It occured to me this morning that there are now a massive amount of apparant search engine optimistaion companies around which are offering to get your website listed under some keywords they choose within a few months. Sounds good I agree but when you consider the amount of work that is needed to be put in to get positions in the top 10 for actual niche or highly relevant keywords it just isnt that easy.
I was having a poke around a freelancing website yesterday wondering if I should apply to do some freelancing work but I was put off from posting or bidding on jobs that are available by the sheer number of companies and individuals offering to do SEO work for $300. Any decent SEO company worth their salt is going to charge something in the region of $1.5k for the first month and $500 a month afterwards to go towards link building, reporting, advertising etc. This doesnt include any PPC costs etc.
I remember when I first started doing SEO work nearly 6 years ago that the company I was working for charged upwards of $2000 for a basic package, needless to say there where 3 of us doing the work and we did a damn fine job. Just wondering now how people can offer these packages they are offering for such low amounts. A number of the SEO companies / individuals who are offering their services for this amount are Indian based, sure I understand the lower cost of living there, the cheaper labour etc but a paid link or a domain name cost the same wherever you buy them from so how can they possible do the work for that limited amount of money.
Dont get me wrong im not bashing Indian people (some of the best friends are Indian) but I see all these posts on freelancing website and it makes me kind of sad that its got to a stage where being competative is lowering the quality of the work that is being done, first in everything should be the clients website, if you charge $1000 and it costs $1200 the first month to get them to the position they want you should spend it, the extra costs can either be billed or can be taken out of the next months contract.
I dont do freelancing work anymore, I am currently looking for a job after being made redundant from my last one however if anyone is interested in some real SEO work drop me a mail. LINK.