Calendar
Network
Feeds
- 15
- Sphinn It!
I am not degrading those who sells seo as packages, but expressing my thoughts on why I don't believe, that's the right way of doing it.
5 Comments
5 Comments
Comments
You bring up an interesting question. From my somewhat limited experience, it seems like a LOT of sites all end up needing the same general thing. So, I could easily see how companies would create packages and tweak them to fit each specific client. The problem would be if there were no customization at all and it was a one size fits all type package.
There is a strong argument in favour of SEO packages and it has to do with the fact that while offering a choice of packages you announce that their relatives prices reflect the number of workhours you are going to invest in the task and it is the buyer's risk if he chooses a package that turns out to be insufficient for the given task.
Making sure that the website meets Search Engine guidelines or, in other words, correcting the web developer's mistakes, should not be considered SEO anymore. It is true however that this work is still required in many cases but the client can be referred to a really professional web designer or, if performed by the SEO firm's inhouse web design repair specialist, the amount of workhours can be easily estimated and priced separately.
However, the work required for increasing the website's relevance scores sufficiently, so that it gets the targeted rankings (let's call it "pure SEO") cannot be measured or even reliably estimated in advance. Which is also true for maintaining those rankings.
To demonstrate this argument let's focus on the gap between a page ranked # 11 (top of second page of SERPS configured by default to 10 results per page) and a target ranking of # 10. kichus believes that the amount of work required for accomplishing this task (assuming that the website at # 10 does nothing) can be planned "based on the competing niche and current opportunities of the website". But the SEO worker often can analyze the observable qualities of the web page ranked # 10 (metatags, text content variables, number of links, anchor text, etc.) in comparison with the web page he's going to promote (ignoring web design faults I've mentioned above) and discover that all observable qualities of the page at # 10 are poorer than those of the page at # 11. Despite the fact that, evidently, the page at # 10 has a higher relevance score.
Obviously, the unobservable, hidden qualities of the page at # 10 - the quality of its inbound
links rather than their sheer number, temporal values like the number of new links per time interval, temporary link value scores versus their permanent value scores, possible Trust Rank to one link or more and, perhaps, qualities that the ranking algorithm measures and we have no idea about - are responsible for the unexplained extra relevance score.
Suppose the observable qualities of the page at # 10 are indeed superior - given our very limited knowledge of the fine details of the ranking algorithm, we have no reason to believe that those superior observable qualities are all that there is in this particular case and the gap between the two pages is not much deeper than what it seems to be.
Consequently, we have no way to analyze two adjacent pages in the SERPs, estimate their relative relevance scores and translate them into the required number of workhours (and/or other resources) we need to close the gap and overcome the page at # 10. We surely have no way to estimate the costs of getting from # 11 to # 1 or from # 200 to # 20. Many SEO workers, even highly experienced ones, fantasize however that this feat is possible, that it is "a matter of experience", because in SERPS representing low competitiveness the hidden variables may have low values indeed and, because when you compare the page at # 200 with the page at # 1,
you almost always see impressive differences in the values of the observable variables.
Since we cannot estimate the sufficient amount of work required to accomplish typical SEO tasks (get our pages to Top 10 rankings for the most popular search queries) there are only a few solutions left:
1. Provide a price quote based on what you judge that the client is ready to pay and gives you some advantage versus your own SEO competition. Try optimizing for the most popular search queries and, if it fails, try less popular ones. Or invent arguments why the most popular search queries are unattainable.
2. Improve your ability to measure real relative competitiveness (which in the terms I've used above is simply the actual (but hidden) relevance score of the targeted ranking (say # 10 or # 1) in a variety of SERPs (I call them arenas because that's where you compete with others on the precious targeted rankings) .
3. Offer a variety of SEO packages that, from the SEO firm's point of view consist in a variety of workhours and other resources devoted to the buyer. This way it is the buyer's risk if the package turns out to be insufficient for the task and so it should be. Which is indeed the most honest solution, given the circumstances in which the SEO worker has to operate, whether he bothers to make them known to the client or not. Providing a particular price quote based on an imaginary "competition analysis" and then, when the costs run out, telling the client that "in SEO there are no guarantees" is surely a dishonest practice that in the not so long run will harm your reputation. Especially since, in the growingly competitive arenas, there are only ten winners and hundreds or thousands of losers.
Thanks for the comments mates...
@Skitzzo: I agree that LOT of websites get in touch with you with exact same needs - getting their website ranked for certain keywords or increase traffic. But let us look at the fact, here, WE are the experts and the website owners are not required to be. We know how deep the SEO possibilities are and how vast the related factors. I strongly doubt the deliverable results with a ready-to-implement package for any kind of SEO requirement. As you said, cutomization is required.
@Emmanuel: I am not here to debate on whether ;correcting the web developre's mistake is still a part of SEO or not. But I strongly believe, whatever comes related to a website has it's own influence in SEO. And of course even if I stand by the side of whoever sells SEO as a package, they have the above mentioned task included in their so called packages.
Let us come back to the topic. What I questioned in my post was, the deliverability of those pre-defined SEO packages. As you said, telling the client that "in SEO there are no guarantees" is surely a dishonest practice that in the not so long run will harm your reputation.
I belive the chances for losing your reputation is very less, when we do an initial SWOT analysis and give the proposal that matches with the requirement rather than simply showing them various pre-defined SEO packages and ask them to chose.
OK. Let's assume the website's design is perfect so we are only left with estimating the costs of bringing it to the targeted rankings. I've demonstrated above that your "initial SWOT analysis" is pure fiction.