Anyone heard of this company?

[PMC-312087]

Looking for someone to take over our local seo - to maximize our visibility in Google Places. Currently I am looking at the company Local-One.

Has anyone heard of them or have any feedback on their website/services offered? There are so many different people out there claiming to be the best that it is overwhelming.

http://www.local-one.com

Thanks for the help!

[NerdsOnCall]

It's hard to say. But I ran a whois on that domain. I found out that the website is still fairly new, it was created in 04-Feb-2010 Here is a link to his linkedin account. http://www.linkedin.com/in/alanearl . I can't give a conclusive opinion of this company, but just ask him for examples of their other projects.

Ask what kind of keywords his other websites targeted, and ask if you can see before and after analytics of the sites (typically a 6 month period of time is a good indication of web traffic).

To be safe, you can also ask him to put you in touch with a few of their past customers.

If everything lines up, and if you feel comfortable with the information they provide, then I say go for it.

[RyanKent]

Hello PMC.

I've seen you around SEOmoz for the past couple months and I recall your struggles with Google Places. If I may make a suggestion...the SEO world is unfortunately full of a huge variation in quality. I would hesitate to grab anyone based on a nice website. Since you have a large focus on local SEO and Google Places, my recommendation would be to do some google searches on those subjects. Instead of looking for websites, find blog articles and forum posts which cover those topics. Look for someone who repeatedly shares articles on those topics or responds to Q&As.

Another though to share is if you find someone you have confidence in but their rates are too high, consider hiring them for just an evaluation of your site and talk about your goals. You may be able to do a lot of the implementation work yourself and save some money that way.

Another idea for your business. In Las Vegas there are a lot of show animals. I am unsure if your clinic focuses only on traditional pets or if you are able to service some of the tigers, dolphins and other show animals. It can be great PR to share that you are the official vet for Casino XYZ.