I need the best SEO guy out there to help...

I'll be taking a management position with a major poker company in the next couple weeks. One area I will focus on is online operations.

I need the best SEO guy out there. This person needs to have a proven resume. I want to see where they have competed in highly competitive keywords and gotten sites in the top 3 of google. Obviously no blackhat and DO NOT get the site banned from google.

This could be a significant contract for someone. Please don't reply unless you are truly a top SEO expert. All references and prior work will be checked.

It would help if this was in the correct forum: SEO Professionals. Maybe a mod can move it. Good luck in your new position... it is a super competitive neighborhood.

Posting on a forum like this for a seo especially for a category as competitive as yours is like going to Florida looking for snow. They have never seen a snow flake (okay j/k)

But the people who reply here do not have experiance. If you are serious about taking a mountain of traffic you need a REAL SEO. We have them here but they never(hardly ever - almost never) take jobs this way. Search google for 'seo' or some very competitive seo phrase. If they can get themselves that phrase and have references to back them that is the route to go. Sure these guys are expensive.
But again if your not serious and are looking for cheap take one of the guys that is bound to reply asking for your job. Some of these guys are even smart(not really) enough to create fake reports to force you to pay them for work they never did.

YOUR BEST BET! Take a look through the forum. Find a few simple ways to start the work of indexing the site yourself(some seo will charge just for this process.) - That way when you do/if you do hire a seo and he/she tells you some off the wall story you can can them. Also if you get to know the people on the forum that actually answer the questions and know what they are doing you could contact them yourself. I am more apt to accept the same client if he/she contacts me rather than me seeing their ad.

Good luck!

thanks visio. I'm just trying to approach all avenues for a SEO expert. Our company has several highly technical web people on staff, but they do not have the time needed for this and we do not want to hire someone fulltime. I'd like to take someone on a contract basis.

I'm not necessarily looking for someone to reply to this thread saying they can do it, I really like someone to say "xxxx is the best dude out there".

I wouldn't be just hiring some guy over the internet either. This would involve phone calls and a face to face meeting.

I'm in a major US city, so I could just get out the phone book to find someone if I really needed to, but I'm looking for something bigger than that.

Our site is already ranked pretty highly for certaing "poker" words, but I'm looking for the biggest badass SEO guy I can find.

This is a multimillion dollar company, so for the right guy, price won't be an issue, but I won't be handing anyone a big check until I see the results. The contract with be monthly, with large bonuses for certain goals.

I would probably look further into taking you on but for two reasons. I don't believe in gambling and won't seo any gambling/poker related sites. And 2ndly I got way too much going as it is.
You could try 1st-page.com - They are expensive and are pretty good. they don't(last time I checked) work based on keyword but on a broad promotion scheme which works to gain you a bunch of different rankings not just one big one.
You are talking hundreds of thousands of dollars and up for the kind of high-scale operation your talking. And believe me THE BEST Seo will never work on your site. The top seo work for major MAJOR companies or for themselves.

If you try a freelancer site the only one I have found to have real seo on is Guro.com - The money goes through guru so you don't get ripped off. You can see the references of each if the bidders on your project as well. It seems to work well.
You could try that route. But remember even for a reasonable amount of money thios project won't be easy and only the ELITE seo or the con-seo will bid. So be careful and explain that you will work with the seo. Alot of times that is a problem. Read the Agreement before signing as well. They can rip you off if you don't read it.

There are only 2 guys I would pay good money to opimize my websites and those are:

Jim Boykin (webuildpages.com)
Jerry West (webmarketingnow.com)

Probably the best SEOs in the biz.

Brad

Thanks for the response guys. I'll look into those names.

Zoro - as for "major" companies, i'm not sure the size you're talking about, but as far as the poker business, only the big sites like pokerstars, ultimate bet, etc are bigger than the company I'm talking about. The search engine side of the business hasn't been fully explored yet. If it was $100,000, a check for $100,000 could be written tomorrow.

Again, we're just exploring all avenues to find the one of the top guys out there. You are correct, the major companies like bodog (one of our biggest alliances) and others have these guys on fulltime staff. They may be what we end up doing.

I good seo that could actually do this might charge a big amount and then a commission. I am not sure as I have never gotten into a project this highscale. I never would - If I was going to attempt a topic with this much competition and money I woud do it myself and make the big bucks.

I am sorry that I cannot really offer you any assistance in finding a exact SEO which I can say is really really good. But I would try the guru.com place if I where you. I saw a SEO on there do a similiar project a while ago. Good luck!

Fulltime may be the way to go as hiring mass amounts of people to work around the clock for you will get you up there eventually. I've personally always wanted to work on a poker site myself as I am a poker enthusiast (I even run a free poker night at a local bar) however, whenever I give a quote for a poker site based on the obvious keywords they are looking for they tend to take their business elsewhere as they find the price too high. This is not a self-advertising post but I do wish someone would pay me to optimize a gambling site one of these days.

Go for a reputible company that will take on poker sites. The will charge more than 100 000 though. Due diligence needs to take place and you're likely not going to find a good sizable firm here (i could be wrong)

Yeah I agree. It is unlikely yo uwould find one here. I do think that there are a few here that could do it but don't think they would accept your project.

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Contra-world

I thought raynoch had mentioned one-on-one face to face, how do you plan to do that from Dubai?