Newbie Looking For Some Advice/Guidance....

Hello, this is my first post so go easy on me.

I am currently in a program that helps people start their own online business from scratch. So far, I have designed my site and am still in the process of adding an extensive array of products daily. The site is live and ready for people to start buying stuff, yet I'm sorry to report I am saleless.

The program I am in offers some SEO guidance, but nothing too extensive. I think the extent of their offering is coming up with some solid keywords and then submitting my site to all of the search engines one time to get things started.

I have been contacted by futureranking.com and they want me to pay them $3500 up front and $80 a month for the following (silver package):

futureranking.com - under marketing

I want to know if I should use what I've already paid for and just try to "learn" things on my own, or should I pay a company like Future Ranking all of that money for them to do it for me? I know very little about SEO, but I am very good with technology and can pick up on things very quickly.

I would greatly appreciate any advice or suggestions that would help me get started. Please take a look at my site and let me know what you think as well:

hobbytraindepot.com

Thanks guys!

First off, welcome to SEOChat!

Now on to what you asked for. I've no personal experience with the company you're asking about, but from the marketing page you pointed out, it appears they're charging for free services (W3C Validation) and for services which have no benefit (ongoing search engine submission to "let the search engines know that you have made new updates", not to mention submitting to 1090 SEs in the first place). Something else that I found, though I have no way of validating, when I googled the company there were 3 different posts from people complaining about the services they received (the latest from March) on Page 1 of the SERPs.

The funniest thing I found on the site: on their Marketing Information page at the bottom, they talk about how "A lot of companies provide [SE] submission service and 90% of people who purchase this method alone see few or no results at all," yet they have this as one of their features on the pricing page. I know they are saying it doesn't help alone, but it still seems funny to me.

Whether or not you decide to use any SEO company, I'd suggest you spend some time reading posts on this forum first. If you understand the suggestions and techniques made here, you'd likely be better off doing your own SEO to save money and to be more involved in what happens on your site. If you think you aren't getting it or simply don't have the time and can afford the expense, you may be better off with a company.

From what I've read, I would be against Future Ranking.

Thanks a lot for the advice, Roa. I think I'll keep my $3500 and try to do everything on my own. Are there any beginner references you would recommend?

There are some free downloadable white pages out there that can help get you started, but there can be a lot that is no longer true with any static books. As much as SEO is constantly changing, the best references are the forums and information sites. Some examples are this one, Search Engine Watch, SE Roundtable, and Search Engine Land, in no particular order. I will say that there are alot of people who will cliam that "doing this is the best for your site" who have no way to backup a claim, so it is up to you do read as much as possible, filter out what you find to be untrue, and try out what you think will work and are able to do.