Has anyone used an SEO company to market your website? Has it helped?  My husband has been contacted by two different ones. They are very expensive ($300 and $800 per month). I'm not convinced they can do more than he is already doing, although they promise the moon.

I would avoid it.

1. These guys contact me constantly. Various companies. They are really just spamming for jobs. It's a waste of time, because they contact me about raising my site to be #1 on google, when most times I'm already number one for most puppetry-related searches. This means they're either not paying attention, or using spambots to simply aim at any site they can think of. In fact, it's gotten so regular now that I have started blocking certain keywords (if they use "SEO" or something similar in the email it gets rejected) just so I don't have to deal with it. (These spam emails are very very common too, anyone with a site will get one basically)

2. I worked for a start up dot com where they paid an actual proper marketing company to come up with good keywords and then buy placement at the top of searches using google adwords. They wasted thousands of dollars on doing this, and in the end got very few hits from interested people. And 0 sign ups to the site - it was membership based. In the end we decided to fire the company and go with more traditional methods of building interest which actually worked.

3. I spend $0 on advertising. How? By making sure I keep my site/s updated regularly; by tweeting/facebooking regularly (and making sure I link to my site regularly from those tweets/updates - I'm trying something new now by tweeting a post from the archives per day, which seems to be increasing my hits). And by of course, making sure I post here and other relevant sites. If I actually had more time I'd increase visits simply by being more visible in the real world, with classes or sales at a market. -- Don't forget it's a niche topic so you'll never get the number of visitors than Facebook or whatever.

4. There isn't anything an SEO company could do that you couldn't do on your own. It just takes time, patience and a bit of learning. The companies who spam you usually take advantage of the fact that most people don't know what SEO is or how nebulous google ranks/etc is. They promise instant results, and what they probably mean is "black hat" techniques, like spamming forums or something. Is it really worth $800 per month? What are they going to for that much money? Look at the details of what they offer, and I bet it's something you could do yourself if you take 5 minutes per day to do it and get into a habit of doing a little per day.

5. A great comment by someone I read: "outsource your marketing, outsource your reputation". If these guys spam a competitor, or a potential customer, or a current customer, it tends to make you look stupid, not the marketeers. If these companies use black hat techniques, it can actually backfire on you and not them because google and other engines will reduce your page rank. I actually get a bit - unfortunately - snarky when a comment or email appears via a well-meaning but ignorant-about-SEO puppeteer. One directly stated they were trying to leverage my page rank by leaving keywords for their company as a comment: I understand that I have a reputation for helping promote other puppeteers, but I like to be asked first, just as a courtesy. ... My point is, you can piss off people quickly by going about things the wrong way.

Finally: increased visitors and customers is not just about getting the right SEO. Design is important, the easier the site is to use, the more likely people will stay/find what they want. Having some way of keeping in contact with what you're doing is good, like a newsletter. Fix website errors and other things that cause problems for visitors. Check your website stats and see what people like, what people don't like, etc. All those stats can help you find problems or possibilities.

As an example, I put your site and School of Puppetry into a website grader to compare differences:
http://marketing.grader.com/site/www.puppetshoppe.com
There were a number of things you could fix or change to increase visits.

It looks like you've got about 17 000 hits, I'm assuming from whenever the site was created. On the other hand I've had almost 37 000 just this month so far.  -- In other words, you can get more for $0 spent!

Yea what Naomi said!   When I read your post all these things started brewing in my mind to answer and low and behold there they where!

Let me stress that more then likely these companies are going to use "black hat" techniques. Yep that might work for a quick influx of hits and rise in the page ranks but it won't last.

If you want to give "paying for results" a try then go direct to the source. http://adwords.google.com You can set your budget with them and there is not minimum that you have to pay.  I have not used it but looking at their TOS there is not contract limits so you can cancel your account if it is not working for you.  I do think that for something like this to work you need to be willing to commit to certain amount and time you are willing to pay into it but I don't think you would need to spend as much as these other companies are wanting you to spend and I bet they hold you to a contract for at least a year.

I well say that my sister works for veterinary that has gone with Yellow Pages for both their site and marketing of said site and business. They are not real happy with the results they have seen. The problem is that their marketing staff just does not understand the veterinary industry well enough so they employ generic techniques that really don't work.  That being said I've been in their system and it does allow you to control many of these things yourself but again it takes time on the owners side. I guess I am trying to reinforce what Na said that this can be done for $0 dollars if you are willing to put in the time.

If you want to give "paying for results" a try then go direct to the source. http://adwords.google.com You can set your budget with them and there is not minimum that you have to pay.  I have not used it but looking at their TOS there is not contract limits so you can cancel your account if it is not working for you.  I do think that for something like this to work you need to be willing to commit to certain amount and time you are willing to pay into it but I don't think you would need to spend as much as these other companies are wanting you to spend and I bet they hold you to a contract for at least a year.

If it wasn't clear: my #2 dealt with Adwords. It may work, it may not, but I think you can achieve the same without spending the dough. I don't pay for adwords simply because I paid attention to the keywords people were using to find my site; and then made sure there was something of value/related to find once they got there.

Another issue is that most people have ad blockers and/or ignore the ads. They're much more likely to click on a result that's organic simply because in their heads it means "other people like this so it must be good".

... Come to think of it Shawn, what you were saying about the vet's is what I was getting at: each community is different and will respond to different marketing tactics. The site I was working for was aiming at a particular community that tended to be more interested in real world marketing (ads in publications, mail outs, invites via forums, etc) than in ad words. Understanding your target market helps figure out which techniques work best.

