Is this good offer from a SEO Freelancer

I have an offer of the following from a SEO Freelancer.

1. Keywords analysis - 100$ per site. Timeline 5-7 days.
2 On page SEO ( up to 20 pages ) - 150$ per site. Timeline 5-7 days.
3. Free directories submissions - 500 directories for 100$. Timeline 7-10 days.
4. Free articles submissions - 1 article submitted to 200 sites for 120$(with your article) or 130$(with our article). Timeline 5-7 days for submissions & 10-15 days for the checking.
5. Full SEO course - covering keywords/competitors analysis, on page SEO and off page SEO for 300$. Timeline 5-7 days.

And here is the details he gave

Details :

1. Getting the best keys is vital for a succesfull SEO campaign( if not you will either end up in tops but get no clicks or it will take ages untill you get in tops for high-competition keys). So this is what I will do. Get you the best keys ( the most clicks per day with the lowest competition ) by checking several factors. 2-3 main keys and 2-3 secondary keys.

2. On page SEO is related to the things changed DIRECTLY on your site. It covers the text,titles,metatags,images, sitemaps,internal structure,internal linking and more. If you are serious about your site and it's optimization... then you really have to take care of the on page SEO.

3. Manual submission to the proper category/subcategory to 500 free directories. 3 keywords used as anchors rotated at 175, 175 and last 150 submissions. You will have to give me an email address from the site domain you want submitted so I can confirm the submissions that require such a thing. In the end of the submission campaign you will get an excell sheet with all the directories that have been submitted, the category/subcategory for each one and what anchors have been used. Also remember this is the best offer you can get ( 0.2 per submission... every where else it costs from 0.5 up ). PR of the dirs goes from 0 to 5-6. During the submission if ANY of the 500 directories rejects the link we will replace it with another submission. ( and also one week after the submissions have ended )

4. Articles are a great source of getting clicks & links. Doing that by yourself will take a lot of time and it will be quite boring. Why ? Because articles sites need registration first before submitting. So you will have to register then submit, then again register then again submit and so on. We can do it cheap, fast and good. You will give me the details ( including the article ) and we will take it from there. They will increase not only the link popularity of your site but also your site popularity. At least 50% from the sites will accept&post your article in the first 10-15 days and you will have all of them in the excell sheet. FLASH NEWS : lately 140-150 from the 200 sites accepted and listed the articles in this initial period.

5. You might know SEO is the best thing a smart webmaster can do from lots of reasons but the 2 most important ones are : 1.you can SEO all your sites WITHOUT HAVING TO PAY any single cent 2.if you decide to hire someone else to do the SEO for you,you will know EXACTLY what to expect from him/her,what to ask for and how much to pay so nobody can trick you(because believe me there are a lot of scams trying to ripp you off out there).

So here is the deal (and the best one you can get in here or on internet as far as I know). I can teach you all the SEO you need in order to hit the tops. If you want to hit them and stay in there you will need both on page and off page seo. The on page seo course costs 150$ and includes : keywords analysis,competitors analysis,hosting and domain name,301 redirect(how to do it and how can it help you out),page names,pages,title,metatag description,metatag keys, images,sitemap,static versus dynamic pages,javascript and CSS,sandbox,text,do not do things,usefull things,general info,legal white seo tricks. The off page seo course costs 150$ and includes : type of links,link popularity,page rank,network sitemap,alexa ranking,internal linking,articles(how to write, how to SEO, where to submit, how to submit),directories,reciprocal links,doorway pages,things to check for when getting links from a site,general links info,blogs & forums,blogs & forums network,3 way linking,class C checker,SEO scams
tricks(what to avoid),how to hire a person to do SEO for you(things to look after),legal off page seo tricks. The full course (on page + off page) will take some 5-10 days to be finished. It will come along with real examples you get to choose and a lot of SEO tools (all the ones I use better said). I will teach you all the things I know and have been tested with good results by me over the last 3+ years. You will need an instant messenger like Yahoo or MSN so we can talk online daily ( or at least at 2 days ).

6. Additional services that you can buy ( these are special packages and will be discussed in details if you choose to buy them ) :

- competitors analysis - find out what your competitors are doing and how they optimized their site
- PPC keywords analysis - find out the best keys for your PPC campaign and minimize your PPC spendings.

All in all, if you are interested in top quality for low prices please let me know. Also if you have any questions I'll gladly answer them all.


Please Advice

ANd what Questions shall i ask, which tells me he isnt doing such things which could penalize my site.

Have him provide sites he has done in the past, call the owners. Ask him why he thinks "meta keys" are important - any answer other than they are not offer him a referral to this site but charge him $200 for the information.

sorry...please see below for complete response

A good SEO specialist will have no problems in telling you which SEO techniques will apply on your website. Erase from your list those that want to make you think that SEO is some sort of voodoo magic, something you shouldn't try to understand. Here are 10 questions for your prospective SEO specialists:
1. How do you plan to raise my site's rankings?
2. What SEO techniques do you employ?
3. How long will it take to see the improvements?
4. Why should I preffer you over other SEO experts?
5. What do you offer for the money you charge?
6. Which are your previous successful SEO projects?
7. What kind of SEO reports do you submit to me and how often?
8. Is there a limit for the number of keyphrases you optimize my site for?
9. Do you optimize my pages for popular keywords?
10. Should I expect traffic on my site after ranking improvement?

