Is My SEO Provider Doing a Good Job?

[TheEvilchippy]

This post is deleted!

[EGOL]

The information that you provide is a "snapshot" and not an overview of their activities.

What else did the company do?  How long have they been doing it?

The real measure of their success should be... "have they improved your rankings and your bottom line?".... and then all of that should be tempered by "how much risk are they exposing you to via their methods?"

[PeteGregory]

Sorry I don't have a lot of time right now to look at this too deeply, but I can assure you that $2000/mo for that amount of work is very high.  Those links are not going to prove helpful for those keywords. You should definitely be focusing on local SEO where you will have a much better chance of seeing some results in a shorter time frame.  Just look at some of the big players in that field and check out their link profiles.  No one is impossible to beat, but you must look at things realistically and figure out how to put up better content, get better links, and provide an all around better user experience if you want to beat them out.

[lmsybiatb]

I googled you for both Downey and Los Angeles.  I could only find your places page in Downey.  I would drop them.

[zharriet]

We are a small business and do most of our work in-house; however, I can share something that might help you to decide.

I agree with EGOL's take, particularly the part about risk. I looked at quite a few of the links you shared and they don't look so great quality wise. I opened them in tabs side by side and, though I am not an seo professional, it says link farms to me--cookie cutter websites, exact copies with different names, or similar looking with different names and colors.

We hired a very reputable company last year to help us rank for 10 key words, for which we received a very thorough marketing strategy report to enable us to do the work ourselves. The cost was in the neighborhood of $3,000. We implemented most of the suggestions and are satisfied that it was a useful expenditure.

They also offered to do linking and pr at  various monthly prices. We didn't do that because it was out of our price range. For comparison, the price you are paying is in the mid-range of the proposal we received.

All of that said, I find that we've gotten more value from our Pro Membership here at seoMOZ and setting up a Campaign.

[lmsybiatb]

I should qualify my "I would drop them" this is assuming you have used them for a while.

[TheEvilchippy]

Thank you so much for your feedback.

After 3 months and $6,000 I have the following:

• Keyword research and selection of 10 keywords
• On-site optimization of three pages
  • All the keywords point to our homepage, so this is not unusual
• 45 directory submissions
• 2 articles created and syndicated
• 30 social bookmarks created to promote articles
• 1 blog post written (mediocre)
• A report with a few conversion optimization tips delivered

I'm going to try to produce a Google Analytics report that summaries our traffic from the keywords (and long-tail variants) the SEO company is targeting.

[dignan99]

I am sure nobody wants to pile on what seems to already be a tough situation, and I am sure the professionals do not want to be stepping on any competitors toes, since they are above that.

If I were in your position I would be extremely upset with the amount of work done for the cost.  While I am sure there are SEO companies that charge far more than 2k per month, they also do a whole lot more than what you have listed.

Hopefully you are not in some type of contract, and could quite possibly ask for a refund.

I do understand that SEO takes effort, and time, so I do not want to sell anyone short.  I, however, would export more for my money(and that doesn't even include results at this point.)

[wparlaman]

Dear Michael,

Does your agreement state what you should be getting for your investment?

My agreements spell out exactly what my clients are getting- 10 articles, blog posts, videos press releases etc..

Was it strictly link building?  Was there any mention of optimizing your Google local places?

What were your goals when you started? If there were no goals set how can you gauge success?

Have you had any meetings with them?  Is your traffic increasing?  Are you getting more sales?

These are all questions you'll need to ask.