Do You Manage Your Own Sites?

[AussieDave]

Originally Posted by kwblue

I wish I could find good people to outsource the image gathering and content writing to.

Check out my sig


Cheers



Dave

[WagerX]

I am experimenting with outsourcing some content creation. So far so good. It still takes me time to integrate everything.

I messed up before by outsourcing seo.. that REALLY messed up my serps. Lesson learned the hard way.

[AussieDave]

Originally Posted by WagerX

I messed up before by outsourcing seo.. that REALLY messed up my serps. Lesson learned the hard way.

That's some excellent advice

A good note to some of our new members, any seo work is the life blood of your site. Be really, really careful who you hand a job like this over to. Unless they are a reputable seo company or someone you trust, they could very well totally screw your SERPs up.

A good rule of thumb...It's not what get changed now that may make a big difference to your SERPS next week, it is however what gets changed now that will have a catastrophic affect to your SERPS is 3 - 6 months.


Cheers



Dave

[Doolally]

It seems more sensible to outsource the parts that don't directly affect your SERPS or be very prescriptive over what should be done with regards to SEO work.

[AussieDave]

Originally Posted by Doolally

It seems more sensible to outsource the parts that don't directly affect your SERPS or be very prescriptive over what should be done with regards to SEO work.

Agreed.

Not wanting to derail the topic...But something newbies may find helpful in their quest for respectable serps.

Go back to basics...Make use of H tags, li ul tags, have a sitemap (preferably both xml & html), use alt tags but don't use them to keyword stuff.

Target two to three main phrases on each page, don't try to cram all your keyword niche into every page.

Write descriptive content that actually makes sense and reads well. The same goes for your meta descriptions too.

Remember that google doesn't place much weight if any on meta keywords. There for your content needs to be original and balanced to your overall page topic.

If you present a well structured page to the SE's then you at least have a chance at improving your serps with the addition of quality links. Another important factor, make sure that your out-bound links don't add up to more than your in-bound link ratio.


Cheers



Dave

[kwblue]

I, also, had outsourced SEO a long time back (before I had a clue what I am doing)... Ended up very badly for me when the SEO expert held all my sites hostage by pulling off all the content and asking for $$$$.

This guy WAS a reputable person too - I won't share the name as it is a recognizable one, but goes to show that even people with a name in the industry of SEO can be just as devious as a no-name.

[kaus]

Originally Posted by AussieDave

Target two to three main phrases on each page, don't try to cram all your keyword niche into every page.

Very good point that I think any one who is new overlooks. When I started my biggest mistake was not getting links but getting them all to point to my home page neglecting my internals, not to mention that I had no set plan as to what keywords I was trying to aim for.

Now I have a categorized list for each page I have with the "selected" keywords (so I wont forget) and see quite the difference when you spread it around a bit

[Pam712]

We have just brought in a new guy to help us out with the running of some of our sites - we now have over 25 so it gets pretty hard keeping up with everything. Having said that many of our offers are updated via a central database which helps tremendously with keeping the work load down. Outsourcing has also helped us concentrate on the things we like to do - instead of getting derailed with links, emails and many of the more mundane tasks.