Has anyone used paid services to help improve their site

[ClaireH-184886]

Hi, i am getting lots of spam in my mail box about how companies can help you get more traffic and i see on lots of sites about tools that can bring you more traffic and help improve your site, and i am just wondering if anyone has tried any of these services or products to help promote their site.

For example, i keep getting sent about submitting my site to over 200 directories or search engines and just wondering if these are a waste of time.

[SuperlativB]

SEOMOZ is a great, paid service that improves you traffic

[DanHill]

The directory spammers and those such automated services will cause more harm than good.  You would be better off paying for professional copywriting or journalist to write you awesome content - then there are some good services on offer to get these press releases/articles out there (a good example would be PRweb.com - it's by no means cheap, but as with many things in life you get what you pay for).

[RyanKent]

Almost all of those e-mails are pure spam.

I would never consider any directory submission service. They offer absolutely no value whatsoever. There are only a handful of directories which offer any value. The main ones are: DMOZ, Yahoo, BOTW, Business.com. Even when using these directories you need to examine the stats of the page on which your link will appear. The other directories which may have value would be niche directories relevant to your site.

If you have money to spend on a site, consider trust symbols if you do not presently have them. BBB offers a directory link and trust symbol along with a method for users to offer feedback. There are other symbols such as Verisign/McAfee and TRUSTe which can offer value to your site as well.

[Gustav-Northclick]

Spammy mails with info about how to take your site to the top is just what it sounds like, spam...

Usually there's no quick fix, well sometimes there are but...

Companies that send out these mails are probably not what you would want.

A good metaphore: Would you hire a total stranger that promises to fix and upgrade your house for just a penny. Would you believe someone that offer you this?

List of things that could guide you toward a serious Paid SEO partner:

• Full transparancy - what are we doing and why
• Ranking follow up - ranking reports on a regular basis
• Analytics follow up - to find key metrics for your site and business
• Linkbuilding - list of the links and an approval from you as a client before any links are being pointed toward your site.
• A technical go to person that can help you with questions you might have.
• No quirky conracts.

If a company can offer you this, they are most likely serious and can help you.

Hope I could be of some help

[AdiRste]

There are a couple of directories that may be worth paying for such as the Yahoo Directory and free submission to Dmoz but most of them will be spam.

[EGOL]

I have used SiteTuners for landing page optimization.

Highly recommended.  Great people!  Smart too!