SEO: Waste Of Time Now ?

You have places such as forums.digitalpoint, getafreelancer and etc. People from Indian are willing to work for cheap. Plus they are willing to lie to make $$$ and idiots are willing to pay. Example: Person A asked me if I'd submit their URL to 150 directories. I said sure for $24.99! They said too expensive and how they are looking for 1500 directories to submit to for a total price of $25.00! Sorry, but there are not that many directories esp. well writen ones and free.

SEO when translated to mean "good content attracts quality links and quality links help rankings" is hardly a waste of time. It's what search engine users want used to promote sites in search results.

Artificial link building, e.g. via directories, are intended to circumvent the "good content" element and this makes sites rank high even though they have nothing to offer visitors. That's not what search engine users want. Fortunately, paid links such as directories are now having a far less (if any) impact on a site's search results ranking.

You ask a question about SEO and reference buying junk directory links.

There is your issue.

SEO is not a waste of time.

Falling for dumb schemes like crap directory link buys... is a waste of time.

If you are looking to compete with people who can work for $2/hour - then it's largely a waste of time because you're targeting the wrong market. i.e. people who want to spend $5 for 500 directory submissions & no more.

The way to make money being a SEO is to establish yourself; setup a website and get bankable rankings yourself.

While you're working on improving your own website, offer to do free SEO work for others to use for a case study.

Once you've done that you can start out charging lower prices for SEO work while improving the rankings of your own website (in the SEO keyword industry it'll take a while) and better yourself in terms of the "how to's" of search optimization.

Once you've got undeniable proof in your hands that you know what you're doing and your services, in fact, have statistically proven to increase a websites rankings in worthwhile keyword markets, then you go after people who have money to spend on search optimization - specifically avoiding places like the digital point forums & freelance forums because you can't compete with the prices.

A good place to start is on eBay, while I don't think it's a place where you can land high-dollar optimization contracts, there are plenty of "middle of the road" gigs that you can grab. For instance, there are auctions for sitemap creation that sell for up to $50, you can sell optimization reports for $20+, directory submissions sell from time to time at anywhere from $70-$200 for 500 submissions. Taking advantage of this, especially if you are knowledgeable about effective search marketing, you can turn these one-time gigs into long-term optimization contracts of $30/hour or more. Again, not a high dollar contract, but $30/hour is an ok wage especially for an unestablished SEO.

Offering search optimization services is far from a waste of time, but before you do it you should:

1) be sure you know what you're doing.
2) target the right market.

I think, though, that you should focus on different markets cuz the prices on freelance sites & the like, as you have expierienced, are just too low.

don't mind me...I am just sticking around for the answers

Although directory links are the easiest way to get links, this method is very unhelpful. Most of these links are worthless and associate a website with poor quality websites. A few high-quality directories is advised (like BlogCatalog and JoeAnt).

Merely paying for submission of your website to "150 directories" for a fee assumes that those 150 directories are in fact, relevant and major [search] directories. In America, we have only three major search engine contenders and they are listed below:

1. Google.com
2. Yahoo.com
3. MSN.com

In your country, there may very well not be such a set of major search engines -- like those listed above -- operating at this time. So if you are operating on a limited budget, publish your website on freebie search directories.

The following article may prove helpful to you in streamlining your SEO metatags in order to attract more Net traffic by higher search engine placement. This process should be completed prior to publishing your website on any search directory.

The most effective way to advertise on the Internet is
to first set up a website and publish its domain name
on major search directories such as Google.com,
Yahoo.com [at http://www.google.com/addurl/?...... and
MSN.com since 85% of Internet shoppers rely on these
search directories to provide them with goods and
services. In a sense, these search directories are a
very large Internet Yellow Pages.

Nevertheless, should your website or opening webpage
fail to contain "generic" keywords, then anyone using
such "generic" queries will not be able to discover
your website. Your domain name [URL] of your website,
in a sense, will be invisible, undiscoverable.

You may want to consider some simple algorithms which,
when observed and committed in designing of a website
with placement of various critical metatags that can
surely achieve a high search engine presence and
increase Internet traffic to your website. These
metatag strategies work well with published webpages
at Google and Yahoo.

Design: Should you create an extensive Flash-based
website, make sure to fill-in the property entries
such as the Title, Description and Keywords. Failing
to do so, leaves no hard HTML or ALT resource that can
be readily indexed by search robots. Also consider the
Internet audience and their incoming setup. For
example, if they are on analog/dialup, Flash webpages
take too long to load up and therefore analog users
will likely lose interest and discontinue entering the
Flash site. On the other hand, anyone on hi-speed DSL
lines, will welcome Flash pages which load quickly. So
before designing a pure Flash websitge, ask the simple
question, "Who's my end user - is he on dialup or
DSL?" And if you had to choose between these two users
for maximum marketability, then select analog users
since 80% of most resident users are still analog
Internet subscribers and pure HTML designed webpages
is best for them.

A non-Flash-based website which relies on hard text,
is far easier to be indexed by search robots. Limit
the use of stylized text saved as .gifs since as a
graphic, they are not indexable by search robots.

Avoid use of frames since any number of search robots
are unable to properly classify textual material.

Placement of Metatags:

A ranking or search order does take place with Google
and Yahoo and it begins with the "Title" metag which
should consist of no more than 60 characters separated
by commas. The "Title" should describe in generic terms, the goods and services, followed by a location from which the resource is located, i.e., city, state. The placement of a domain name which is not generic within the "Title" is not appropriate, unless your
domain name is a major recognizable brand name.

The second metatag is the "Description" which is
usually up to 41 words to form a complete paragraph which
best describes one's goods and services. It is not merely a list.

And the very last category - "Keywords" are also
somewhat limited to 15 words which can be plural
and compound in nature. Again, avoid multiple entries
which could be mistaken as "spamdexed entries" which
is defined as the loading, and submission of
repetitive words into a particular metatag category.
"Spamdexing" when discovered on a webpage and reported
to Google's spamreport.com can result in the
elimination of your website from their search
directory.

Here's an example of a very highly-placed website on
Google.com: Begin with the very "generic" search query
"sandwiches downtown los angeles," taking note to not
abbreviate Los Angeles to "LA" and of course, leave
out the parentheses ("). It will bring up some 2.4
million+ search results. Check out where "Nazos.net"
is ranked. It's on the SECOND FRONT [ranked 15]!
Again, Nazos.net's high web presence was achieved by
proper web design and placement of relevant metatags
according to Google's publication guidelines.

Good luck!

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