Had SEO Firm tell me to Start Over - pros and cons help please

[Berner]

Hi

So I have quotes of 1250 to 2500 a month to run my website, seo wise.

What I am told is they will do all facebook postings, 4 blog posts each month, some citations, and site optimization.

Those amounts due seem like a lot. Yet I was last to start all over.

Basically I was told that because of some bad backlinks, which only a few remain, that you can never recover from an algorithm penalty. And with a Disavow, its like telling Google - penalize me please

So the plan was this:

$3000 for a new site, and new domain, and then it has no penalties, and I will be ranking in no time.

The problem is I am branded. My domain and business name is Bernese Of The Rockies. People know us and we are very respected.

So if we create a new site like example.com, I do not want to mislead people. Or if there is a penalty for say a landing page or site, where I am sending people to my main site for more info type of thing.

Just looking for your input if this is a common issue, where if you have a non manual, but algo penalty that you must restart?

Thank you so much for your thoughts and suggestions.

[WilliamKammer]

Hi Chris,

You have been misinformed. Disavow is your friend when done correctly. If you know you took a hit for bad backlinks, you can recover. This comes from personal experience of fixing this issue. You are usually talking about 1-2 month recovery period when link cleanup is done right.

If you like your brand, domain, and you were ranking before a link penalty, then clean it up. Should be cheaper than a new website as well.

[Berner]

Thank you for the support.

That's just it I cannot afford $3000 for a new site, yet if there is no recovery from penguin or whatever, then I have to start thinking about the future etc.

Thank you so much for your kind words.

[LesleyPaone]

The prices are in line with industry standards, but I think the way of handling it is not. The only time I ever recommend someone changing their domain name is if the company went through a period where they have a bad reputation and cannot recover from that. Like there are bad reviews and things that you cannot control around the internet with links back to the site.

If I were doing SEO on the site I would look for a penalty and then disavow any bad links. Then I would start drilling local citations for the site. I have seen your posts a couple of times on here lately, it seems that local citations would help your site out a lot. I am assuming that you do not ship dogs across the country, or it is very rare for you to do. So you will want to focus on local sites that can get your local ranking factors higher.

At the same time I would do the blog posting and I would also do forum posting too.

[WilliamKammer]

You can recover, but I wouldn't recommend hiring one of those companies that said you couldn't.

[Berner]

Thank you for the tips. It is greatly appreciated

[danatanseo]

I totally agree with Lesley. And here's the thing, the fee for what you need (around $3,000 a month) is pretty realistic...however, the plan of action is not. I totally disagree with the approach. I don't think that you are being communicated with effectively. I am hoping that you haven't already signed a contract and paid these folks. There are better SEOs who can and will provide you better advice and action that what you are being given. If you are stuck because you already have paid, pass along the info you're getting here and continue to post as they make new recommendations. Don't let them do anything to your business that makes you think "Hmmm, I don't know if that's the right thing." - Ask a ton of questions. You are the client. They have an obligation to serve YOU.

[Berner]

Hi Thanks for the concern. No signed contract or anything like that. I was shopping around for quotes first.

I just figured $36,000 a year to do seo on a site is crazy for my budget. So this is why I am here too learn all I can first, then maybe either do good enough to do my own work proudly, or save some money by having some of the work done myself.

I love the challenge of SEO, yet I find difficulties when there is not a clear road map as I see black hat and white hat seo, but sometimes its difficult to know the difference.

But I am here to learn and I am very grateful for the opportunity.

[GaryVictory]

Hi Berner

In relation to "links", you can recover and fairly quickly as William pointed out.

Every website needs continued maintenance. Disavow provides you the opportunity to keep you site in shape! We run monthly health checks (using Moz) for our clients which includes refreshing link data, keeping disavow files updated etc. This gives us the opportunity to identify and solve any site issues efficiently with the client firmly in the loop so to speak.

What has happened? Why it happen? Where? What we will do? Evidence/Outcome?

Whoever you employ, make sure they cover everything and provide "evidence". You deserve to have this. It's not just links that can get you penalised however. If you are researching what exactly Google will penalise you for, take a read below.

http://blog.kissmetrics.com/penalized-by-google/

Keep us informed, we're a friendly bunch!