normal seo practices?

[RD_Gringa]

I had no idea about building a web site when I started but its not doing too bad. I was talking to a friend that does SEO work and he made me an offer that I'm not sure of.

He said that if I placed the companies Google ads on my page they would pay me a monthly payment, a flat pay amount every month no matter what they got from the Google ads. They would get me advertisers and pay me 20% of the income. The advertisers I have already I would have to give them half of the monies that come in, which isn't much yet. If I decided at any time to stop doing business with them then, if my site was making them good money, they might just make a site similar to mine. They would not have any of my passwords, they would not change my site except for a few little things, I will continue using my own server and the owner ship is all mine.

I have had my site for about 4 years. I get a decent amount of traffic but do not make much moneys. I live off the money my site makes and its usually just enough to survive the month while getting a few tourists here and there.

What I want to know is this a normal practice for a company and what if anything could they do to hurt my page if I did what they ask? I really need more income and this may be the way to do it but I hate to give up my total control over my site when I wrote and made it all and it is getting more and more visitors all the time.

hope this makes sense.

Oh, my site is The Complete Guide to Colonial Zone, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Tourist Information, Restaurants, Night Life, Hotels, History, Monuments, Maps, Music, Businesses, Folklore, Calendar, Language and So Much More. (http://www.colonialzone-dr.com).

[crankydave]

This is my opinion only...

Keep working on YOUR site for the benefit of YOUR users.

Any "SEO" company or firm that trys to "strongarm" you is worth raising an eyebrow over.

If they want to advertise on YOUR site then quote them a price. If they want to make a site similar to yours, there's nothing stopping them from doing so. Not now, not in the future.

This particularly bothers me...


The advertisers I have already I would have to give them half of the monies that come in, which isn't much yet.

Again... my opinion...

Not just no... HELL NO!

I'll not go off further... for now.

Actually... invite this "SEO" company to join this forum and participate in this discussion if you like.

Dave

[williamc]

Agreed: Hell NO.

And I concur with Dave, ask them to discuss this 'idea' here.

[RD_Gringa]

Thanks Cranky and Williamc for the responses. I need some way to make more money with my site but this deal just didn't feel right to me either. just wasn't sure.

Thanks again.

[janeth]

I agree, sounds like they are needing some money and are looking at getting it from you.

I'd say Hell NO as well.

[crankydave]

You're welcome!

Try starting some threads asking for ideas. :)

Dave

[Big Juice]

No offence to you or the work you have done to date but if this SEO person was any kind of a friend he would offer to help you fix the Meta content on your site. On your main page, and on a few of the others I loked at, your Title tags are longer than your Description tags and you have a lot of Keyword stuffing going on in the Keyword tag.

People can argue all they want about the usefulness of some of these tags but regardless of their personal perspectives there still is best practices to take into consideration.

If this SEO firm/friend hasn't offered any suggestions regarding your SEO as it currently is then I would certainly refuse his offer. If they/he has offered some friendly advice regarding your SEO still turn down the offer but know that while the offer might not have been good for you at least the intention might have been honest.

[RD_Gringa]

I really don't know what key word stuffing is. I'll have to look for that info doing a search I guess. I just made a page and filled in the spaces that said keywords, title and description.

I met the man a few months ago. He just moved to Dominican Republic and I was showing him around. I will see if he can give me any free advise.

[confettiguru]

I concur with the "Hell No" school of thought. If this person actually knows what they're doing they won't need to threaten you with the possibility of building a competing site. Also, never hand over advertising that you've built. Spend an alloted amount of time each day...as little as 15 minutes, looking for new advertisers. This forum will teach you a lot. Most are quite generous with their knowledge and advice. As far as putting Google Ads on your site, it's quite easy to do yourself.

[seopo]

Clearly this chap is in this to make money, but if he's a friend he probabley isn't trying to screw you over though. Without reading between the lines you can break it down to 3 elements.

* New advertisers
* Google Ad-Words
* Existing advertisers

New advertisers:
You've not been very successful at getting the new business in you want so a profit share on this seems reasonable. You can negotiate the %.

Google Ad-Words
You could run this on your own but a fixed amount seem quite a nice idea too. If the amount is a good size it would make sense to do this.

Existing advertisers
This I would assume is your primary sticking point. Why not just contract in his firm doesn't get a cut of existing ads until the sum of the other campaigns reaches a point where you still end up with more monthlies. Make sense?

[RD_Gringa]

I do have Google ads on my site. The monies I make from them is just enough to pay me rent (average $150usd monthly) but every year during tourist season it goes up and stays at that level so hopefully by the winter I'll be making alot more. The advertisers I have are just smaller local businesses, mainly bars, restaurants and hotels and I don't charge much for these ads and pages. I want to go after the big boys like Presidente Beer, a large local bank and other places I just have no idea how to go about getting those ads. I posted in another section of the forum but got no answers.

I'm still weighing the ideas the friend gave me and we will be getting together, maybe tonight, and I'll tell him my thoughts.

thanks all for the imput. I need all the help I can get.