If you're serious about SEO, then you will want to consider hiring a professional who offers SEO services. Expect to pay a flat setup fee to have each campaign created, and thereafter a monthly fee for the professional to perform the actual SEO services. Because SEO takes time to see actual results, you should allow yourself at least 5-6 months before deciding whether SEO is worth the investment. During this time period, however, the SEO professional should be providing monthly activity reports, so you know exactly what they're doing. Also, you should see from the SEO services increases in traffic from the low-mid competing keywords.
SEO Services: Anatomy Of An SEO Campaign
Since each "campaign" manages 3 keywords, your budget will determine how many SEO campaigns you can run at the same time. There's nothing wrong with starting with one campaign. This way, you can get a taste for SEO and also see how well the SEO professional performs.
It's not a good idea to ask an SEO pro to waive the "setup" fee; and, quite frankly, if you're trying to cut corners, then professional SEO services are not for you. Some people see the "setup fee" as just another disposable fee, a way to milk more money from the client. Nothing can be further from the truth. The setup fee is for the time and effort that goes into keyword research & discovery, market research & analysis, competition analysis, and competition backlinks / anchor text analysis. These are all very important parts of SEO services. Because the choice of keywords can determine the success of the campaign, this "setup" period is probably the most critical part of any SEO campaign and can easily take up to 4 weeks to complete.
Once the research & analysis has been completed, and the 3 keywords have been selected, the SEO campaign officially launches. At this point, the SEO professional will begin the next step in SEO services of link-building, and any other SEO services, as pre-determined in your contract. Some SEO professionals may include article writing and submission, and some may also assist in press release submissions, but this is not a standard. The main focus is to create as many one-way backlinks (of high quality and relevance) back to your website. Your SEO professional should detail in your contract a specific range of how many backlinks they will attempt to create on a monthly basis. For example, some professionals will create 200-500 backlinks each month that the campaign is running and your contract should specify this. This range can vary based on your particular market and the keywords being managed.
The more backlinks to your site, the more important your site appears to Google. The more important your site appears to Google, the higher your page ranks on the search results. But, Google is smart. You can't simply go out and start generating backlinks from everyone and their uncle. The backlinks must come from sites that are both "important" (have high page rank & traffic) AND relevant to your site.
During the campaign, on a monthly basis, the SEO professional uses his skill, experience and knowledge to locate these sites and create the necessary (and relevant) backlinks. These backlinks can come from other relevant websites, directories, authority sites, social media sites (like Facebook), and community forums. Again, this takes a lot of time and effort, which is the reason for a limited range of backlinks per month. As you can see, SEO services involve a number of complex steps and tactics over a lengthy period of time.
Is SEO Position Guaranteed?
Finding and working with an SEO specialist or firm that you're comfortable with is important. Equally important, however, is the understanding and acceptance that there are no clear-cut guarantees when it comes to SEO services, position and rankings. In fact, Google themselves will tell you to avoid any SEO firm that promises top rankings, because it's nearly impossible to guarantee. Some people even opine that guaranteeing SEO position is illegal.
You may come across so-called SEO professionals that guarantee you the #1 spot on the first page. Are they lying? Probably not. Are their intentions pure? Probably not. Because what they neglect to tell you is that they'll get you that ranking for a keyword that's either completely meaningless or one that has extremely low competition (which means extremely low traffic).
Why is guaranteeing SEO position nearly impossible? For one reason, Google is constantly changing their algorithms, which affects your ranking. At the same time, your competitors (the savvy ones) are also constantly working their SEO. So, even in the best-case scenario you get a page ranking #1 on the first page, chances are it won't stay there indefinitely. It may drop, for example, to #3 on the first page, or even to another page. There's always flux going on. Another reason why if you decide to stop your SEO endeavors, your rankings will probably drop.
In terms of a solid guarantee, your SEO professional should guarantee that they do all the work as specified in the contract. After doing their research & analysis, before the campaign launches, they should be able to review with you their findings and explain why those particular keywords should be targeted. They should also guarantee that you receive a detailed monthly report of their activities, as well as search results metrics on those keywords. This way, you know that they're doing what you're paying them to do and, at the same time, you're getting an in-depth look at your market.
Lastly, you should not be forced to sign any long-term contract for SEO services. Many SEO professionals, including The Misfits, will allow you to cancel at any time. SEO, like PPC and other forms of SEM (search engine marketing) are based on performance. If you feel that the professional you hire is not performing to your liking, for whatever reason, you should be able to cancel their services at any time. With SEO, however, it's only fair to all concerned that you allow a number of months before seeing results and then deciding whether to cancel or not. So, budget accordingly. And don't forget that just because a specific SEO campaign may not end up performing well enough, it may not be the professional but rather the nature of the market and those keywords. If you have a good relationship with your SEO professional, consider having them run a different campaign on a different selection of keywords.
