Finding an SEO partner?
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It's the SEO I'm diving into which is throwing me for a bit of a loop. I'm feeling there is so much information out there that it's hard to slog through it on my own.
Exactly. You get it. Instead of spinning your wheels trying to decide what is important, cut that out completely by getting expertise in your corner.
When I started I bought a good SEO book, read it several times taking notes and comparing it to my website, then tweaked my site, and then paid an SEO by the hour to study my site, develop a plan and coach me by phone to implement.
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**...develop a plan and coach me by phone to implement. **
That's exactly what I need. I find one SEO technique and that leads me to another and another and..... it goes on and on until my focus starts to wain. And I'm normally a fairly focused individual!
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That sounds like a very workable plan.
It also solves the issues of making sure the Webmaster/Client does his job as well and makes the changes needed to bring the site up to current standards.
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I agree with Mcarle and EGOL,
You'd be better off hiring an** SEO Consultant** that can provide you with useful insights and develop strategies for your specific demographic rather than trying to hammer out some sort of long term agreement, which in my experience can lead to some definite conflicts of interest... I've got a story or two to tell, believe me.
For me, and this is just an honest reflection of my personality, I would rather spend a few days doing competitive and keyword research and then developing a plan that my client can implement himself, as opposed to actually investing the many hours that it takes to implement the developed strategies. It's a win-win in my opinion. I provide the strategy and direction, you provide the initiative, resources, and time to develop your own business. At the end of the day the client saves a massive amount of money, and doesn't sacrifice long term potential earnings, and I concentrate on analysis and suggestions based on experience rather than building links and so-forth.
You can actually hire some very educated and attractive Romanian women (or men) to handle some of the tediousness that true SEO requires for right around a buck an hour. Why pay me a percentage for life? Hire a pro to develop a plan, and reap the rewards of your own work.
That being said, I'm a lifelong professional musician, web designer, and digital marketing kind of guy, so if you need somebody to help you out, I'd be glad to give you the old "Fellow Mozzer/Musician Discount" and put something together for you that's really affordable. I agree that musicianship can improve the lives of kids... I started playing bass at the age of 8 and it led to a life-long passion/career, so it would be almost pro bono
Hope this helps, and great discussion you guys.
Anthony
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Thanks for the enthusiastic and insightful responses/discussion. Hopefully I keep getting input. I'm going to mark as answered. I know what I need to do. I believe I will go the direction of finding a good SEO person to help me implement a plan and take care of the plan myself.
Thanks!
Gary
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@Anthony - I'm over my message allotment. Message me or email gary@musicforkids.com
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No problem at all man. We wish you the best of luck...
In fact, if you want to send one of those Luna Tattoo Concert Ukuleles my way, I've got next Saturday open and I'd be glad to put in a good 10-12 hours of digging in to your site and competition in order to provide you with a good starting point on strategy and implementation.
I've been in love with the Ukulele since Joe Brown's cover of "I'll see you in my Dreams" at the end of Concert for George.
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You remind me of me, 2.5 years ago. I had a decent site but had no idea how to SEO it. I went looking for an SEO mentor in the hopes of someone teaching me the ropes, but no one took up my offer.
I was so obsessed with SEO that I spent a good amount of time every day reading SEO forums, every article I could find on SEOMoz and I followed SEOs on Twitter and just read and read and read. At first it's confusing because you don't know what advice is good and what is crappy, but you soon learn which people seem to know what they are talking about.
I then started to get active on forums and asked specific questions about my site. You have to be careful doing this because just because 6 people respond with "do forum sigs and blog commenting" doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. But, when senior forum members (who I learned to trust through all of my prior reading) gave me ideas, I listened...and implemented...and tweaked.
My site is still growing but it is actually profitable now and I can see that it has the potential to be my main source of income one day. When I started learning about SEO I was getting 34 visitors per day. I now average 5000 and I'm learning daily what things to do to increase that number.
One big tip that I would give you is to not get bogged down too much in learning SEO. I ended up spending more time learning about SEO than working on my site. I now see that content I made 2 years ago is starting to make me lots of money. And now I realize that if I had spent more time working on my site and making awesome content I would have more ad income coming in today. Speaking of that...why am I sitting her in Q&A rather than working on my site???? LOL!
Good luck!
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Marie,
Wow....very nice success story thanks for sharing...Hard for me to see beyond a week right now so it is good to see the fruits of your labors.........I am obsessed with learning SEO too.........but we are also developing the website at the same time. I hope by measuring once I don't have to cut twice but I think I will have my scissors ready just in case.
Boo
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Boo.....I can't tell you how many times my scissors are used!!!!
You're never going to get it perfect, especially the first time. There are things that I created that were not helpful at all (or even harmful). Then, there are other things that I created that I never thought would take off, but did. I'm learning by trial and error.
For example, I wrote an article last year about a particular type of news story in my niche. I never thought it would go anywhere. But then, it suddenly caught on and went viral. I took elements of that article and applied them to other articles. In essence, everything I create is a learning experience. I am discovering what my readership likes and creating more stuff that engages them.
I could tell you exactly what I did and could even teach you how to do it...BUT...it's not going to work that way for your audience. You need to experiment and learn what works for you!
You know, this post really affected me today. I really realized the truth that I ned to spend the majority of my time working on my sites rather than trying to duplicate other people's stuff. You can read all day long, but if you're not out there trying (and failing) then you're never going to succeed!
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Looks like we've got ourselves a deal...
Many thanks to SEOMoz for providing a community where webmasters can connect with each other, discuss the industry, troubleshoot technical issues, and trade Ukuleles for SEO consulting services.
I may have to write a little Hawaiian song about Roger the Robot in the next few weeks, while Gary's watching his traffic increase and saving the world from a future filled with Electronica. (No offense, techno fans.)
-Anthony
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That's really good advice, I also found that every time I put the effort into making really good content in the form of original content on my webpages of videos you get good results regarding traffic and search engine positions. I hope you put in the hours in on your content via our website
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Marie,
Thanks for sharing your journey.
I too became obsessed with SEO after Google Panda (needless to say we were hit). I experienced the same thing like yours, read so much SEO that I didn't work enough on my own site or business.
Although it is frustrating to figure out and know what's the right cause and action plan, I am still fasinated by SEO. B y being involved with the best SEO people in this Forum also stimulated, encouraged me.
I will keep your advice in mind in my journey.
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I wonders just how well this went, because I find myself in a similar situation as Gary.
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