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Question about ranking my business the right way vs the cheap way
Im in the process of starting up a business with a partner selling bespoke travel services in a niche market. We have the website created and are deciding on the seo and what route to take. I have some knowledge of it from a past ecommerce venture and from tons of googling and reading on the subject but am definitely not an expert in the area. We are based in the EU. If it matters, website is basically a contact us form for interest and our blog for onpage seo.
We know the right way is to use a marketing company that understands our niche (which we have already spoken to) and have them do the SEO. The company is based in Australia and we got a good feeling from them. We got a quote of about $1k a month for their basic seo package not counting google ad spend. Slow and steady wins the race, blog posts in industry specific places, the right back links from the right places and adhering to the google best practices of seo. Marketing company did state they do not have inhouse people but have a team internationally ie im guessing they outsource some of this with contractors. They have good reviews and im sure they will set us right.
We are prepared to spend the $1k a month but we are not made out of money. It is our biggest expense monthly.
The next option is a Pakistani guy I mostly trust and have used previously for a few shopify stores building the site and doing some backend stuff for me. He has a seo company in Pakistan and has preformed previously well but never tested with seo. He works fairly cheap and has always delivered. He claims his company can do it for $300 a month with great results. He claims he adheres to all of googles best practices etc but who knows.
Am I right to be concerned with the cheaper option? The marketing company outsources their labor too and im wondering how much of it is them taking my $1k and then just using their cheap outsourced labor from south east Asia and then pocketing the $700 vs me just going to the source.
Im sure the cheaper option will rank me but im concerned with it just being from shady PBNs that get shut down eventually and then my site gets a strike and my business gets tanked. What's the recourse for myself when this happens? Entire new brand and website and starting over with all new content or simply going to the more expensive option and asking them to repair what the cheap option broke?
We are not made out of money with this and the $700 I save could go towards quality guest blog content, paid back links, and other seo/ marketing stuff. My thought was if the cheaper option ranks us, we will get sales quicker which we can dump into better seo ie the correct option.
Any advice would help.
Thanks Reddit people
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1 Reply
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$300 for him is a great sum afaik. There is only one way to see whether he brings results or not. Which is by testing him. Or you can ask for his portfolio, his strategy and then share it here so we can see if he doing the right thing or not. If he is so sure he must have his own site or atleast client sites that he ranked previously.
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Lets work in partnership. We’ll handle the SEO / PPC, you manage the inventory and sales. We need % of profit. No risk for you. Dm if interested
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The difference between cheap and the “right” way is that the cheap way will only last for a short period of time. And could do long lasting harm.
The right way will cost more, will take more time to see results, but will last a lot longer.
Some say the cheap way is more expensive to your brand, though. Ultimately doing harm to your brand over the long run.
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From what you’ve described, the expensive option gives you peace of mind, especially if they’re well-reviewed and seem to understand your niche. But I totally get the appeal of saving money with the cheaper route, especially if you’ve had good experiences with the guy in Pakistan before.
One thing I’d consider is keeping a close eye on how you’re ranking no matter which route you go. Tools like keyword rank trackers can be super useful to see if you’re actually moving in the right direction or if something sketchy is going on with your SEO strategy. For example, I use something like SERPtag to check which keywords I’m ranking for and make sure any SEO work is really paying off, without being reliant on just trusting someone’s word.
Ultimately, if you go with the cheaper option, just be ready to pivot quickly if things seem off or if the results aren’t what you expected. Worst case, you lose a couple of months but have the data to back up your next steps. Good luck with the business
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I think in both scenarios the common factors seem to be trust and not SEO deliverables
I personally won’t work with agencies outsourcing their in-house project
Then as a client I have to depend on 2 vendors including the outsourcing team
Search marketers from Pakistan and Bangladesh, do charge low and mostly captivated the market using Fiverr and Upwork
There’s no harm in utilising services from these marketers
But again as mentioned by you it’s about results and deliverables which matters for each small businesses
From the both scenarios, if the SEO vendor is able to fulfill your sales requirements for your business
Then choose that one!
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Cheap way is short term. Right way is long term. You pick the pill.
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