Affordable Economical Ethical
Website Search Engine Optimization

Seattle - Spokane, Washington State

Difference between SEO Consultant and Specialist?

When should I use a search engine optimization consultant?  If you or a staff member has experience in designing a website, but lack the extensive website optimization knowledge, a website optimization consultant will be worth their weight in gold to bring you up to speed.

If you are not a website designer, don't have the time, don't have a web designer on staff, or you don't have the resources to build your own website, then you want a search engine optimization specialist to develop your website.

If you don't intend to use the search engines for marketing and/or are going to put up a simple shopping cart, then you won't need a search engine optimization consultant or specialist.

What do we mean by affordable, economical, and ethical website optimization?

• Affordable, economical, or ethical search engine optimization are subjective terms.
• Affordable - we will stay within your budget, or refuse the project.
• Economical - means we specialize in small to medium businesses with economical rates.
• Ethical - not tricking or spamming the search engines.
• Ethical - important, guarantees are not possible, the search engine changing algorithms are out of our control and I know of no one claiming seo perfection. Think about it. Hundreds of seo specialists and only 30 top positions for a given keyphrase.

Affordable Website Optimization Consultation Fees

Search Engine Optimization Consultation Fees

You'll find search engine optimization consultant fees are wide spread from $350+ to as low as $75 per hour. Buyer beware at both ends, the normal spread of fees are $250 to $150. Usually this range is caused by the overhead of office and location, or working from home.

Most seo consultants pretty much agree that a small website of 5-7 pages will run about $4-5,000 if you provide most of the content, pictures and major graphics. It's simple, the more you provide, the less you will pay. This does not include shopping carts.

Another area to keep in mind and does cause misunderstands is what constitutes a webpage? The same as any letter size printed page on your computer printer, one page printed is one page of a document type webpage, so if you print the webpage and it is three printed pages long, then it really is three pages.

All phone search engine optimization consultations will usually be scheduled in advance and for a minimum of 10-30 minute intervals rounded up at the rates above.

Most website optimization consultants will require a retainer before they start. The minimum retainer is usually around $1000.00 and can go as high as any time frame you chose. Make sure any balance is carried forward to the next month, some do not. If you are not sure of your website optimization consultant, start with the lowest retainer. There isn't a maximum, however, try to set it up so it will cover the time frame you would like for the next payment, depending on your experience, and on the size and duration of the project. You'll be able to schedule consultations as soon as they have verified funds.

If your website optimization consultant is doing some of the work, request weekly or monthly project report that justify their time in each phase of the project, and a estimated projection for the next time period. They will charge you for their time for the report, but it is worth it in the long run. It's always the T that didn't get crossed or the i not doted that starts the problems between you and the seo consultant.

Your Knowledge Required for Training Consultations

Regarding website optimization consultations, you should have a basic understanding of website coding in HTML, basic javascripts, CSS, etc. Have and know how to use your web design, and photo and graphic software.

As far as guarantees, none should be implied regarding time or successful learning. Same as college. I've been teaching off and on for over 40 years, all of it intense stuff and I've never been able to predict the students end results.

The other part of a guarantee is how can anyone guarantee a result when they do not have access to the search engine algorithms and, for that matter, when they are going to change their algorithms. This should tell you, you will need to continuously monitor your website webpages using a traffic monitoring program, such as, Webtrends or Urchin. Either of these two programs will tell you where your best results are and where your problems are so you can take action to modify or update your webpages from time to time to hold or improve your position on the search engines.

Search engine optimization is fun, challenging and intense stuff. There isn't a better feeling than to hit a search engine grand slam, it's probably more fulfilling than winning the lotto, actually, winning the lotto might be easier than winning the search engine lotto.

Affordable Website Optimization Training

Learning Website Search Engine Optimization

This is where you build your optimized website and the consultant helps you navigate through the shoals.

The central part of a website running well over budget is changes, expanding the website and misunderstanding about the initial agreement or understanding what needs to be accomplished in the first phase. Here is where you need to layout a detailed plan, designed to expand, yet get the initial and most important part up and running first. And, DON'T FORGET, a page is not a webpage.

Staying within your budget and time constrains, is the most difficult part for either side. It has been my experience as we progress, our clients start adding more pages or changes, or didn't pickup on the fact that a page is a letter sized printed page, or the client becomes to busy to provide me with the content or good pictures I need.  I did make suggestions from time to time, some of these suggestions are added to the website development cost, with their approval, but later it may become an issue.

Before you start, get a general proposal for your approval.  If both stick to the proposal they usually have less problems and finish on time and budget.

A timely report from a seo web designer, consultant, or employee should be submitted according to your needs; weekly, bimonthly or monthly, and should includes the following in hours and costs:

• New pages created.
• Pictures & graphics created.
• General work completed.
• Comments and explanations.
• Webpages seo ready and uploaded.
• Projections for next report period.
• Requested information or whatever we may need from you.

Again, you can reduce your costs by learning, help research, provide pictures, graphics and content.  Eventually take over your own websites after it's finished.  All this can save money.  If you follow your website optimization specialist real close it'll be like using them as your seo consultant, indirectly teaching you what you need to know.

During the development of your seo website, it's best not to place it on the internet until it's completed. You can put it in a development folder on your website and use a robot.txt file to disallow the search engines robots access to your new webpages on the internet until it's ready, yet allow other access to it for comments and/or suggestions. This is important during construction, search engines don't like listing websites under construction and especially ranking them. However, by using the robot.txt file during construction, you'll also have access to you website to see how it actually looks on the internet and with different browsers.

The search engines like websites they find through links. If you chose to register your website with the search engines, it can take up to six months to be included in their database, and some actually charge.  In either case, it will take time before your website gets listed on the search engines.

There are other methods you can use, that can take as little as two days to six weeks if you exchange links with an established website, especially a friend, the time difference is controlled by the established time cycle that has be established for that website by the search engine. Mine seems to run between one to two weeks, depending on the search engine.

Basic overview of what you'll need to do.

• The first part is important, research your competition. Find actual used targeted and impulse keyphrases that related to your product or service, then start the layout of your website.
• Layout the website assigning two to three keywords and seo file names to each webpage and subdirectory.
• Designing the home webpage appearance, with easy navigation and check loading time for you outback potential consumers.
• Getting graphics, pictures, and general content for each page. Photo touch up, sizing and file sizing.
• Start placing all the above onto each page, editing, check spelling and flow of content.
• Write and place the benefit marketing copy including keyphrases, in the critical locations, and finish up with the descriptive general content.
• Finally, check all copy and correct placement of the keyphrases into the content and other places and make sure all links are working properly.

A well designed website must include website optimization, targeted keyphrases, killer marketing copy covering your service or product benefits, and general descriptive content around 250 to 350 words, company creditability, and product or service demand.  The number of visitors will depend on the number of webpages successfully positioned on the search engine. 

Bottom line, the search engine description of your website has to be strong enough to get your potential customer to click on your webpage, the marketing copy has to grab the interest and hold them on your webpage, the product or service is in demand, quality product and priced right.  It's a real challenge to win the search engine optimization lotto. The job of a search engine optimization specialist is to do this in a professional affordable, economical and ethical way.