where to find a good SEO service

[dialuphost]

hi

i was wondering what services you would recommend for SEO and how much they relatively cost (just an average)

Thanks

[aspen]

IMO SEO as an industry has alot of bad companies. This industry is constantly changing, and some companies may be working 3 years in the past - either because they don't know any better or because they figure they can charge more that way (SEO used to be more complicated).

SEO is not that complicated or time consuming.... for someone who knows what he is doing. So assuming you have someone who knows what he is doing, unless they need to redo your code, it shouldn't take more than 10 hours to go through your site and tell you what you need to do/change. The exception is with link popularity building. You can spend 100 hours building link popularity, you can spend 1 hour. The more time you spend the more benefit you'll get (though I would say that the relation between time and benefit is logarithmic).

I will tell you three things to look for.

1. If they emphasize your meta tags, especially your meta keywords tags, as being important. Don't use them. They either don't know what they're doing or they are looking to charge you for things you don't need.

2. If they can't show you top rankings on good keywords (top rankings being top 3) - don't use them.

3. If they charge you for submission, other than reimbursing them for any SE fees (such as $299 for Yahoo, about $30 for Lycos or Inktomi) don't use them. Submission takes 5 minutes and should be free to clients.

[Polymath]

And on top of that, if they want to make doorways, or stand-alone sites, or try and suggest that working on your own site shouldn't be the primary concern...don't use them.

[hong_lewis]

And if they claimed they will submit your website to more than 3,000 (30,000 ) search engines, leave them as soon as possible.

[d-net]

dialuphost,

Hi, I know a little bit about SEO as I just successfully put my site on very high ranks for 100+ keywords.

Here's the rule of thumb: Don't waste your time on TWEAKING little here and little there. The time spent on these tweaks is better spent on creating content with POTENTIAL keywords.

This is simply what I did. I write articles with keywords that people will most likely to search on Google, MSN...

However, if your traffic target is over 500, you will need LOTS of articles, each of which devote to promote a different combination of keywords.

Here's a list of what I did...

1. Find out keywords that are related to your site theme and that have high number of queries on Google, MSN... Don't aim for one-word keywords as they are too competitive for just anyone. Find two-word, three-word keywords. They are less competitive and more targeted to your service/content/products.

2. As mentioned before, write tons of articles, each of which preferably relates to your site theme and contains keywords you want to target.

3. Put your keywords inside the TITLE tag. Also put them in the HEADER HTML tag as the topic of your page. You need to use <h1></h1>, <h2></h2>, and etc. Also put the same set of keywords inside your article.

4. Your first 150 words (NOT INVISIBLE words in ALT) should be RIGHT on top of the page.

5. Most importantly, get your most opimtiized pages listed on DMOZ.org, Zeal, Yahoo and other websites. In those links, make sure your keywords are inside the HREF tag. Like this <a href=xxx.com>Your keywords</a>. This is how you get your legit link popularity.

6. Equally importnat is to have search engine firendly URLs for your optimized pages if they are dynamically generated by PHP, Cold Fusion, ASP. Historically, search engines usually wait a few rounds of reindex before they spider and list your dynamic pages. They are probably not comfortable venturing into what could be an infinite loop.

7. Make sure search engine spiders can reach anywhere on your site fast and easy. They don't have a lot of time figuring their way through your site. Therefore, if you have a medium site (100+ pages), always have a sitemap with links to all your pages. It's also important to have the sitemap page linked by all your other pages.

8. While this is not really SEO, you should plan ahead on what you might do with the visitors comign from searh engine. So, it's imperative that you study hte keywords that they type to find your site. Then you can better understand the behaviour of your prospects so you can establish better communications with them and sell your products/services easier.

Basically, that's about it. It really doesn't require any special skills. Though, good communication skills will definitely hlep. All inall, it just requires a lot of dedication and time.

DAMN! you are not asking for SEO advices... just looking for SEO service price quote.

Ian

[Archbob]

Its better to spend your time to create partnership links with sites of your own category.