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Well spotted Indizine. The site is now bouncing between 6th and 7th Position.

In all honesty I did expect it to take a bit longer to reach the 1st page.

In our initial research we determine how difficult a keyword would be to rank on the 1st page based on the strength of the competition (we take many factors into account).

The cost for the work we have carried out for mylocalforums.com would have been a one off payment and in the region of about

Hi Scootek.

Do you mean you know someone else who rents out sites like this? It is quite popular at the moment as it is usually cheaper than traditional SEO on your site and gives you the opportunity of having more than one position on the first page (as you could have your official site and the 'Portal site' both ranking).

Not sure how many we have rented out so far but from the top of my head I would say roughly 20, probably slightly more.

Do you know anyone that would be able to make the calls and sell these for us? It's hard finding someone that you know will be able to do the job well.

UPDATE:

Morning Guys,

Just a quick update to let you know that mylocalforums.com moved up 2 places today and can be found on the first page (Position 8) for the keyword 'UK Business Forum'.

We have done no work on this site since Saturday so it is the work we have previously done being picked up and noted by Google.

At the moment we don't have any printing sites but it would not be a problem for us to create one for you (we choose the URL name), put your details on it and only start charging you once the site is on page one for an agreed keyword. We then ensure that it stays there (our aim is to actually get it to the top of the 1st page as this is where the high traffic numbers come from).

We usually already have the site ranking, but as you can appreciate there are many niches and many areas across the UK so we can't cover them all. We usually pick one keyword that gets a decent number of searches each month (something like Plumber Halifax, Dentist Chiswick, Solicitor Brixton, Printer in Croydon etc) and have that site ranking before we approach any potential clients in that area. However, we have had people approach us and ask for one to be made specifically. In these cases we only charge once we get the site on page 1 and you get the benefit of having your details out there on the Internet in the mean time. As these sites are only being rented to the client, once they stop being a client we remove their details, pictures, information and look to hire that site to someone else. However, while you are a client we will not work with anyone else from your area who competes in the same niche.

Until we have a sales team in place we are keeping the prices low. At the moment, one of these 'Portal Sites' will cost

Nice thread guys.

IMO free directories can not hurt your business so if you have the time to submit to some of them then why not?

If you are using them to generate a load of traffic to your sites then the free versions probably won't do such a great job at this. However, directory submissions can have a massive effect on Google Local Listings (Google places/Maps) if done correctly. We tend to use directory submissions as a way of helping get our clients in the map listings rather than to generate traffic (though any traffic gained from it is most welcome!!).

Here is a small list of free directories which won't hurt submitting to:

Hot Frog - Your UK Business Directory

MerchantCircle.com | Find new customers.

B2B advertising to promote your online business visibility!

https://www.touchtarget.com/product/home


Also, try typing into Google the name of the area you are located in and 'Local Directory'. For example, 'Watford Local Directory'. This should help your site a little when people do local searches, for example, 'Watford Plumber'.

Update:

GOOD NEWS!

Mylocalforums.com can now be found on page 1 (10th position Google.co.uk and 9th position Google.com) for the keyword 'UK Business Forum'.

As the site has only just got to the first page this could be a false dawn and it may slip back down over the next few days. I'll keep an eye on it over the next week or so and give another update when something new happens.

We will try and push the site further up the first page and see how we get on over the next couple of weeks.

Hi Garlex,

As mentioned in previous posts I will leave it up to the forum members to decide if what we have done was done in a reasonable time.

I am confident that we will have this site on the 1st page before 90 (hopefully well before 90 days). Once we get there I will give my thoughts on whether I think we achieved it quickly or not and the rest of you can have a discussion.

Please note there are many SEO companies out there that will say they can get your site to ??? spot within ??? days. A lot of these use very dubious blackhat methods so be careful. Yes they may get your site to the 1st page quickly for difficult keywords but the manner in which they achieve this may do a lot of long term damage to your site and is not worth the risk.

Slow and steady wins the race!

Quick Update:

It's been just over a week and initially we saw a big jump in a few days as the site went from page four (37th position) up to near the top of page two. As i mentioned i didn't think the site would budge for a while and might even drop a few places, which has been the case.

As of today the site is still on page 2, position 15. (it had dropped down to position 16 but has come back up 1 spot).

I hope so.

When you are ready to talk just send us an email via the contact page on our site. Try and provide as much information as you can and also mention that you are garlex from mylocalforums.

Hi garlex,

You are right we don't have a page rank. Our site is brand new and we have not done any SEO work on it what so ever (and I mean what so ever). We get most of our work from referrals and word of mouth. Our site is used mainly as a tool to let potential customers read up on what we do in their own time.

I would not base anything on the fact that we (or anyone else for that matter) has any page rank. I hope this thread will act as an endorsement for what we can do.