First SEO customer advice needed

se4b4ss · 12-17-2004, 03:46 PM

I have done a few website designs and have now been contacted by a guy who wants his sites SEO'd. I told him I'd have a proposal ready for him on Monday, but would like to hear what other folks are promising/not promising their customers. I certainly can't promise #1 in Google for his keywords, but I have to give him something tangible. Any suggestions?

Buskerdoo · 12-17-2004, 04:29 PM

How about some idea about the keyword (s).

dcristo · 12-17-2004, 07:27 PM

No SEO can promise a #1 ranking, as outlined in Google's webmaster guidelines. My suggestion would be formulate a set of primary keywords you want to target, and gurantee that you can at least get in the top 30 results on at least one of the major SEs for at least one primary keyword.

Shawn · 12-18-2004, 12:03 AM

Tell 'em it depends on how much he wants to pay

. (even though I'm kidding, it really does have some truth to it.)

awall19 · 12-18-2004, 08:20 PM

don't sell rankings, sell targeted traffic (on various terms of course) at a rate cheaper than Overture would for his most common terms.

optycont · 12-25-2004, 09:00 AM

With SEO clients it definitely helps to get them out of the "keyword" mindset. No one of course can gaurantee #1 rankings for a keyword unless you're bidding and no advertiser can own a keyword. But advertisers have been hard to shake this perception even with natural search.

With this SEO client and future clients, I would recommend that you make clear that you're not chasing keywords but developing a site that will dominate in their vertical over time. Don't let the client dictate your services. From the outset, I like to lay out my goals for overall site performance. I won't gaurantee ranks but I will gaurantee that I will "target" certain phrases via best practices and niche experience etc...

GilGul · 01-25-2005, 07:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by awall19

don't sell rankings, sell targeted traffic (on various terms of course) at a rate cheaper than Overture would for his most common terms.

Sorry to bump in, but what do you mean sell targeted traffic? I've seen several posts by you where you mentioned 'profit sharing' as well. Can you elaborate please?

awall19s brother · 01-26-2005, 12:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GilGul

Sorry to bump in, but what do you mean sell targeted traffic? I've seen several posts by you where you mentioned 'profit sharing' as well. Can you elaborate please?

Buy his SEO book...lol plug

awall19 · 01-26-2005, 10:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GilGul

Sorry to bump in, but what do you mean sell targeted traffic? I've seen several posts by you where you mentioned 'profit sharing' as well. Can you elaborate please?

well your individual ranks are going to change more frequently than the average target traffic. meaning as some of your pages rank worse some others may rank better. its the traffic that matters anyway.

profit share... I am not particularly the best business man, but sometimes it might be worth it to build free websites for local businesses and share the generated profits with them... just one option, but there has to be a good level of trust on profit share business partnerships. I really have only been involved in a handful of them.