SEO - Myth or reality - What can I get for MY money?

[gregmil]

HELLO SEO GURU!
Please forgive me for being ironic. Consider it as the attempt to cover my frustration.
Please consider this message as an attempt to help you guys to understand the way of thinking of your clients.

I spent years in High Tech working as QA, which was considered as an activity with blurry borders at certain period of time. Was it blurry? Well ... yes at some points, but at least we could clearly apply certain clearly described and documented methods to every phase of the development process.
Was QA activities always as effective as management expected and represented them? Well ... not always, but it was fault of the management, who was not able to plan and estimate. Testers/QAs were always doing heir best and could clearly report what they were doing this week and what they will do next week if the build will be delivered.

Why I am telling to you about my background? Very simple to demonstrate that I am not worst case scenario. I am able to understand the rules of the game. Someone like Persian Rug Dealer or Camera Seller will be much harder to deal with regardless of the budget.

When I learned the situation with SEO, I found that nothing else is as blurry and not clear as this activity.

Very simple example. I asked the guy who is making leaving on RAC by making projects starting from $100. Guy is very creative and productive and working arround the clock when it's required. He is nice to customers and does his best to satisfy them.
However, the knowledge base is very low. It doesn't go deeper then static HTML. Guy make pretty good leaving for the country he leaves in. At the same time the guy is complaining that clients are worst and worst. "They want link exchange for 20-50 cents each link".

We had following conversation. I might be wrong in some details.
I am asking the questions. Will you be able to make certain work for me? - Sorry, but your System is too big and too complicated. I will not take this opportunity. I prefer something simple with the static pages.

Thanks for honest answer. Could you answr the question please. Imagine I have a client, not me. He is able to pay $5000. You complained about $100 jobs on RAC and cheap client. Is $5000 a good client?
Answer: NO. Not $5000 for all work, but $5000 per month. It could be considered as good client.

Well... it's shocking, but I am trying not break right away... What this client can get for this amount of money?
The answer: SEO Work.

Wonderfull answer... My friend, every business has a budget plan. G, Y and MS also have their own budget. People who have to develop marketing plans and estimation of expenses have to provide certain calculations and presentation what they are paying for. Smaller size guy hes smaller budget. Also this is most likely his money, not corporate money. What this person will be getting insted of money? Please be little bit more specific what exactly will be done? What are deliverables.

Answer: SEO work, which will help you to occupy leading position.

Please be more specific. We are talking about the money. If I am talking about particular amount of $$$ and cents, I deserve to be informed. What exactly I am paying for?

Answer: Listen, why don't you want to ask on Forum? There are some guys of this size.

Dear SEO-Gurus! That's what i am doing! I am asking...
Guys, I had been working on large projects. Here is one of them: http://www.dillards.com
Every resource, every travel expense was authorized by client. Yes they paid high price to IBM Global Services for the integration of the site with their existing Cobol/DB2 system. Yes, they paid for my travel to the clients site to make a presentation of working system.... BUT it never been open-valet-project with unidentified deliverables as phases.

When we are talking about small client. I guess most of you, guys, believe that the client is not large enough for you. We are talking about the money that were earned by sweat, not stock market earned bucks.
What do you think? Does client deserve to know what he is paying for?

Do you see? I am reasonable. The guy is not able to estimate the project, which is definitely above his skill set. He knows what he is doing. I even don't blaim him. I understand that his ability is limited. I also understand that you are even not able to demonstrate the rank raise and other results of your work to the clients immediately.

Last portion of this dialog is here:
Listen, $5000 is very disant income for 10 families in your country. What if I will ask you to hire me for this amount?
Answer: Send me your resume.

You definitely have no use for my skill set, but here is my Summary:
Summary:
experience: 8 years in software testing and development. 4 years in consulting. 4 years in test automation. 12 years quality control of business machinery repair. Experience in developing, applying, maintaining and documenting quality requirements, testing framework and testing procedures. Test documentation: test plans, test cases, test scenarios, matrixes.
knowledge: Application Development and QA Methodology. C, Java, JavaScript, HTML, XML, SQL, 4 Test and TSL.
skills: Analytical skills, ability to learn and evaluate new industry, technology, requirements and business rules. The ability to identify, develop and implement testing methodology, and establish testing framework and procedures. Web application design and graphic skills including HTML and JavaScript coding using CSS. QA Partner, LoadRunner and WinRunner test automation skills.
industries: web, application development, e-commerce, business-to-business, healthcare, hardware repair.

Answer: I saw your level resume of Indian guy for $1000.

HA!!!!
Student from East Europe, who is definitely working hard doesn't want to hire me because there is Indian guy with the same skill set with much lower expectations. It reminds me some kind of Star Treck movies or Dali's paintings.
Surrealism!!!

Well, we can enjoy this funny conversation.... BUT I would appreciate the answer. IS THERE ANY WAY TO GET REASONABLE OFFER FOR THE SEO WORK.
I will be happy to provide details of my Portal System and maybe even offer certain type of partnership to someone who is smart, experienced and reasonable.
Please tell me how should I hire someone if all SEO activities is deep secret ... which mostly covered in numerous books.

[ferret77]

why don't you just type "search engine optimization" or my favorite "website optimization" and ask a few of the people whose sites come up

[Alshurf]

Hello!

I don`t no where did you find such a professional but as usual serious professionals and SEO companies provide their customers with plan of their work : which ranks will be reached for which keywords, volume of coding etc. Even their proposals contain enough information to help to the potential customer to understand what he is paying for!

For example like it is made here: SEO services

[amberstar702]

Hi Gregmil:

I very much enjoy reading your posts as they are descriptive and you really make your points. You ask good questions and want to penetrate the hype that a lot of people are trying to sell online. You see the games and do not want to play! Good for you! I will send you detailed information on what we do for SEO within 24 hours via PM.

Cordially,