Seo Technical Audit - Trustworthy, competent and competitive firms

[alfadosa]

Hello,

We are a fairly largish site designed for user generated content (forum). We have been around for over a decade and are looking to get a proper seo audit done so that we can use the inputs from the audit to build upon our seo strategy.

I went through the seo recommended pages and found that the options are priced high. Are there any competent and reasonably priced firms that are known to do a great job of the audit?

[WilliamKammer]

There is a saying that I think holds particularly true in our industry: "If you think hiring a professional is expensive, wait until you hire an amateur."

This is one of those "you get what you pay for" moments. Spend what you can afford, but keep in mind that there's a reason why certain SEOs charge more than others. It's because they can, due to proven results and demand for their services.

All you can do is know your budget, shop around, ask questions to be perfectly clear on the services they are providing, and then make a decision on who you want to go with. Sorry I can't provide you with specific companies, but each situation is different and requires a different set of skills. Make sure to inquire when shopping around as to whether the companies have specific experience with your kind of site and what you need looked into.

[alfadosa]

William,

I am in full agreement on the finding the right person for the job. However I also don't think the SEO agency that serves a Fortune 500 co is necessarily as professional or knowledgeable as a competitive small sized agency with the right person leading it.

So yes, looking to find folks who are knowledgeable, thoughtful and appropriate for the job

[David-Kley]

"If you think hiring a professional is expensive, wait until you hire an amateur" :like: Quoted just because it's funny, and true.

Anyway, there are a number of companies able to do what you seek, ours being one of them .

The costs involved in optimizing a site, and long term success generally comes down to a labor vs budget standoff. What does the site need in terms of technical and content implementation, what is the desired outcome, what elements already exist vs those that need to be created/developed, etc. When beginning an SEO audit, we look at the factors in order of importance, to stay within a clients allocated budget. For example: If a client wants to begin a social media marketing campaign, but the site needs a lot of techical SEO help, we will approach that first before marketing something that is broken and just "doing what is requested of us". By being completely transparent, we help clients understand the elements at work that determine their current ranking position.

I agree that charging someone $3000-5000+ a month is very expensive. While we have clients in that price range, not everyone needs that level of dominance in search engine results for everything under the sun. I would be willing to help you in your seo needs. PM me here on MOZ, and lets go over what your goals are. That will allow us to better gauge what your monthly costs will be, and help us understand your goals for the site/forum. If you would like, I can also give you a list of trusted companies we work with, if you choose not to use us for services. Either way, we want to help.

[EGOL]

"If you think hiring a professional is expensive, wait until you hire an amateur."

lol.  Love that quote.

A great way to find professional people to work on your website is in forums like Moz.  In about 15 years, every person who I have hired to work on any of my websites has been a person who impressed me by what they have posted in an SEO forum.

Why SEO forums?   Because you can read a large number of posts and see if you like their style.  You can see if other people give them the thumbs up or the thumbs down and that is a general gauge of if they know what they are talkin' about.

And if they are willing to give great advice for free, just imagine what they will do if you are payin' them.

If I was new to hiring SEOs, I would post a bunch of questions here that are relevant to my website and see who answers and what kind of job that they do.  That will give you some idea about the person and help you get an education.

Lots of members here do great work.

I am not sayin' this because I want to work for you.  I only work on my own sites.  And, I don't give recommendations on who you should hire.  You should decide that for yourself.  Just sharin' what I think is a great way to find someone who is good.

Some of the star posters here in Moz Q&A are going to be a powerful lot better than the noobs workin' for the big companies who will be assigned to your account.  And some of the people who post here can kick the crap out of the work done by those big companies.  Just sayin'.  I've seen their work.

[alfadosa]

Thanks for the comment, I'll PM you and lets see how it goes.

[alfadosa]

**Some of the star posters here in Moz Q&A are going to be a powerful lot better than the noobs workin' for the big companies who will be assigned to your account.  And some of the people who post here can kick the crap out of the work done by those big companies.  Just sayin'.  I've seen their work. **

That for me was the very basis of posting here and asking about expertise of individuals who have done a fabulous job for others.

It there a community leaderboard of sorts on Moz so that I can take a look at some of the experts and see how they got there thru?

edit: found the link: http://moz.com/community/users

[jesse-landry]

I may be biased, but I could not agree more with EGOL (again.)

Look around here. You might like what you see.

Good luck!

[TheeDigital]

The larger the site and the more different kinds of areas to look through such as profile pages, blogs, forums, products, categories, etc will be more expensive as you have to check each for different types of problems.  You can probably glean a few improvements you could make yourself from SEO audit articles, our most recent is here: http://www.theedesign.com/blog/2014/seo-audit-design-doesnt-bring-you-traffic

Then of course there is:

http://moz.com/blog/how-to-perform-the-worlds-greatest-seo-audit