Do you find it hard to build up a solid reputation in the SEO
industry? How exactly as an SEO freelancer do you convince clients
that you are reputable and will produce results without doing two
things:

1. Showing who your past clients were (b/c of the confidentiality
nature of the business) whereas to prove to them the gains that they
might see themselves.
2. Giving away too many articles/ secrets whereas the person would
learn enough from your knowledge base so they wouldn't need your
services.

It seems like a tight rope to walk. How do you go about it?

On 5 Mar 2007 17:50:04 -0800, "Brian Chappell" <slimhokie@gmail.com>
wrote:

>Do you find it hard to build up a solid reputation in the SEO
>industry? How exactly as an SEO freelancer do you convince clients
>that you are reputable and will produce results without doing two
>things:
>
>1. Showing who your past clients were (b/c of the confidentiality
>nature of the business) whereas to prove to them the gains that they
>might see themselves.
>2. Giving away too many articles/ secrets whereas the person would
>learn enough from your knowledge base so they wouldn't need your
>services.
>
>It seems like a tight rope to walk. How do you go about it?

Why ask?

BB
--

http://www.kruse.co.uk/internet-mark...l-business.htm
http://www.kruse.co.uk/google-mountain.htm
http://www.kruse.co.uk/seo-tips.htm

Brian Chappell wrote:
> Do you find it hard to build up a solid reputation in the SEO
> industry?

Building an SEO business is not about keeping secrets. It's about doing
the work and working hard. Anyone can get online and learn to become an
effective SEO practitioner; it's all there if you dig deep enough. Not
everyone has the time or inclination and that's why smart people hire
SEO consultants, so they can spend their time doing what they are good at.

In fact, if you want to become known as an expert you should do your
very best to share as much knowledge as you can to as many people as you
can, especially to people who might hire you. This will do more to
position you as an expert than anything else.

Remember when portals like Yahoo!, Excite and Lycos kept expanding their
services as a strategy to secure their user-base and lengthen the time
users stayed on their portal. Most of the original portal sites are long
gone. The ones that survived, like Yahoo!, figured-out that by linking
out to lots of other web sites people came to recognize their site as a
valuable resource and they kept returning. This is a good example of how
the popular belief is actually a misconception. Again, share, don't
hide, your knowledge.

Two assets you have are your knowledge and your industrious nature. The
best way to demonstrate both is to produce well written content and lots
of it. Publish or perish.

Two things you must do is networking--not where SEOs are but where
prospects are--and studying. Study sales and consulting. Put down the
Stephen King and pick-up the Peter Block.

I'll even let you in on a secret. Read The Little Red Book of Selling,
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1885167601. If you know your SEO consulting
history by the time you are half-way through the book you should be able
to recognize the tactics of one prominent SEO consultant who was an
unknown less than three years ago. (No, not me.)

I wish you the best.


--
Thomas M. Schmitz
SEOcritique.com

SEOcritique.com provides Internet Marketing and Search Engine
Optimization (SEO) expertise to businesses and industries that desire to
harvest the potential of this powerful platform.

Brian Chappell wrote:
> Do you find it hard to build up a solid reputation in the SEO
> industry? How exactly as an SEO freelancer do you convince clients
> that you are reputable and will produce results without doing two
> things:

Why would anyone enlist the services of someone that claimed to be
competent in their field if they couldn't achieve fantastic results for
their own site.

Results speak for them selves.

If you can inly get on the first page for obscure 3 or 4 word strings it
isn't going to get much respect from a prospective customer.

I have been approached over the years by countless individuals and
businesses claiming to be able to put me in the number one position for
any phrase of my choice.

Examples of what they classed as impressive results were things like

"david smith liousine hire dunstable"
(can't remember exacty but it was close)

And so it goes on.
As a prospective customer, if you can't give me anything beyond useless
why would I bother.

If SEO is too competitive an area then why not build a portfolio of mini
sites that appeal to a very wide section of the market then optimise
those sites to give cracking results.

Perhaps a site tailored around "mail order flowers" You should be able
to get better results for your own custom built sites than you could for
any clients site yet it would be much more impressive.

IMHO of course.