Incidentally I just shelled out some money for a marketing plan of my own (not SEO related, just an overall guide) and 90% of the advice had to do with leveraging social marketing, trade publications - and actual content like ebooks, real world classes, etc. A lot of the discussion between me and the other person was me explaining how the puppetry community works, and how some of their suggestions wouldn't suit this particular group.

It's *very* useful to tailor what you're doing to what your visitors are not/doing.

BTW: In case you are wondering how Na found out what keywords folks used, one way is to use a statistic program to view what type of traffic you are getting.  Most web host offer something like this that you can either install or is built into their system. It reads the logs for your site and evaluates them so you can understand them. You can try to dig through the raw logs yourself but that can be very confusing.   I assume that is how you did it Na. If not let us know.

I use Statcounter.com mostly, but also have Google analytics set up. I prefer Statcounter because it lets me view individual visits, rather than an aggregate - which is what google uses. It means that I can grab the IP address from a comment or a sale, and trace it back to see exactly how they found the site, what they viewed, etc. Either one can aggregate lists of keywords as well, and analytics can be set up to email reports of various stats to you on a regular basis. Personally I find the stat collection provided by my web host to be far too confusing to follow easily, though they're not raw logs just badly laid out.

However, you can also use public stats like Alexa. This helps in seeing comparisons of this month/past month for popular keywords. Eg. http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/schoolofpuppetry.com.au#keywords
It also lists the keywords on a money-making basis: which words are worth more, which ones less.

Something I often do is log in to my stat collecting and just look at what the keywords are that people use. It gives me ideas for content, but also lets me know what's trending *now*.

Incidentally, the statcounter on Puppet Shoppe runs to a site that's been hacked. Maybe time to get yourself a more secure stat collecting service!

Good info, especially about my stat collector. I have no idea how to do this, but since my web host is supposed to cover it, I'll contact them. I want to check on keywords again too.  The question I asked was not for my site, but for my husbands.  I told him I knew there were some people on here that would have some answers.  I think it's interesting, the lady told him he needs to change hosts, and recommended one. I'm guessing she probably gets a cut for steering people to them. The two companies have given conflicting info, making me realize some things are speculation, not proven.    I know the area where you are makes a difference if you have a service related company. Our son lives in S. California, where people use the Internet to find companies. In our area, not so much.

Stat collectors are pretty easy to install. You just have to sign up to the site, usually input some basic info (URL of your website, a few settings like your timezone, etc) and then copy a piece of code into your site template. If you don't know how to edit your template, you can usually ask your web host -- or just ask us for help. The stat collectors provided by your web host should be located somewhere in your backend/file access; but they might not be as good as the other ones - and both the ones I use are free, so it's not like you'll need to spend money if you want to use something else.

As for changing web hosts that can be useful or not useful. Some hosts are way too cheap and offer too much which means you end up having lousy services for their over promising and under delivering. Some hosts offer limited functionality (ie. Webs.com or the Wix sites) but are good if you don't know what you're doing. Some companies over charge for services you can get just as cheaply elsewhere. And most importantly: all hosts will have downtime and problems. The trick is finding one that has problems 1% of the time, has good customer service, and people who know what they're doing. I learned this stuff the hard way and now only go with web hosts who I've investigated quite a bit and have a lot of decent reviews from non-interested parties. (Never trust the testimonials on their own site, search web host/IT forums for recommendations. A really useful technique I picked up is to look for forum threads when web hosts have problems. You can usually find a lot of disgruntled people, but more importantly you discover whether the customer service is good or bad. Some web hosts end up shooting themselves in the foot by yelling back at their own customers during downtime; some hosts take it with grace and humility. Some hosts communicate what the issues are and frequently; some leave their customers out of the loop for days if not weeks. It's a really good indication of what their service would be like if you signed up with them)

I've changed hosts a couple of times, usually because either service was crap; I could go cheaper; or because I got better at doing stuff and grew out of the '1-2-3 site builders'.

I don't think area has a lot to do with anything. You've got to remember that internet access is worldwide and if someone sees something they like, and shipping is reasonable, who cares where they got it from? This week I ordered some jewellery from Poland and a shawl from Israel. I bought them *because* I couldn't find what I liked locally and frankly the cost of having something unique and well made outdoes the slight increase in cost to buy and ship. More than likely if you're worried about area searches, you should get the company listed on regional specific sites. For instance, my site appears listed on a number of Australia-specific business and entertainment directories. I have found though that hits from these sites are few and far between - most people just google for what they want.

... This makes me wonder: if you're only selling to locals, is there any point in having a website? (Not aimed at you necessarily, but a question in general) What I mean is, if your average customer doesn't use the net to search for services that you offer, is there any point in marketing in that way?

... This makes me wonder: if you're only selling to locals, is there any point in having a website? (Not aimed at you necessarily, but a question in general) What I mean is, if your average customer doesn't use the net to search for services that you offer, is there any point in marketing in that way?

I think it is worth it.  Even if you don't get a lot of business out side of your own area you might still pick up some costumers.  The cost is really minimal considering other options for promotion and marketing.  For anywhere between 10 - 20 dollars a month you can maintain a website. Remember that it can take a year or more before a site really starts to see results. No harm in having the site and letting it build reputation just in case you decide to change direction down the line and go more international.

I agree, but it's worth thinking about it more detail because my point was: different marketing strategies for different types of customers. If people in your area are not likely to use the net, maybe it's worth specifically having a different strategy in place for targeting them. Or increase interest in the use of the net by offering a regional-specific discount if they buy online... etc.