I know there have been discussions touching on this but I'm curious what others are doing in terms of both SEO as well as social media. Right now we pay a company approx. $500- per month to handle our SEO driving traffic to our web site they built. They told us it may take about 6 months to drive real results, it's been over 9 and I'm not impressed. We currently have a Facebook page that we do our best to update and no Instagram. Considering hiring someone to manage this as well but not if the same results are expected. I'm interested to hear what's working for others and I do understand that certain things work better in different areas.
SEO
- Thread starter Jasonk
- Start date
ward
Participating member
- Location
- Unincorporated Clackamas, OR
Not 100% sure on this, but I think they are bullshitting you to the tune of $500 a month. Just make sure you are optimized in the ways you want. Vet those sources and monitor them. I'd send them your final payment and be done with it.
DruidCarol
Participating member
- Location
- Rhode Island
Hi Jason,
Have they gotten back to you with the Google Analytics I told you about "offline"? You are paying WAY too much even with great results.
They just called me back yesterday after my third email.....I missed the call and have been swamped, I'm going to fire over an email tonight. Something your interested in taking over carol? I don't have the time or tech savvy knowledge for this. I'm going to cancel their SEO service asap after this feedback......
DruidCarol
Participating member
- Location
- Rhode Island
I am interested, Jason, and just to be transparent, I have to admit that I am not familiar with the technology they used for your website; I believe it was a custom-built deal using coding language called Bootstrap. I am all but exclusively Wordpress that I know how to build, update and maintain. In short, I would redo your entire website but organic SEO is part of the base price, at least to get you started. If you want to talk, shoot me an email at chiefsherpa@yourvirtualsherpa.com and maybe we should set up a time to talk.
Having said that, I think you should be certain you have access to your domain name and your content such as text and images. I've located your domain registration record (publicly available, no sensitive info revealed) and we should talk offline about it. I would also hope you have access to your Google Analytics account and whether you have a Google for Business profile. I think you do, though whether you have true admin access to them is another thing.
I'm in a lull myself so now is a good time for me to start something new.
- Location
- Pflugerville, TX
If you were paying $500 per month and getting $2000 worth of sales out of it (for example) it would be worth it. Do you even know for sure if their work is resulting in sales?
Our SEO uses a separate tracking phone number for all his work, so we know for sure which calls are coming from his sites. He also offered us a 90-day money back guarantee. I like the confidence ... Our site, treeservicepflugerville.com, is slowly moving up in local Google searches, and after two weeks it's already showing up in the top three map results, which it wasn't before, and the tracking number is getting calls. So far so good, but this guy's playing a dangerous game ... If the phone isn't ringing off the hook with good leads after the 90 days is up, I'm getting my money back.
9 months is way too long to be seeing few results. The guy's probably a scammer. Fire.
Our SEO uses a separate tracking phone number for all his work, so we know for sure which calls are coming from his sites. He also offered us a 90-day money back guarantee. I like the confidence ... Our site, treeservicepflugerville.com, is slowly moving up in local Google searches, and after two weeks it's already showing up in the top three map results, which it wasn't before, and the tracking number is getting calls. So far so good, but this guy's playing a dangerous game ... If the phone isn't ringing off the hook with good leads after the 90 days is up, I'm getting my money back.
9 months is way too long to be seeing few results. The guy's probably a scammer. Fire.
$500 a month IS NOT even close to worth it if you're only getting $2,000.00. Everyone's costs are different, but a easy guess is that $2,000.00 tree job (a day for 2 or 3 guys), easily costs $1500-$1800 in production and fixed costs. So NO, it's not even close. I'd say $500 in marketing should yield closer to $15,000-$20,000.
$500 in direct mail should yield 10 phone calls. If you close 7 of those jobs at $2000.00 a piece, then you're at $14,000.00. Now that starts to make sense...
Better yet...buy a really nice $500 tree and plant it for free at the local park and get a newspaper article written about you. Everyone wins and way better PR!
rfwoodvt
New member
- Location
- This side of eternity.
I agree that a 4:1 roi is not that good for a single marketing effort but it is not necessarily out of line with what may be considered acceptable in the business world. Back in the day, when I was but a wee little college boy studying business, your total marketing budget was considered inadequate if it was less than 15% of your total gross and excessive if it was greater than something around 26% of total gross.
