If you're ready to cut to the chase, I'll tell you why I feel my services are superior and how I guarantee your satisfaction with them.
How we price our work has little to do with "sites," we use "units of work." We estimate "units of work" based upon the number of pages, keywords, and competition, estimate the time to perform the work and then propose a fixed price for that work. In addition, we have several fixed price packages and we can and do offer a price break for long-term projects and large sites.
Given this approach, the way in which we work is an important factor in evaluating us as SEO consultant. As a rule, we follow a proven and professional work methodology the essentials of which are as follows:
- Start with a small, fixed price project with concretely defined deliverables and a short timeframe. In order for us to be effective, we need to know one and another.
- Educating you, the client decision-maker, is a key because a certain level of understanding is required to use our expertise. Moreover, the marketing of your website is an activity which should be regarded as an ongoing program rather than a one-time project.
- We work in web media. Instead of using Word, we use a code validating hypertext editor and conform
to the highest HTML standard (HTML 4.01 Strict) so
that for us, hypertext writing and content organization is second nature.
Writing is a skill developed through practice, practice and more practice. By
the same token, the tens of thousands of pages of content produced by us in the
past 5 years is instantly available and accessible using a sophisticated
faceted classification scheme.
We use email extensively as well as collaborative workspaces (private webspaces) for data collection, drafts, reports, etc. Our use of email reduces the need for meetings, telephone calls and so on. In addition, it facilitates the documentation of work and it's sharing and re-use.
You would be amazed at the number of web "experts" who don't actually use the tools, techniques and procedures employed in producing websites. In other words, evaluate a potential SEO provider in part on whether it practices what it preaches and actually uses web technology within its business.
- We do not offer fixed price packaged
services except in the limited scope of two
services.
This kind of work is not sufficiently developed to turn into a self-serve or automated product instead of a personal service rendered within a professional practice.
We do provide a written proposal to a client prospect which sets out a fixed price, list of services provided, deliverables and schedule for which we need to know your requirements, opportunities and resources.
- Quality is more important than quantity in SEO because most
people use the major search engines and those require intensive and
sophisticated work in order to produce an acceptable ranking.
Since virtually everything that we do to improve a site's ranking will be known to anyone who knows how to obtain it form the website on which it is used, innovations tend to be short-lived. Intensive and sophisticated work cannot be replicated except through an expenditure of equivalent time and effort.
The guarantee
The most effective search engine optimization is an iterative or repeated set of procedures in which each iteration or cycle is 6 - 12 weeks in length. The length of the iteration is the time it takes to implement one or more techniques, wait for the key search engines to re-visit your site and to collect and analyze the search results.
In a nutshell, in a cycle, we analyze, implement, re-index and adjust. In order to optimize effectively, we need at least 2 and prefer 4 cycles. In a large and highly competitive market, 6 or more cycles are frequently necessary.
In order for this process to work, you have to understand how we will go about it and then see results at the end of each cycle that make sense to you in terms of the time and money spent. You do not have to commit to the whole process upfront and that is your guarantee of satisfaction.
If at any time, you feel that the cycles completed to date do not warrant continuing the process, you are entitled to either change the basis on which we are working or cancel any remaining work.
