Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Information
by Consultant, Vern Lovic
Some of you know I do SEO work for people
I know and sometimes for visitors to my site that contact me to ask me
if I'd help them get ranked on specific keyword phrases.
My advice is always free and from the
heart, I don't sugar-coat SEO. Search engine optimization is a very
specialized knowledge that has taken me years to accumulate. I started
in 1997-1998 optimizing pages for search engines for myself before
jumping into a full time job of it at Specialized Solutions, Inc. in
Tampa, Florida. They gave me some incentives that made it well worth my
while to get them ranked in certain search engines on specific keywords.
I got bonuses for each time I placed one of the pages of their site into
the top 10 on search engines such as: AltaVista; Excite; MSN; Yahoo!;
Google; InfoSeek and many more.
While I wasn't positive I could do it - I
gave it my best effort. My base salary was $25,000 per year and I added
to that about $60K of bonuses from placing them so highly in the
search engines. It was the beginning of a career in search engine
optimization consulting (internet marketing consulting) that has served
me well for about a decade now.
If you need search engine optimization
consulting services and you are considering what will it take to get
your web site ranked at the top of Google's search results consider
this. It will take a LOT of effort and money. That's not a joke. The
state of the race for Google search engine rank has become very serious
and outrageously competitive.
If you have a small site and you can't
see spending more than a couple hundred dollars to get in the top Google
results then you probably shouldn't bother with paying someone so
little. That's
reality. SEO takes a lot of money because it takes a lot of genuine and
custom effort to help your website reach the top 10. Even more to get
the top 5 which is what you really need. If you have the time, over the
next year you can try it yourself. You'll gain a lot of knowledge in a
year and probably help your site do better than it would have by paying
someone as little as $500.
I take a limited number of projects on. I
only take projects where I know I can help immensely. I want to be
successful as badly as you want to be ranked highly in Google. If I
don't take your project on don't take it personally, I just can't
possibly take your money and risk that I can't make you extremely happy
with the results. I want to work miracles. I work alone. I don't have
staff. I do everything myself that way I control exactly what gets done
and how. I don't delegate parts of search engine optimization tasks - I
want to do them all.
My hourly rate is very reasonable because
I don't need much to live on here in Thailand. That does not mean it is
cheap to get your site ranked at the top of Google though! It usually takes
over a hundred hours of custom effort and planning to get any site to the
top in a competitive niche. My rate is usually $20 per hour. If you have
a large project that will last many hours I can discount that rate slightly. If you have a small project I cannot discount my rate, I'm
sorry. If you want to talk about a revenue share program where I make a
commission off sales that occur online after I optimize the site for you
we can talk about it. Keep in mind I never work for free and you would
still pay half of the rate upfront. I would need to be able to see the
financial statements (online, real-time) by logging in whenever I chose.
Before you decide how much money you can
budget for search engine optimization efforts consider that Google
results are the most important factor in many businesses in the entire
world. Your business might be one of them. You might make 90% of your
sales online. Or maybe you have foot traffic coming
into your store... you might have networking contacts that bring you
customers or print advertising that brings you customers.
What is your online sale potential? What is it worth to get it cranking?
If you can make another $2000 per month as a result of search engine
optimization to your site(s) then you must consider $2000 a steal. If
you can make more then there shouldn't be a question in your mind at
all. Many people that contact me haven't really considered the idea...
to make money I need to spend money. If you don't know how to do SEO
expertly on your own then you NEED to spend money. It might seem like a
lot of money at the time -but, there's no better way to spend it than
optimizing your site for free search engine traffic like Google. I can't
think of anything better in the world.
If you are considering hiring me as an SEO consultant for your online
business I'll give you an assessment of what I think can be done for
you online. If it makes sense to you and me - we'll go forward.
Typically I accept projects of between $2,000 to
$10,000. The reasoning behind it is this...
1. For less than a couple thousand
dollars of effort for sites with a lot of discrepancies you are NOT going to get value for your money. You're
just not, it's impossible. There are many thousands of services that
offer you this SEO package or that SEO service for a couple hundred
dollars... What they are all doing is meaningless and almost always a complete waste
of your money, time, and dreams. They sell something that can't possibly
be realized because what SEO really takes even for a small site with
50 pages and average competition in Google is 100+ hours of THOUGHT,
PLANNING, and EFFORT. With an emphasis on effort. I
have done smaller jobs in the past and most recently (2006 and beyond)
it is getting more difficult to have success for small efforts. I've
all but stopped doing projects budgeted for less than $2000 because the chance
of success just isn't there with a minimal SEO effort. I want you to be
happy and me to be happy.
2. I don't accept projects over
$10,000 because quite frankly I'd get bored working on one site with a
couple hundred pages, optimizing each page for the smallest nuance that
Google might not like. My ideal projects take 1-3 months of concentrated
effort of 2-8 hours a day. There are SEO companies with a few good staff that
will charge $5,000 - $10,000 per month and more to help very large sites gain
search engine rank... I can research one for you if you are in this
market. I have not heard good experiences from anyone in this large market in
the last 3 years. Yes, they get traffic initially but due to black hat
techniques the traffic dies when Google finds out and penalizes their
site or their network.
I don't use ANY black
hat techniques. I use organic search engine optimization methods. I
don't pay anyone to link to you. I use above the board techniques that
Google loves. I've kept up to date with Google trends and I've enjoyed
good success recently. This brand of search engine optimization lasts
the longest and you get the most for your money.
If you have a project that requires the services of a
search engine marketing
consultant feel free to write
me at the email address below and let me know
all the particulars and I'll respond as soon as I can.
Best of Life!
Vern Read more about
What a search engine
optimization specialist should know > For more information about web
design, blog design or SEO optimization, click one of the links below:
Need a quote
on your SEO project?
|
