Looking for some professional SEO help.

What you are asking for is a lot of research, a lot of work and a hell of a lot of unraveling!

If you had documentation of what should have been done and need an unbiased report to say "yes or no, this work has/hasn't been conducted" that makes life easier for the SEO consultant and cheaper for you!

When you say urgent.......how urgent??

Erm I think, it should take any competent person no longer than half a day at most. I'm a plumber and it only took me 5 minutes to recognize drivel, key word stuffing, gramatical errors and so forth. So I cannot for the life of me see what would need to be unravelled.
There must be a set standard of the way the work is carried out to comply with the major search engines most basic of guidelines. In other words good practice I know from past experience that I can telephone several seo companies one after the other, saying to them I'd like a quote to optomize my site, point them to one of my sites and they will all be saying that this, that and everything is wrong within a space of 60 seconds. I'm not even sure anymore as to whether seo work is a profession or just a bunch of have a go amateurs. Is there such a thing like a qualification for this type of work? And if so what is it? No offence meant or intended by the way

There are no formal qualifications in SEO in the UK so that's not really something you can rely on in court. Most people cant find flaws if they look hard enough even at the best of them.

You would be better off employing the skill of a lawyer who deals with contract law as it is only your contract that will be discussed and what was met or not met.

Don't forget, the court will look at what due dilligence you undertook that made you satisfied enough to place your order and then look at that shortcoming in relation to contract failure and what clauses and disclaimers that were reasonable, in your contract.

How do you see it being unbiased? ie what would make it biased?

Why is it urgernt by the way? Court dates are usually given well in advance.

Are you prepared o pay double time for such short notice? What's your budget for this?

This would be the man for you (not sure he would take it on) but would certainly carry some wait in court ( I have known him for years ) he has been on bbc etc

His personal site details

That is not what you asked for in your original post! Here you are talking about an ON-PAGE SEO website review..........2 totally different things.

You originally said you wanted an unbiased report on the standard of SEO work carried out..........the unravelling would be to go back to the site before they got their hands on it, on-page seo, links, articles, forums, social media submissions, recency, frequency, manual or software - I could go on!

Firstly I'd never pay double time, not knowing upfront what the single rate is
So if seo in the UK has no formal qualifications whatsoever then it is not a profession, it is a business that is based around guess work, trial and error, judgement and whatever else springs to mind. Am I correct in that surmise?
Would I be correct in expecting that a business that carries out seo work, would / should check the work that they have written in the cms and correct any gramatical errors, let alone making sure that all the drivel they write actually fits the content boxes? If I paid for linking strategies should I have expected this to be carried out? Or should I have just shrugged my shoulders and forgot about it? If I had paid them to carry out work by inserting my businesses on the Google free map listings, should I have expected this to have been done? Or should I not be bothered? If I wrote to them 3 days after they started work, to rectify clear mistakes that they had written, should I expect them to do this? Or should I just take it on the chin?
Just out of interest on this companies website, they claim to have clients which are UK blue chip companies, once I realised all was not well, I wrote to these companies and none of them had ever heard of or had work carried out by this seo company...

Hi Barney... you sound pretty mad!! I'm guessing you've paid out a wad and received shoddy service?
First of all let's all agree that there are cowboys in every trade and profession, ours and yours included BUT of course there are a multitude of good honest providers as I am sure are you (and us here too). SEO, done properly can give an incredible boost to a business. Done badly it can screw up the best of web sites, not done at all or only at half **** it will drain your wallet for no benefit.
Was there a solid contract with a detailed brief, listing requirements, time scales, and costs etc? If there was then I guess you should be able to demonstrate any failings easily enough. If you didn't have the foundation of a good contract and brief then it's going to be a "he said, no I didn't" head to head with probably no good outcome and a good deal of frustration.
My feeling is that you should consider what you've shelled out so far and if you head into legal action are you likely to recover your costs and retain your hairline? A lawyer is going to cost an arm and a leg and there are no guarantees of a succesful judgement. I suppose you could get advice, set out a letter of intent, listing your grievances and your expectation that wrongs be righted, money refunded or whatever it is you want to achieve and deliver it with the clear declaration of your intent to sue unless the situation is resolved within a reasonable time span. This may well be a bluff on your part but if it's done correctly and you have your facts right it may jolt the other party into action (good or bad remains to be seen).
I've no legal knowledge so this is just a quick thought processing ... what might I do in your situation? I've been through legal wrangles with non payers, theft of copyrighted materials, charlatans, and so on, luckily only rarely but I know that if you can't realistically gain anything, avoid the courts unless it's a simple straight forward County Court Judgement with minimal outlay.
As well as graphics I also operate a swift and anonymous knee-capping sideline if you'd like to book me in!!!
Good luck Barney, please don't tar everyone with the same sticky brush will you, there are some good people here who do SEO properly and will help you out with good advice if they can. cheers, Paul

I'm not sure that I do tar everyone with the same brush, I have another website that the work done was everything they said they were going to do and I am more than happy with it. However there is a principle of what should be expected over the standard of work. You would not expect an seo company to write a UK websites content in Spanish, even though that would not be written into a contract the client clearly would not expect it nor should he except it. I have given this company every opportunity to rectify their mistakes, which they have refused to do, I have asked them to show me exactly where the so called linking strategies are, I asked them 3 days after they started work to stop using references to CORGI but instead Gas Safe but they continued. If you asked my business to fit a new boiler for you, you would expect that the pipes and the electrics would also be connected, you would not expect us to unpack the boiler, fit 4 screws, hang it and invoice you.
As for the lawer I can tell you how much I am being charged which is around the

What you need to understand is that SEO is ONE aspect of digital/online marketing. In most marketing qualifications SEO is covered under these qualifications and therefore can called be a profession or the company/person conducting the SEO working a professional of that service.

However, many large companies these days don't employ professional marketers to conduct this work. Why? Because a professional marketer cost money, this cost has to be passed on to the clients through the charges for the service and clients are not willing to pay those higher charges...... It becomes a vicious circle!

If the company you employed have not carried out the work stated in the contract to a satisfactory standard (and this sounds to be the case) they have essentially broken this contract with you. Give them a deadline to rectify the issues.......I have found this has worked well with service providers in the past.......then its a case of court I am afraid.


You may find that these UK blue chip companies take some sort of legal action on this issue. Having worked in the corporate world for many years, I have seen this happen on numerous occasions.


I totally agree with you on this point! I am sick to the back teeth of cowboys in the my profession (online marketing), as I am sure you are in yours, but it won't be a simple process and won't remove all the not-so-professionals.