I tend to think SEO's are tightwads. You know, I get emails all the time from SEO firms asking to be listed for free in SevenSeek, offering a link in exchange. I mean, damn people, it's just $40. Are these people that broke?
And the V7N SEO Consultants Directory has dozens of top spots in the SE's for different city searches ( like, "Detroit SEO"), and these pages get thousands of pageviews each month, and instead of paying the palrty one-time fee, they instead email me asking how they can get listed there for free.
(I usually just respond, "The same way you get listed in Google's Adwords for free".)
Why is this? Are SEO's not making money? Any other offline business, the business owners know that they have to spend money to make money, and they do spend money. My father was a business owner and he never balked at spending money (investing in his business); in fact he loved to spend money and build his business.
I think there is a mentality on the Internet that everything should be free. That must be it.
well i know Aaron isnt, he has spent prolly about a couple grand on me in the last few weeks, not to mention his 500 dollar an hour consultation fee i get for free...........lol......the perks i guess
Sure but thats one guy out of how many people displaying Adsense, I wouldn't ask to be listed for free JS its actually quite rude IMO, but I do generally think there is a shortage of money though (especially in the UK), $40 is a lot to some people I guess. After all if everyone was rich no one would need to be listed in a directory
People must be making money on the Internet, don't you listen to the radio? Bruce A. Berman and Changeitnow.com are out there telling people to become their own bosses and quite their day jobs! Of course, you have to pay a small overnight mailing fee of $10 to get their "free" materials.
I think people are skeptical about paying for inculsion in directories because it isn't like buying a billboard where you can drive by and see your product everyday. I hardly ever use directories and instead rely on search engines to find stuff. My daily internet usage is pretty much limited to about 10 - 15 sites. If it isn't on one of them, then it doesn't exist to me.
Well I don't think it's a matter of skepticism - after all they are emailing me to get on there, because they see it #1 in the search engines and know that people use search engines and end up on that page. They're just too tight to pay for a listing.
That is a good point. They must see the value in the link placement.
Then it is probably a matter of pricing. It is probably a matter of margin. If a SEO consultant is only chargining $300 for some improvement, then buying 5 $40 links doesn't leave them with much profit for the job. The challenge is convincing the customer that certain costs are "fixed" in SEO pricing and to take their hourly fees on top of those fixed prices.
I know in my experience, doing SEO as a hobby / moonlight job, the most I have been able to charge a customer is $750 for SEO projects. This is a steep discount against NetworkSolutions and their product. My goal is to keep about $400 profit and invest $350 in article submission / link building / coding changes.
I would guess that a moonlighter like me, probably makes up more than 50% of the "SEO Consultant" population. I work from 8am - 6pm at my day job, play with my son until his bed time around 8pm, then fire up the computer for a few good hours of website development. I am not looking to get rich, but the work pays better than watching TV.
Yes. There's plenty of more online professionals that are too. It makes you wonder why some of them charge and arm and a leg and then can't spend a penny elsewhere?
A little while back I was approached by a company running one of the many online casinos. The guy approaching me was directly responsible for their SEO efforts.
He had seen that I won the BTDino SEO-contest, so he was in no doubt that I was able to produce results.
To make a long story short, when I asked what they were willing to invest into getting a top position for really general words related to their industry, I never got a suggestion. They wanted me to prove to them that I could get them to the top before they wanted to pay anything.
There is a lot of tightwads in this game. On both sides of the table. The trick is to find clients that look at SEO / SEM as a natural part of their marketing.
Yeah a similar thing happened with me... a guy after looking to my sites top positions contacted me directly and wanted me to take his sites to top ten and would pay me after getting the results with a bonus to take him to top three...lol..
I dont know why they dont look it as they are investing in their business... well they know that internet is a huge market for their product then why are they not ready to invest in it...
My grandmother used to take me shopping with her all the time.. and she always asked for a steep discount everywhere.. even the grocery store.. lol.. in some peoples eyes she was a "tight wad", but she was simply doing the best she could.. she was also realistic however, and never expected something for nothing.
"tight wad" has a negative conotation for it. I certainly think that there are unrealistic people who want something for nothing.. and others who are trying to get more value for their dollar.
$40 here $40 there adds up to a lot in the long run. Without clear ROI it's hard to make the leap.. With the same do you gbet some link builders and add more links on relavent sites, or do you list on your directory?..
So instead of saying SEO tight wads.. I'd say unrealistic SEOs (SEO using the term loosley)..