As answers, it is OK for you to hear words like:meta tag and alt tag editing, content development, SEO copywriting, link popularity building, natural search engine optimization, ROI (Return of Investment) prediction, website conversion enhancement, anti-spam methods, monthly reports, design, development, programming, marketing, link development, popular keywords.

It is NOT OK to hear words like (bad words have dots between the letters): fast results, guaranteed top placement, number 1 in Google, s.p.a.m, keyword s.t.u.f.f.i.n.g, d.o.o.r.w.a.y pages, c.l.o.a.k.i.n.g, hidden text / keywords, h.a.l.l.w.a.y pages, dynamic content, s.c.r.a.p.i.n.g, b.a.i.t -and- s.w.i.t.c.h.

Words and promises are just that... words and promises. If you are ignorant of SEO, your best bet is to:

1. Have a good gut feel about the program proposed and the people you are speaking with.

2. Check references.

3. Check references.

Put some importance on #1... but focus on #2 and #3.

Bottomline: Promises come cheap... references, if you truly check enough of them, will give you a comfort factor and be your only real way of assessing how good they may or may not be.

This is what he answered for the below questions.
Advice whats your view.

1. with the services I listed above. Don't know how much they will impact your rankings but they represent the things that any mainstream site should do it it's serious about SEO.

2. white hat only

3. results will be see in some weeks-months ( like the links from the submissions coming up ). Remember I don't do full SEO campaigns so I cannot guarantee rankings.

4. Depends on what you want. If you want someone to do it from bottom to top then I am not the right person... because I lack of the time needed to do that. If you want someone to put you on the right track with the site and give you quality suggestions upon what to do from there on, then I am the one.

5. the services listed above

6. all my previous services were "succesfull" as they were done exactly as agreed. I got quality keys for my clients, helped them optimize their sites, gave them manual submissions and quality services.

7. depends on the services you take

8. yes, 3 main ones and 3 secondary ones

9. I optimize your pages ( or you optimize them if they are dynamic as I don't work with dynamic sites, I just write the on page SEO report for them and review them in the end to make sure everything is allright ) for the keywords found during the keywords analysis process

10. I cannot tell this. You will get some traffic after the submissions. But don't imagine you will get the world.

That's it. Hope I answered all your questions .

He sounds pretty realistic -- not promising the world, just stating the facts of the tasks he will be performing.

As he stated, you wouldn't be paying for a full-blown SEO campaign designed to get you to the top. Depending on how competitive your keywords are, his processes will be beneficial, but no guarantees.

Personally, I like his approach. The costs seem realistic for the time spent. But again, the main thing is references. Find out who he has done this for in the past and see if it worked for them. If they are in competitive keywords, his service will not pop them into the top spot, but they are all good places to start if his skills are decent.

I might try to negotiate the prices down a bit, especially if he says he only has a handful of past clients. This can be an opportunity to help him get reputation and references in exhange for a discount.

Look at the price. Do you think that anyone can do a good job for that price?

Does that mean you can't do a good job for free if it were your own site?

I am just curious because maybe he is just getting started with his business and is trying to build up a base clientelle to build as references.

There are always exceptions to all rules. In this case you may only get 1-3 references and an up-front statement that he/she had done very little SEO for others. Possibly due to lack of experience, although good, their SEO services may be gotten under the going rate.

There is always a flip side also. For example, neither Egol or I have done any SEO work for anyone else. From us, if asked, you would get zero references from prior clients. Would that mean we would charge less than the average pro if we decided to take on clients? See... it can go both ways. There are always exceptions.

My time is valuable. I am the some of the most expensive labor that goes into my sites.

If your sites are a hobby or you are in learning mode then there is nothing wrong with placing a different value on your time.

The price is so low that it will damage credibility in the eyes of many. Others might see it as a bargain but anyone who recognizes how much work a good job will require will probably not enlist these services.

Hmm basically looks to me as though this guy is going to teach you seo, well atleast that is what the attempt is at, whether he actually knows enough seo to help you is debatable.

In other words if you got the time and even if you don't think you do I think I can prove otherwise... do it yourself. Spend alot of time here at SeoChat forums reading, read Rand Fiskins blog at seomoz.org as well. Read, implement, think, and repeat.





After reading that I can guarantee you he has less experiance than many newbies that come here for help. As EGOL pointed out: For the money how much can you actually expect to happen? Don't put $300 down and expect to get a Ferrari.

when it comes to SEO i think it is always better to use these forums and learn it yourself coz good SEOs are definitely costly, even if they are freelancers.

As EGOL pointed out that the rates are too low, that is definitely a key point that leads to doubt on the persons experience or credibility. While I am considering the fact that there are good SEOs in countries like India who would definitely do a great job at cheaper rates compared to the same quality people in the US or Uk, I would still say an experienced SEO with proven success records would not do so much for so little.

If at all you want to appoint a SEO, be ready to spend atleast around $12-$15/hour and the rate would probably be much higher if you want to hire some one from US or UK.

hi rishi .. is that around the going rate in India? Just interested...

It actually depends on whom you are working with...people here offer crazy rates at times but then you know when you pay peanuts you get monkeys, lol !

Good SEO companies would probably charge around $20/hour or above, freelancers are relatively cheap. I personally charge around $15-$20/hour for my freelance projects but for some of my regular clients at times I go a bit lower but never less than $12/hour. I am pretty much selective in picking clients and not really dependent on these jobs (I have a day job too ) so I can afford to stick to these rates but you will probably find SEO service for $10/hour also.