Seo

[Erik_Hamburger]

I am interested in learning what others pay to have their website 'optimised' for Search Engines.
I have a few quotes and typically the fees from the professionals are around £125 to £150 PER MONTH.

If you use such a service, has it paid off? Did 'traffic' to your website increase? Do you know your own conversion rate?

I would be happy to pay £150pm if the ADDITIONAL traffic generated resulted in sufficient ADDITIONAL bookings so that the ADDITIONAL gross profit more than covers the fee!

[_Sharpe]

We bought our B&B almost seven years ago and the previous owners had a lame Smooth Hound site (remember them?) and no email address. We went for a new website with optimization as soon as we had an offer accepted and in three months, we were getting bookings via email even though we hadn't exchanged contracts on the property. The web designers built up our presence and we noticed a real breakthrough by seven months especially in the North American, South African and Australian markets where people have said that we're the only website that comes up on some searches. Our Google page rank is four and we're first page on most of our search phrases. We pay $500.00 a year and it's worth it because we're not paying commission or to be on other accommodation sites other than VisitBritain. We have a high rate of occupancy and we're open all year.

I asked Hazel from sitemaker1.com what she would advise and she said, "Yes, optimisation does work. A phrase is what a visitor might type in to a search engine to find you. The more phrases you have optimised, the more visitors will be driven to your site. I charge between £8 and £17 per year per phrase, depending on how many phrases you have. Plus extra to maintain pages of Google links. Please see www.sitemaker1.com for additional information. I would suggest trying 20 phrases in the first year costing £270 plus the Google links page maintenance £60 and submission to foreign engines £15.25 with the VAT this would come to £405.67 a year or £41.74 a month for 10 months (includes a £10 a year stading order charge). This would certainly be a cost effective thing to do and you can add more phrases next year driving more visitors to your website. Most of my clients have been with me for 5+ years and some for 10 years, so I must be doing something tight :o)"

[wowebuk]

There's a couple of important things to consider before you decide if an SEO company is the right one for your business.

Anybody with basic knowledge can get your website to the top of search engines -- for phrases that nobody is looking for.

If nobody is searching for those phrases, you will not see a good return on your investment. You can have 100 phrases but if nobody is searching for them, they are worthless.

Here is an easy way to find out if the SEO you've been offered is going to give you value for money.

First go to the official Google Keyword Tool:
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Next type in the search phrase that you've been offered and see how many are really looking for that phrase.

For example, the search phrase "guesthouse in Blackpool" might sound like a great deal, but when you run it through the Google Keywords Tool, you'll see that around 390 searches are carried out each month.

Now compare that to "hotels Blackpool" which receives around 550,000 monthly searches.

Here's a video tutorial showing you step by step http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMo90AqHqes

As you can see, what might seem like a minor change to your keyword selection could have a dramatic impact on your website and business.

This will give you an idea of the true value of what you're paying for.

[imported_]

I would be very wary of a firm wanting over £400 for SEO. The sitemaker website is incredibly amateurish. I pay around £150 pa plus VAT via the Queensborough Group. If you compare the quality of the Queensborough website with Sitemaker it should be pretty obvious who would have more success with SEO.

[freddy1]

When we first opened I had a local website designer put one together for me but after 5 years changed to a more professionl outfit. They put the basic site together and they host it . I can edit 90% of it...pictures, text, add or remove pages, add and change keywords etc. I am extremely happy with it although there was a reasonable basic fee and I pay £50 per month for the hosting etc. For me this works well because, as I said, I can change pictures and text etc whenever I want which is excellent for advertising deals at short notice or wanting to show different views of the rooms and seasonal photos of the garden and the area - control of my website is paramount. I am on googlemaps/places and appear in the top section of a page on google when the most common keywords are used for our area and business.

[Andrew Clay]

The etc seems to be rather expensive "I pay £50 per month for the hosting etc." given that business hosting can cost less than £50 per year.