pay-per-click on Google alone. It was great for a few years, but one of my new competitors likes to click on the sponsored ads of others. This results in a greatly reduced ROI. I've talked to Google and they can't help me.

So, I'm going to pay somebody $100/mo to keep me on the front page of organic listings and drop pay-per-click altogether.

 

[bobkinnarney]

That $400 per month is a tuff deal. In that case it would certainly be worth while to pay the $100 and save $300. But like others have said, $100 is a little steep.

Brian, do any of your customers do web design or hosting? Maybe they know of some one who can hook you up. From what I hear Andrechelle does a fantastic job of designing, set up and all else that goes along with it. They specialize in our industry.

Some times a trade school or community college have classes, this would be a great project for a sharp student. I know a mechanic that is really sharp with all the electronic in the modern cars. So good infact, our community college hired him aa a full time instructor. He takes projects from his shop to school and lets the students figure out the problem, under supervision ofcoarse. Does not cost a dime. It is a win win. Students learn and you pay nothing, well mabe some parts. But atleast you are not paying the $85 an hour diagnostic charge. So just maybe you could fall into something similar.

Just brain storming here.

 

[Jim Williams]

If you guys knew how easy it is to optimize your website you would crap. I read the book "Search engine optimization for dummies" and learned a few very simple tricks and had my site coming up #1 in 5 cities in a jiffy. My site usually comes up no less than #2 in a search in my areas.I pay $9.95 a month to have my home made site hosted and that's it. It makes my a ton of money. If you have the smarts to log on to this board, you can optimize your site without the fees.

I would rather not share this info. with the local hacks, but if you shoot me an e-mail I would be glad to give you some tips.

 

[handdi]

i had trouble gettin to the topp of listings
here what i did do not know if it will work for ya or not

get yourcitycarpetcleaning.com or some small towns in your area
i did with in a month top listing cost me 10 bucks a year for domain name
also can bump up your google adwords a bit but costs alot to do

hope it works for ya
RD