Rankings...

To get our site ranked on front pages,is it better to let a company do it,or buy a software like IBP.We know clients love the software when we sell it to them,and there is a market for it.But we want Desk Quote Professional to be ranked front page or 2nd page when people put in CRM software,data handling software etc.Our web can be found at http://www.deskquote.co.uk
Thanks Ianski

Re : Rankings

It depends on your knowledge with regard to SEO and how much time you have to do it.

If you know what you are doing and don't mind spending time working on it then do it yourself. If you have no idea how to increase your exposure or would rather pay someone else to do it - because your time is better spent running your business - then outsource to a quality provider. That's about it, just like any other business decision it comes down to a judgement call!

Re : Rankings

Its not too hard to learn the basics of seo which will help, but if you are looking to seriously increase your rankings then i would reccomend hiring an seo expert for about £500 who should be able to get you a decent page rank and on the first few pages of google

Re : Rankings

I`m not sure it`s as easy as that, I think it is a long , ongoing process, better to do it inhouse, set aside so many minutes a day.

Adam
http:/www.myfrenchmaison.com

Re : Rankings

It certainly is an ongoing process, and from what I understand you should not get discouraged if your site ranks very poorly for around the first six months it is in existence... some of the search engines take a while to assess the "true" worthiness of a new site so it might be slightly depressed from where it will ultimately end up at first.

Re : Rankings

May be better to focus on one or two long tail keywords similar to 'small business crm software' as there lack of competion will propel you to the top of search engines.

At Contextured we spealize in offering both technology combined with expert support a combination which get results in seo
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Contextured Limited 99 Farringdon Road London EC1R 3BN t : 020 7503 5792 f : 020 7833 1103 c: 079 7179 5544 http://www.contextured.com http://www.getcontextured.com

Re : Rankings

If you want to get your site performing well on the search terms you are targetting, there are no easy answers.

Generally you will either need to commit a fair budget if you are getting the job done externally (assuming the keywords you are targetting are competitive, which for most businesses not operating in a total niche they will be).

Or, alternatively you will need to commit a fair amount of time if you are doing it in house. So since time is money, there is a sizeable outlay either way.

The best way is to build the site from the ground up with performance in mind, so that you just have to create the site once rather than launch it, then re-structure it for good search performance down the line.

This means ensuring that there is natural prominence for the content that matches your most important keyword searches, and that the pages on the site are built in a way that is conducive to optimum performance: this is the basics such as tightly aligned content to keywords, good and clear and relevant titles and meta descriptions, well written, compelling content and so on.

It's also a long term process that requires building a site with a solid external link basis, and of course regular addition of content that will have humans and search engines coming back.
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Web Design

Re : Rankings

I have just put your domain name into my Link Pop Checker and I see like us that Google do not list you at all, mind you being a UK site that does not supprise me as most UK sites struggle on Google.
We are top of page one if anyone enters Health and beauty shop on line but every site on the web can get top IF the person who is told by you what to enter in search engine.
What I am saying is that not one website will get top on page one by hit and miss, eg BBC will get to top on page one if you enter it, but you know the BBC is there, but who knows your site? not a soul till you tell them.
David
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www.Alternative4u.co.uk

Re : Rankings

I would highly suggest to do the SEO in house, if you do go with a SEO company, make sure you choose very carefully, 80% or so do not tend to produce decent results.

I don't believe any automated computer programs will be able to help you with SEO very much.

The best option really is to have your webmaster learn SEO and commit two hours a day or so to getting more customers for you, you will defiantly need to make sure he educates himself with a few good books, SEO for dummies is a good starting point.

I would outsource link building to a place like India if you can, for about 200 Pounds you can get about 2000 manually submitted links done in India, that would take hundreds of hours to do on your own, and you can bet your wages are higher.
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My Funny T-Shirt Gallery - Chasing Carrots Blog

Re : Rankings

Yes most SEO companies are not very good.

Generally you can instantly get a good idea by looking at the traffic that the site of an SEO company gets itself, and how they rank.

If they get hardly any traffic and their site is clearly not well optimised, then they aren't going to be that good.

Same old story - everyone calls themselves an expert and don't let total lack of knowledge get in the way of doing that.