Pete

--
http://gymratz.co.uk - Best Gym Equipment & Bodybuilding Supplements UK.
http://fitness-equipment-uk.com - UK's No.1 Fitness Equipment Suppliers.
http://water-rower.co.uk - Worlds best prices on the Worlds best Rower.
http://trade-price-supplements.co.uk - Bulk Order Supps. at Trade Prices

On Tue, 06 Mar 2007 12:58:38 GMT, "Pet @ www.gymratz.co.uk ;¬)"
<unknown@unknown.gym> wrote:

>Brian Chappell wrote:
>> Do you find it hard to build up a solid reputation in the SEO
>> industry? How exactly as an SEO freelancer do you convince clients
>> that you are reputable and will produce results without doing two
>> things:
>
>Why would anyone enlist the services of someone that claimed to be
>competent in their field if they couldn't achieve fantastic results for
>their own site.

This is like suggesting that there's only ten good SEOs on the planet.
I suspect there's loads of entirely competent SEOs who you'll probably
never hear of.

>Results speak for them selves.

Actually, they say more about the first SEOs, not really the better
ones. If you got to the top by spamming like crazy some years ago,
once you'd got there your visibility would get you work and links,
genuine links, based on false premises and misunderstandings of the
kind you've just illustrated for us.

>If you can inly get on the first page for obscure 3 or 4 word strings it
>isn't going to get much respect from a prospective customer.

True, but irrelevant

BB
--

http://www.kruse.co.uk/internet-mark...l-business.htm
http://www.kruse.co.uk/google-mountain.htm
http://www.kruse.co.uk/seo-tips.htm

Pet @ www.gymratz.co.uk ;¬) wrote:

> If SEO is too competitive an area then why not build a portfolio of mini
> sites that appeal to a very wide section of the market then optimise
> those sites to give cracking results.
>
> Perhaps a site tailored around "mail order flowers" You should be able
> to get better results for your own custom built sites than you could for
> any clients site yet it would be much more impressive.

Just to correct my obvious error, I meant to say "if SEO is too
competitive a phrase of field with regards to positioning" blah blah blah...

Pete

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed Big Bill <bill@kruse.co.uk>
writing in news:decru2lcoumd4bsvrrl056dvv1mtuegpi9@4ax.com:

> On Tue, 06 Mar 2007 12:58:38 GMT, "Pet @ www.gymratz.co.uk ;¬)"
><unknown@unknown.gym> wrote:
>
>>Brian Chappell wrote:
>>> Do you find it hard to build up a solid reputation in the SEO
>>> industry? How exactly as an SEO freelancer do you convince clients
>>> that you are reputable and will produce results without doing two
>>> things:
>>
>>Why would anyone enlist the services of someone that claimed to be
>>competent in their field if they couldn't achieve fantastic results
for
>>their own site.
>
> This is like suggesting that there's only ten good SEOs on the planet.
> I suspect there's loads of entirely competent SEOs who you'll probably
> never hear of.

Good point, Bill. I acually have very good serps for my own site, and
all my clients. But, no one is breaking down my door mainly because I
am not agressive.

>
>>Results speak for them selves.
>
> Actually, they say more about the first SEOs, not really the better
> ones. If you got to the top by spamming like crazy some years ago,
> once you'd got there your visibility would get you work and links,
> genuine links, based on false premises and misunderstandings of the
> kind you've just illustrated for us.

All too true. I used to have arbpen.com, forgot to renew it, and is now
held hostage by some outfit in the UK - they want $4000.00 for it - all
because it had good ranking in Google, and that only because a lot of
sites (DMOZ and other directory sites) were linking to it. Ha ha! I've
managed to contact almost all of those sites and get them to link to the
new url.

>
>>If you can inly get on the first page for obscure 3 or 4 word strings
it
>>isn't going to get much respect from a prospective customer.
>
> True, but irrelevant
>
> BB



--
Adrienne Boswell at Home
Arbpen Web Site Design Services
http://www.cavalcade-of-coding.info
Please respond to the group so others can share

Great feedback so far. One last follow up. Do any of you have any
special certifications or awards that you use to instill security
with the client?