Recommend an SEO person

That's what we like an SEO guy who has some faith in his own abilities.
You are the first SEO bod to put his money where his mouth is.

I am currently scouting out SEO companies. I will be keeping a watchful eye on this pilot.

See now that's the kind of spirit! Finally, an SEO outfit with belief in their own abilities and is up for a challenge! I've done exactly the same on other forums, mainly when people were on a directory bashing crusade. Sign up and we'll compare our findings on the forum.

May not always go to plan, but proves you're approachable, have faith in your own services, and is a refreshing form of positive marketing, instead of the hundreds of "me good seo, page 1 google we get"

Okdokey, well if you're up for it, how about this forum, (www.mylocalforums.com) as it's had little to no SEO work

Hmm Keywords, How about one of these:
Business Forum, UK Business Forum, Networking Forum, Business Advice, Business Support, Business Networking

So are we game on? We could do an occasional update on this thread, I'm sure it will generate plenty of interest

Sure why not.

I am actually flying out to Dubai tonight but will be back on Sunday. I will give your site details to one of my guys and have him look at the keywords. I will then come back with some info on what we find and then we will start (early next week). If and when I can provide feedback I will post it for you all to see.

You just know this is going to blow up in my face!

Top man


Never, anyone brave enough to put themselves on the block deserves respect, regardless of the outcome, especially in the sometimes murky world of SEO.

Shall sticky this thread

Now that shows some brass! I am liking this chap/chapette!

Keep me updated Steve!

To put things into perspective with this free offer, are you going to state what you expect to achieve and by when?

Let me have a look at the keywords first. I tend not to make promises especially when it comes to SEO as a lot of what happens is out of our control. Obviously we know how to improve rankings but search engines (especially Google) are strange beasts. I guess the first objective would be to get the site on the 1st page for which ever keyword we decide to go with.

If I can't make a promise on how long it will take to get to a certain position I will leave it up to you all to make up your own mind or ask others if what we achieved was done in a reasonable time.

Think you have asked an almost impossible question here Sandra. You can't put a timescale on getting a keyword/phrase to a required position on Google.
a) you don't know what the hell Google might change
b) you don't know how many competitors are doing the same thing for the same keyword
c) you don't know how aggressive their SEO marketing is

Well I wasn't saying that he should state that his achievement would be Google page 1 or No. 1, etc., but just what he thinks he could reasonably achieve in a reasonable time so that we can measure what he plans to achieve by what he finally does achieve.

I think a lot of the issues come down to the SEO's that make promises. I'm on his side in that you cant make a statement of what position you can definitely ahcieve due to what Google might surprise us with, good or bad. But you cannot equally, leave it wide open and say you have no idea.

A lot of the issues lie around the promises in the time frame as much as anything, because its the legnth of time optimising for it (ie when paid monthly) that can take a long time and the customer is paying for it. So if a SEO states 6 months for a page 1 position and after 6 months they're still on page 2, well the SEO has got his money but the client is left without his goal being met and either has to keep paying (him or someone else) or leave it where it is and do nothing more.

Most decent SEO's can get a keyword to rank on page 1 (and no. 1) eventually, but for me what makes an SEO truly worth his salt (I mean expert SEO's) is those who can come close to what they aim to achieve.

I have yet to see any of the vocal SEO's on some forums take a good keyword and run a campaign and prove their ability having stated their aims first. ie I will get the website to Google Page 1 in 12 months for 'mykeyword' (assuming that 12 months is not for a walk in the park type of keyword of course!)

Just a little update:

One of my team had a look at the keywords that were suggested above and we have decided to work on the keywords 'UK Business Forum'. The main thinking behind this is that it is included in this sites meta tags already so we don't feel we have to suggest many on-site changes (this will make it easier for us and the site owner).

At the moment (4th November 2010) this site ranks on the 4th page of Google UK, position 37 for the search term 'UK Business Forum'. There does seem to be quite a bit of competition for this term but our aim is to get this site on to this 1st page of Google as soon as we can. I will let you guys know when it is there and you can discuss amongst yourselves whether we achieved it in a reasonable time or not (I think that is a fair way of doing it).

One of my guys might start doing a little work on this later today but to be honest I don't think much of anything will be done until Monday 8th November.