Google changes their algorithms

[Steve]

Google just recently changed their search engine algorithms. http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/25/tech...ogle/index.htm It is a very fascinating article and discussion because they now seem to not place as much value as they had before on these crap sites that are referred to as 'content farms.' Such sites are places people can submit their own articles on topics like 'how to make more friends in college. Where they list things like, 'smile more' or 'join a fraternity.' But now, how will this effect your website and your back links from such content farms if you had submitted articles to drive traffic to your site?

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[Simpkins]

Lawn care business tips

I never did understand people spending their moeny (sometimes thousands of dollars) on "SEO". I'm all for getting results the old fashioned way. I wrote an article on my site about just this thing. People bank too much on the latest and greatest QUICK way to the top.

[Steve]

When you say the old fashion way, what do you suggest new start up lawn care businesses do to improve their search engine rankings?

[Simpkins]

Adding appropriate keywords and description in meta tags, using alt attributes on images and using your keywords on the actual text on the page are all good starters.
They can submit their business listing to several free business directories. (Merchant Circle and the likes)
Don't spend your money for an "expert" on SEO.

I don't claim to know all there is to know about SEO. I think that would be foolish of anyone not working for the search engines and knowing these complex algorithms.

Some SEO packages can cost a very pretty penny and what happens when there is a big change in the algorithm? You are out your money. I think the money is better spent elsewhere. It just "grinds my gears" (any Family Guy fans here?) when someone new to owning a website gets suckered in by some of these "experts".

[The Cleaning Doctor]

So you can not see why someone would pay for SEO?

1. The time factor. Yes you can do all the things for seo on your own but when will you have time for your family? When do you work on seo, during the day when you should be operating the business? How about at night when you should be spending time with the wife and kids? Maybe you can do it on the weekend when you need to take care of your yard?

2. Here is another one. How long would it take you to build 100 quality links to your site? I mean from like topic sites not sites that you can submit on several different pages. I am talking about unique domains and these have to be a page rank of 3 or above on the domain. I would say it would take you a better part of a week to find those sites. Now what if I could do that for $30 to $50? Would that be worth it? Remember you do not want to use those same domains for the next 100 so it starts all over again.

I do sell SEO services but I look at the whole picture and see what would be the best investment for the site owner. I am doing a site right now where I told him the best investment would be to reconfigure the site. This would give him the best ROI.

I don't know if the people that have contacted me from this site will chime in but I told them the same thing. A new site will help them better for rankings than any link building campaign. This is because their local competition was not that heavy so they did not need a lot of link building.

I proved that in another thread here with "lawn mowing gulfport" by adding a page to one of my sites and posting a link to it here. Within 36 hours it was on the front page for that search term. But try the same thing in Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Seattle or any other metro area and you will be disappointed.

Some will say narrow it down to sub cities. You can do that around Seattle with Redmond, Kent, Federal Way etc but you still have Seattle with millions of customers. Same thing with Chicago and LA etc.

I know people that build beautiful web sites and charge accordingly but on the SEO side of the design they could not rank for "purple turds".

Your method will work in smaller markets but there are thousands of sites on the web that are great on design and seo that never get found because the search engines don't care about them for those keywords.

Here is an example:

Google "woodworking" and way back on page 16 you will find www.scrollsawer.com

Now looking at the title and description, they are trying to target "woodworking" as a keyword phrase. I will admit the site could use some work but overall it is not bad. And the fact that the keyword searched only has a medium competition range which means that about half of the searches on the web have more competition and the other half have less competition.

Now according to your theory, this site should be all over the front page. After all the site was registered on Jan 4, 2000 which makes the site a little over 11 years old.

Oh and "woodworking" is searched 823,000 times per month world wide and 550,000 times in the United States alone.

This is why people pay to have SEO work done. It is easy to rank locally in most cases but if you need to rank nation or world wide it is going to take more than just building a site and crossing your fingers. Even locally you need to do some link building but that is not as intense as a wider geographic ranking area.

I am not blowing smoke here guys. It is very hard to get ranked in some areas. It is not just one thing that works to rank your site but the combination of a number of things.

I am going to start a new thread for a FREE item to help you see the light.

[Simpkins]

I wasn't trying to step on anyone's toes there doctor. I never stated that SEO was a bunch of hogwash or anything. Most (and by most I mean 100%) of the people on here don't care about global rankings. Yes, there are still things people can do (or pay to have done) that will help their rankings. My argument is about those companies out there that prey on people that don't really understand the whole SEO thing and take their hard earned money. I think any decent web developer will provide optimizing the site for search engines in their building the website, just doing the simple things I mentioned above.

Here is my issue....
Joe from whole in the wall, OH has started a business. An SEO "expert" comes along and talks him into spending a pretty large sum (by Joe's standards) on optimizing his site. IT WORKS! Joe is thrilled! Money well spent! Three days later, things change and Joe is at the back of the pack again. What now? Joe is out of his hard earned money.

By all means, if you can afford it guys go for it. It isn't going to hurt your rankings as long as it is a morally sound company. All I am saying is this isn't as necessary as those "experts" lead you to believe especially in targeting a small area. I say spend your money on offline promotion. This is just my two cents.

[The Cleaning Doctor]

No but you did state that you don't know why anyone would pay for SEO and that is what I was answering.

You are correct that in most areas lawn care companies would not need the link building.

Here is something to think about.

Offline marketing will cost you about $2100 to completely outsource and mail 5k postcards. Now to get your return that you need, you will have to make that same mailing 3 times. Now you are at $6300. How many lawns will it take to get that back let alone make a profit?

Now say you pay $100 per month for SEO (if you are in an area that needs it like a major metro area) you are now at $1200 for the year and my bet is that you will get more customers from your web site than you will from the mailings.

Besides you can do the seo in spurts and the mailings you pay for all up front and it is gone. If you do SEO you can stop after 6 months and save $1500.

Even if you just let your site try to rank on it's own you can still get shot down when they make a change.

Every situation is different and needs to be evaluated as such. There is no one size fits all glove for web presence.

[Simpkins]

That is all true. There are more cost effective ways to market your business offline than the postcards though. In fact, sending out 5,000 mailers wouldn't even be an option for some on here because there may not be 5,000 people in their service area. I agree that there isn't any one size fits all solution. My article was about people being lured into something they don't need. I also agree that you can be "left out" while taking what I talk about into consideration. However, search engines are making these changes to better their SERPs in the users eyes. In other words, they are trying to make the results more relevant for the search. If you have a quality site that is semi-intelligently written, you will get ranked accordingly.

[shadrach]

how big of an area(population) would a person need to be targeting in order for paying for SEO work to be cost effective?

[Simpkins]

While I can't say the I personally recommend the Doctor's services (because I haven't personally used them) he does bring up valid points. If I did feel he had no clue what he is saying, I'd be the first to tell you. It seems to me that he is a pretty knowledgeable guy on SEO though and if you fall into the category of needing SEO, consider giving him a shot.

There are many "scary" stories out there when it comes to anything. Like I have stated, SEO is a very misunderstood subject and you can just as easily "fall victim" to these stories when in actuality you don't have the full truth of why a site was banned etc.

I don't bash those that perform SEO and I clearly point that out in my article. Some people do an amazing job when it comes to it. My point is though that there are some "not so friendly" companies out there that will take your money. This doesn't seem to be the case with the doctor. Sorry to anyone if I seemed like I was singling someone out and attacking what they do.