Hiring Someone to Create a Website Any Opinions?

[Josh]

Yeah, but lots of "web guys" promote both design and seo. So you never know what someones "designer" is actually doing for them. But I do understand what your saying.

I couldn't agree with you more.

On the low end of the budget you'll have some folks doing wordpress sites which really do lend themselves towards SEO. If you build a site properly it can go a long way. Out of the gate for less than $500 you can have a basic wordpress site with the SEO laid out correctly and have a good start. There are a number of guys on this site (myself included) that are pretty good at this. John is probably the most available.

On the other hand, there are SEO professionals. I cut a check last week to an SEO professional that is helping me get my site a few levels beyond the next level. That was no small investment, but I believe is a guy that rubs elbows with the guys that do SEO for little companies like Macy's and JCPenny's.

A well designed website can be a businesses best asset. On the other hand, I would rather have an ugly looking website on page 1 than a beautiful site on page 100. To me, the SEO is worth 50 times the site design.

'Only part of that I would disagree with is the conversion. You can have a site at page 1 position 1 and still not convert.

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

I couldn't agree with you more.

On the low end of the budget you'll have some folks doing wordpress sites which really do lend themselves towards SEO. If you build a site properly it can go a long way. Out of the gate for less than $500 you can have a basic wordpress site with the SEO laid out correctly and have a good start. There are a number of guys on this site (myself included) that are pretty good at this. John is probably the most available.

On the other hand, there are SEO professionals. I cut a check last week to an SEO professional that is helping me get my site a few levels beyond the next level. That was no small investment, but I believe is a guy that rubs elbows with the guys that do SEO for little companies like Macy's and JCPenny's.


'Only part of that I would disagree with is the conversion. You can have a site at page 1 position 1 and still not convert.

Just my take but web design and "complete" SEO for under $500 isn't do-able. There's a difference between SEO ready and implementing a strategic SEO plan.

Some people are under the impression when they see an offering for a website and "SEO" for a few hundred bucks that their site will rank.

If your goal is SEO - and you're quite serious about it, I'd recommend researching and hiring a SEO company. No full-time web designer charging a few hundred bucks can implement a complete SEO plan.
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Can't you go to a website like fiverr and get some Chinese guy to do it for like fifty bucks?

What you can get done on fiverr is getting someone to install Wordpress and configure your theme.

 

[Josh]

Just my take but web design and "complete" SEO for under $500 isn't do-able. There's a difference between SEO ready and implementing a strategic SEO plan.

Some people are under the impression when they see an offering for a website and "SEO" for a few hundred bucks that their site will rank.

That's an excellent point I wasn't clear on.

At the $500 or so mark you can get your site coded properly so that the keywords on your site will be more visible to insurance agents. That would not include any keyword research, social shares, backlinking, etc.

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

That's an excellent point I wasn't clear on.

At the $500 or so mark you can get your site coded properly so that the keywords on your site will be more visible to insurance agents. That would not include any keyword research, social shares, backlinking, etc.

....more important is at that price point it's not going to contain the review/revision of original text.

 

[JohnWalker]

What.... Josh finally brought out the big boy check book for SEO and your endorsing other site platforms besides WP. What happened to you in your 2 month hiatus?

 

[Josh]

What.... Josh finally brought out the big boy check book for SEO and your endorsing other site platforms besides WP. What happened to you in your 2 month hiatus?

I'm not sure I follow the hiatus comment.

My business has outgrown my SEO abilities, particularly when I'm competing with companies that do over 700 million a year in revenue and have an adwords budget of nearly $10k/day.

WordPress is still great

 

[JohnWalker]

I'm not sure I follow the hiatus comment.

My business has outgrown my SEO abilities, particularly when I'm competing with companies that do over 700 million a year in revenue and have an adwords budget of nearly $10k/day.

WordPress is still great

I didn't see you around much so I assumed you were like me and got too busy for IF.

Just curious how much is this guy costing you and what is he doing? The reason I ask is after spending close to $40k on SEO in the last 8-10 months trying to compete with the million dollar ad companies like esurance and geico I've come to realize that while you can hire these guys that work with big companies to do great things, but its playing a game you just can't win. Most of the top reputable SEO companies have their heads up their ass, think they are worth more than they actually are, and play it so safe you have to invest corporate budgets with them to move the needle.

I'm sure you've covered your basis but my opinion from personal experience is to never hire an SEO company unless your goal is to replicate their process and cut them out. I'm currently going through an expansion of my own and my only point Josh is you'll be surprised at how much more you can actually accomplish in house when you figure out what these guys are actually charging you for and realize you can hire college interns to do better work for less.

And just for the record WP for insurance... i still think its not

 

[Josh]

I didn't see you around much so I assumed you were like me and got too busy for IF.

I've been pretty active just the same, just look at my post history

Just curious how much is this guy costing you and what is he doing?

I'm not going to get into that here

The reason I ask is after spending close to $40k on SEO in the last 8-10 months trying to compete with the million dollar ad companies like esurance and geico I've come to realize that while you can hire these guys that work with big companies to do great things, but its playing a game you just can't win.

Personal auto and home is a thin profit margin market for insurance agents. The carriers will always be giants and win those wars.

[/quote]
I'm sure you've covered your basis but my opinion from personal experience is to never hire an SEO company unless your goal is to replicate their process and cut them out. I'm currently going through an expansion of my own and my only point Josh is you'll be surprised at how much more you can actually accomplish in house when you figure out what these guys are actually charging you for and realize you can hire college interns to do better work for less.[/QUOTE]

What I'm working on now and what the SEO professional I've hired to do is on a different league than what you're referring too. What you're doing may very well work for you, but it's very different from the way that I'm improving my footprint on the web.

 

[JohnWalker]

I've been pretty active just the same, just look at my post history

its prolly just me then...

I'm not going to get into that here

fair enough

Personal auto and home is a thin profit margin market for insurance agents. The carriers will always be giants and win those wars.

I was more so referring to the fact that we both compete against large corporations for keyword space and I'm doing fairly well in the space. I was just trying to say that to compete effectively against these large budget companies, you have to use strategies they can't just throw money at you know. And trust personal auto has a higher profit margin than you think when you throw in $200 broker fees and non-standard premiums .

What I'm working on now and what the SEO professional I've hired to do is on a different league than what you're referring too. What you're doing may very well work for you, but it's very different from the way that I'm improving my footprint on the web.

hahah whos too say whos method is better? I was just trying to offer some perspective just having been in a similar sounding scenario. At its core, the web works the same for everyone... Lets be real here Josh a few months ago when I increased my ad budget to $30k this year alone I thought what I was doing was in a different league than everyone else on this forum. Then you realize thinking like that leaves you blind to the biggest players

 

[Josh]

hahah whos too say whos method is better? I was just trying to offer some perspective just having been in a similar sounding scenario. At its core, the web works the same for everyone... Lets be real here Josh a few months ago when I increased my ad budget to $30k this year alone I thought what I was doing was in a different league than everyone else on this forum. Then you realize thinking like that leaves you blind to the biggest players

"Let's be real here", by the way you've explained your marketing strategy (learn what the SEO guy is doing, fire the SEO guy, work with college interns, etc) what I'm doing is extremely different. I couldn't execute my internet marketing strategy that way. It's a fundamentally different approach.