IBL building company - advice needed!

[pagetta]

IBL building company - advice needed!

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We sell business software, and up until november, we were consistently in the top 3 pages for the search term 'sap business one' (in the uk), but we have since slipped to page 13 and cannot seem to crawl back up at all, we are wavering between the top of p13 and the bottom of p12. A colleague recently met with an old friend who mentioned that he ran a company doing SEO, and could get us on page 1 of google, and their tactiv was building inbound links. Last weekend, he showed us how, using some other search terms, like CRM software, and within 3 days my colleague showed me that we were on page one, however the result didn't list our own URL, it was a URL of one of this companie's sites redirecting, although I realise he did this just to show how quickly he could get results - if we actually used him it would be our own URL appearing on page 1 for whatever search terms we choose, and we only pay if we're on page1. Our adwords for this company are currently costing us about £250 per month, and this service is £150 a month, so you can see how it looks attractive to us!

Basically, this sounds a little bit suspect to me - how can someone turn a ranking around like that in 3 days without it being a bit risky? Has anyone got any thoughts on this? we are meeting with him today, does anyone know what questions we should ask about his techniques in order to check he's not using any dodgy techniques. Please bear in mind I am relatively new hear, and the man we are meeting with is a good freind of my colleague, who has worked here for 7 years, so as always there are office politics involved and I don't want to offend, but it just seems too good to be true.

I have also just read some articles and comments on this forum about how google is not doing a very good job of filtering out spammy irrelevant sites - even though ours is not irrelevant to the searchterms we intent to use, is this company taking advantage of googles algorhythms nature - doesn't this mean on another major update all our low PR IBLS could see us fall right back down?

I have only been introduced to SEO 3 months ago, and it is only a small portion of my job so I am picking it up quite slowly and trying constantly not to make any assumptions as I know it is a constantly changing environment that I am still quite new to!

Any advice would be much appreciated on this subject!

thank you!

[ctabuk]

Hi,if you choose an obscure keyword then anyone can get to number one fairly quickly. Don't pay £250.00 per month, follow all the threads here at WPW - do it yourself. I do my own, everyday of the week (boring?) No - it has made my Company worth more than I could spend at Monte Carlo during the Grand Prix week!

[AndrewX]

3 days? Wow, that's some turnaround. I'd be suspicious myself. Always be careful with SEO companies, many have been burned by the bad ones.

Like ctabuk said, SEO isn't too hard if your term isn't competitive, you can probably do it yourself for much cheaper. And remember, just because an industry may be competive in general, doesn't mean they've done any SEM.

[kservik]

What are the searchwords he used and what is the url he showed you?

Kim

[freddieb]

'sap business one' are certainly obscure search words and I can't see the possibility of anyone entering those words.

As the other comments show, it's fairly easy to get quick results for obscure key words, particularly if the obscure words are placed on a site that already ranks high.

You can learn the rules for good S/E results on these pages, save yourself the dough and D.I.Y.

[pagetta]

SAP Business One is a really well known business software package in england and germany, and is our beiggest profit generator - its a very competitive word as there are so many vendors and resellers to compete with. We are trying to build IBLs constantly(in 3months I have tripled what was there before) but the SEO is only a small part of my role and so it is difficult to spend time on this.

We also put all of our press releases online and contact different industries where it has been used for them to include us in newsletters online, giving good IBLs.

I'm just worried this company may not be using exactly honest means of SEO

[chriskn]

My daughter's web site displays examples of her art work, of which one piece is called Organic Urban Antidote. Search for this and it likely comes at the top of page one, but until she gets a lot more famous who is searching for it? Just proves the point that it is easy to get to the top by obscure searches, so I'd want a lot more info before parting with my money.

[ctabuk]

Chriskin, welcome to WPW, could you put your daughters URL in your signature, that way we might get her famous quicker!

[glengara]

* their tactic was building inbound links.*

Nothing wrong with that tactic, but it sounds more like he'll rent you links from his network, rather than build up your own links from third party sites.

BTW, "SAP Business One" doesn't appear anywhere on the Orbis-software page, are you hoping to rank for that solely with IBLs?

[pagetta]

yeah sorry about that its not the orbis site, its the www.codestone.net site that we are trying to get higher in the Rankings. For our other sites we have found less competitive keywords and rank highly for them, but with this company we sell quite mainstream business software that is very competitive so it is harder to rank highly.

Keywords we would want to rank highly for are 'sap business one' 'saleslogix' 'rightfax' (these are all products we sell) and more generic keywords like 'accounting software' 'crm software'. we are in the process of adding geographical terms but we have not yet started that.

thanks for all your advice, the site needs a good redesign to tighten it all up too I think, cleanup the HTML and try to make it more spider friendly.

[TheWebDoctor(tm)]

Traffic Power developed pages hosted on their servers until they were sued. Your description sounds like the same situation.

Now, let's talk real SEO.

Which of these titles shows more importance?

1. Jobsite Vacancy: SAP Business One Consultant - Accountancy S/W
2. Latest SAP Business One targets SMEs
3. Accounting Software - Leading UK Providers of SAP Business One

Well, if we consider the position of the target phrase, your page is on the last train to Edinburough.

Also, remember you need to make sure you should have a good heading. Currently you don't have one.

My advice would be to keep your money and develop your pages better. IBL's typically point to the front page when you have reciprocal links or such. Writing articles that can be published on other sites that point to the product page will help wonders.

[ctabuk]

First time I've come across the WebDoctor, he should make more posts. The other glaring thing about your site is it's readability, it just ain't user friendly, it's too feint. Nothing wrong with the content or the concept, it's just a personal observation. I like a site that 'Grabs me in'