SEO

Good SEO shouldn’t cost you a thousand dollars.

It doesn’t seem to bother most ‘SEO experts’ to charge you a lot of money and give you nothing but promises in return. Specifically, they charge a lot for search engine optimization, maybe even ‘Monthly SEO Maintenance’ and they promise front page results.

Here’s the truth: A reasonable amount of SEO makes good sense. Beyond a reasonable amount, there’s almost no additional benefit. There’s no such thing as ‘maintenance’ unless you add new content to your website. Once SEO is in place, nothing changes. Well, technically, after a few years, the search engines evolve their rules, but monthly – no, that’s just a scam.

How do they promise front-page results? There are two tricks:

1. You can have front page results for something very specific, like the actual name of your website. If your website is RalphsCatRepair.com, sure, that’ll come up at the top of Google. However, if someone types in “cat repair,” or even “Ralph’s cat repair,” well… good luck. So, unless people already know the name of your website, they won’t find you.

2. The experts tell you that it takes up to six months for results to show up in the search engines. Whereas that’s almost true (it can take as long as two months), they are hoping you’ll forget all about it by then. If not, they simply don’t answer their phone or email until you give up. In fact, most people just consider all the money lost, and never request a refund.

Bottom line: High-cost SEO is mostly smoke and mirrors.

I try to avoid that and offer what makes sense instead. For $180, I’ll make sure your website is properly backed up, then I’ll install SEO in your website or tune up the SEO that’s there. I have been amazed at the things the so-called SEO experts miss in the very business in which they are supposed to know what they are doing.

Do I promise front-page results? Heck no. Not for most key phrases. Why should you believe that I can do anything magical that will give you top placement with 20 or 2,000 others vying for the same results? But, I’ll do a very good job, and you’ll get the best results possible. For instance, if you’re in the cat repair business in Silverton among many other small communities, and someone searches for ‘silverton cat repair,’ for that you’ll probably come up number one. And of course I’ll do keyword research to find all the other tricks like that.

If you want to go beyond SEO, I’ll be glad to talk with you about publicity, advertising and social media marketing.

How do I know this stuff? I’ve been building and publicizing websites since 1995.

To get your SEO tune up for $180, just call or text me at 805-843-5353 or write jeff@us-web-design.com. Right now, the backlog is minimal, but you may want to contact me before that changes.

Cheers! – Jeff