Advice with white hat SEO please

[Dibbler]

Hi guys/gels

I am pretty new to SEO but I've managed to secure a couple of (part-time) clients. One sells a product, the other a service. But both have the same goal - to generate more qualified phone calls with a view to increasing sales.

So with one I've done a few things, optimized many pages for certain related keywords, edited many title pages etc etc. and made the site look better. I've used Google Web Tools to prompt re-indexing. I seem to be getting some results e.g. our SERPS position for a very competitive key phrase has jumped from 150 to 42. But still we have little improvement in visitors/conversions.

I've started to post on facebook, tweet daily, blog twice weekly .... Not sure what to do now.

My thoughts are turning to backlinks. We appear to have many low quality, spammy ones that perhaps the previous SEO company generated. Is it worth disavowing them? What is a good strategy for generating high quality backlinks and in decent volumes? Guest blogging etc?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Is there some secret Voodoo to this or is it a case of perservering along the same lines I'm going?

Many thanks in advance

 

[Dollmaker]

There's a good video course here by Matthew Woodward about building backlinks. I'm getting ready myself to try his techniques.

If you do a search here for "how-rank-any-website-google-2-hour-video-tutorial-series" you should be able to find it.

You might of already seen it, I don't know but just in case you haven't.

 

[bubbaranks]

Depends on how competitive your niche is sometimes just one pair of hands isn't good enough tweeting daily in let's say the finance niche is like going to formula 1 with a skateboard, I suggest if you are climbing just keep doing what you're doing for a while, you won't really see a huge difference in traffic and conversions until you are on page 1, you may wake up in the morning on top spot that's just the way it goes, adding lots of good quality content in the long run will be far more beneficial than building backlinks, but if your site has already been abused with spam links sometimes it's just best to start fresh, It's like going out and getting drunk making a fool of yourself you might wake up in the morning and decide I will never do that again and you might not, but people remember you did it and so does Google best to have a clean slate from the beginning. Nope there is no voodoo just lot of time and effort and trial and error.

 

[evilclown]

Seems they are looking to increase calls, look into citations and local marketing.

 

[dennis727]

First of all, why would you take on clients if you're new to SEO???

I agree with Dollmaker, you might wanna take a look at Matthew's video series. Long series, but it's worth the watch. Here.

Also, you might wanna look into doing some legit "value adding" comments/posts/content. Again, Matthew has a video about this, and he uses a tool called BuzzBundle by SEO PowerSuite to "automate" this process.

 

[sidddd]

Just building backlinks, hoping to get more clicks isn't enough. Social sharing, especially if you have less or fake followers, is like talking to the wall -- it's useless!

As your client is looking go get phone calls, you must look into onpage optimization. Make it super-convincing!

Then build quality backlinks -- for a site targeting local audience, this is not even required. As someone mentioned here, look into citations, etc.

 

[ok888]

I would be piss to hand someone without any knowledge in SEO my money site

 

[litenup]

For any business, the quickest way to get calls and information out is to get set up with adwords and do PPC - pay per click
Any business who wants to get more clients quickly should have an advertising budget.
If you check around you can easily get $100 free adwords clicks.
But this also requires you do the right keyword research and monitor the accounts.
Also the landing pages need to be set up/optimized so that Google will give you a good click through rate.
Having the right budget means you can be on the first page of search results all day. And the phone number can be right in the ad. Often times people just call the number and don't bother clicking on the ad. (I'm speaking from experience)
And by no means try to start out being no1 in the listings. With a good well written ad you can stay on the side and move up as the others budgets run out.

Google will give you an rep to work with on the account and do work with them, you will get quickly educated.

Tip: Try to Set up the Google account in your name and only let out a minimum of info to them - the business. That way if you feel the biz tries screwing with you down the road you will have a least a little satisfaction and maybe even some negotiating power.

Keep working on the site, tell them you will get them on the first page eventually, but for right now...PPC

Good luck, I have been there and this is how you learn.

And don't forget Bing And Yahoo

 

[Dibbler]

Thanks for advice people, particularly bubbaranks, sidddd, litenup I was nor aware of that video, so thanks those who recommended. I don't understand the knockers, so to speak, after all I've got to start somewhere right? I have writing skills and enough web programming experience so why not?
Anyway, I think we're actually moving in the right direction - it's just one client getting a little jumpy. I think I need to continue optimising content, maybe consider the tiered backllinking - but the jury seems out on that ...
I have tried some Adwords campaigns but so far they don't seem to be converting, although perhaps our budget is too low to properly determine.
Lots of food for thought here - many thanks.

 

[bubbaranks]

I have tried some Adwords campaigns but so far they don't seem to be converting, although perhaps our budget is too low to properly determine.

There are ways to get PPC for free, Its harder than it used to be, but I don't think Bing require an initial spend, they just want a debit card, you can use pre paid debit cards, and pre paid debit cards are free and unlimited, this means lots of free Bing PPC, Same with facebook, don't take my word for this as I have not done this for a while, but I used to abuse this I got away with it for ages, at one point you could get thousands of adwords credits for free, just by using proxies and redirects, but I think Google now require 25$ and they give you $100 not sure if the pre-paid cards still work, they might have stopped it now. I am sure if you try hard enough we will be able to get these for FREE or very minimum at a fraction of the cost.

 

[Dibbler]

Thanks, yes was kind of neglecting Bing ...

 

[Getwhatchuwant]

I am a little concerned that you picked up clients without seo knowledge, on the other hand you obviously are a gifted salesman.

I did in ecmomm thread that might help even if they are not ecomm sites which will help you get an idea of the type of WH links I get and how I structure the site- http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackh...m-search-engine-optimization.html#post5156222

 

[Dibbler]

Thanks getwhatyouwant.

Why are you 'a little concerned' though? I certainly don't intend to rip off my clients, far from it. I simply want to glean as much free information as I can to do my best by them. I thought that was the ethos of this type of forum - to learn from your peers, experiment, give something back when you can. Anyway, I ramble. Thanks for the link I shall certainly read.