- Location
- Danbury
Mike Ruth, how much are you paying? I'm renting my tree service website from a seo guy for $2000 a month. Think I'm getting ripped off? I mean, I get about 20 calls a month from it, with jobs averageing 500-3800. $3800 is my highest so far.
DruidCarol
Participating member
- Location
- Rhode Island
@DanburyTreeCT , I played with how I would find you via a basic Google search ("tree services danbury ct") and you aren't coming up at all, which mystifies me as to how new customers would find you. $2,000 seems massively expensive to me.
I would have to know what they are actually doing. You don't appear to have a blog section so they aren't writing blog posts for you on a regular basis; it doesn't look like your Google business record is optimized at all; you have no links to your Facebook page as well as your Google business page; same issue with the Youtube video; there are actually several 'broken' photo images on your home page--the browser's trying to show an image but the link goes to a place where the image isn't found any longer; are they doing Google ads (I don't see any coming up in search). How are they or you tracking what brings in those calls or are people filling out the forms? (I'm finding that forms are tricky for people, they really don't like doing them. Still Google appears to reward sites that have some type of request form present.)
I'm planning to meet this week with a specialist I've know for a few years, he does local SEO for small business, as I want to pick his brain about some questions I have about what he finds helpful. I know his fees are far less than what I see bandied about here so I will see if he is willing to share some insight on that. I know that it is important to have good content, some repetition in the use of key phrases, and so forth. The game rules change all the time and it's tricky to keep up with it all, even the reputable SEO people will tell you this.
I would have to know what they are actually doing. You don't appear to have a blog section so they aren't writing blog posts for you on a regular basis; it doesn't look like your Google business record is optimized at all; you have no links to your Facebook page as well as your Google business page; same issue with the Youtube video; there are actually several 'broken' photo images on your home page--the browser's trying to show an image but the link goes to a place where the image isn't found any longer; are they doing Google ads (I don't see any coming up in search). How are they or you tracking what brings in those calls or are people filling out the forms? (I'm finding that forms are tricky for people, they really don't like doing them. Still Google appears to reward sites that have some type of request form present.)
I'm planning to meet this week with a specialist I've know for a few years, he does local SEO for small business, as I want to pick his brain about some questions I have about what he finds helpful. I know his fees are far less than what I see bandied about here so I will see if he is willing to share some insight on that. I know that it is important to have good content, some repetition in the use of key phrases, and so forth. The game rules change all the time and it's tricky to keep up with it all, even the reputable SEO people will tell you this.
- Location
- Palm Harbor, FL
SEO is always changing you just have to have the discipline to stay educated if your going to do it yourself. If not 500$ a month isnt bad for SEO unless your not seeing any results than your getting played. I do local SEO for local business, and what I have noticed that puts a lot of business owners at ease is when I send them my bi-weekly video update. They love my services....and pay more than 500$ a month just saying.
DruidCarol
Participating member
- Location
- Rhode Island
@domonick, it is actually true that a really, really good SEO company can be worth $500 a month. Are you doing both tree care and SEO for other businesses? So, when do you sleep?
@Mike Ruth : I have been working with a colleague who does local SEO, and asked him about the tracking phone numbers tied to what an SEO firm is doing and his knowledge is that this can only be done with online ads (e.g., Google ads) He's backed up by a report that the search engine Yext has a new deal with Uber that is the first one that will have a ROI tool built into it once the dust settles. It is something that the industry gurus say will be able to expand to brick-and-mortar businesses first, though Uber is a service area business by definition; not sure how they reckon that. Time will tell. So, if you're getting business because someone is running Google ads for you, you might be paying a lot more.
Note to all: anyone who guarantees planting you at the #1 spot on Google and indicates you will stay there forever is, as the English cockney says, "telling you porky pies!"
- Location
- Port Orange
@IPMArborist - I like the idea about developing pr and or press releases for giving back to the community, However, you mentioned a $500 investment in advertising/marketing that would yield a $20,000 return. Im curious what avenues you are taking to see this. I'm curious how you are tracking this. I would like to hear you elaborate if possible.
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