[2guitars]

How do I know if I am getting what I am paying for? I pay a guy $555 per month to do local, paid and SEO work.

Other than the querries from my website, how can I tell?

Thanks for any help!

 

[66sc]

Start with google?

 

[2guitars]

We are doing that and I get reports on rankings but it is a complex topic. I don't know if they quantify that I am getting what I pay for.

 

[Xplantdad]

Is your business the first one that comes up when you do a web search? What type of business do you have? What keywords...how many? Where are you ranked in Google rankings or Alexa rankings? Is your site optimized?

Try and track metrics-these should include the number of new customer leads through the website per month and the value of business from website leads per month.

Essentially you need to ensure that the additional income is more than the fees paid to the SEO person...


I found this on another site:

With all the SEO talk, no1 seems to point out that just having a highly optimized site, will not by itself bring you a bunch of new business.

All it does is bring in traffic. Like having a storefront with people walking in all the time - but not actually spending any money in the store.

There is more to getting business from online sources than just SEO

• If the website looks like an over-sized business card they will most likely leave and not come back
• if you don't offer them a easy way to contact you they will most likely leave and not come back
• if the website only talks about how great your business is and not about what are the actual benefits for the customers they will most likely leave and not come back
• If your website has autoplay music or long-loading-flash-animations they will most likely leave and not come back

And even if everything above is set in place, usually less than 1% of the site visitors will actually buy from you. Unless you ofcourse use techniques like email optins with free information or 24-hour free pre-recorded messages and getting their contact information while educating them on the subject, so you become the apparent authority on the subject, in turn enabling you to have people come to YOU for work, instead of you coming to them.

... which in turn brings you in a place where you can decide for yourself what prices you want to offer, what services you prefer doing, how big do you want to grow your business etc. because the systems put in place will effectively provide you high quality leads day in and day out.

But i digress, the point i wanted to make was SEO alone just brings people in... You still have to be the one to sell them your services.

From this website: http://www.contractortalk.com/f101/search-engine-optimization-worth-recommendation-89576/index3/


:beers:

 

[2guitars]

We are an insurance agency (in a sea of agencies). My main hope is to be visible to people looking for a local agent because the PPC costs are simply too great with Geico and other 800lb gorrilas driving that.

I do show up very well in google local, second page yahoo.

 

[Xplantdad]

Understood...we are in the same boat in the company that I work for...one of the big insurance companies even "sort of" ripped us off...basing their logo images for their powersports insurance from our corporate logo.

The company that I work for sells motorcycles/boats/jet skis/ etc... and a division of it also offers insurance for everything that we sell.

What the big insurance companies spend on a monthly basis is more than we spend in a year...I know one of the marketing buys from the big three...and it's a ridiculous amount of money spent...to retain the customer base that's all too happy to move to someone else to save $10.


You need to focus on the local level for sure. Just make sure that you can measure the results from your SEO efforts. Have your guy give you some firm hard numbers...as it's his responsibility to prove to you that he's worth it...not the other way around:beers:

 

[2guitars]

Bruce,

BTW, my SEO guy is AKA Internet Marketing in Scottsdale, AZ.