I think that they are useful, but I am biased because I am a SEO Consultant. However, we are not all created equal. I wrote a very short article on this that you can read here: http://www.mustainconsulting.com/docs/prs2007novdec.pdf
Basically, you need to research a SEO professional, just like you would for a marketing firm your company planned to use. Do they have experience? Who are some of their other clients? Do their services seem gimmicky? I wouldn't pay much attention to anyone that says they can solve all of your site's problems for 1 set fee. Each site, depending on size and competition, may take more or less work to optimize. While meta data and content are important, there are other factors that are involved. You can take care of a number of your site's problems on your own. The real talent of a SEO professional is letting them do the complex analysis of your site, the competitors you have in your market and what other things you could be doing to boost your site's "relevance" with search engines. I hope this helps you in making your decision, but remember, choose wisely. Even asking for a free basic analysis, where they tell you what the problem are, not necessarily how to fix them. Then, if you are satisfied with the analysis, you can pay them to put together a report of the "remedies". Keith On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 9:01 PM, Dannielle Chun <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hi Weberati, > > First, apologies to the list if this discussion has been had before, I'm > newish here. > > I'm interested in how you all feel about SEO experts? > > Me, I'm old fashion and tend to rely on meta tags to content ratios and > link exchange. Am I being naive? Or are the following types of promises more > valid than free tools like this one:- * > http://www.submitexpress.com/analyzer/ > * > "... let me undertake an SEO health check of your site. Just a quick look > at your site tells me immediately that it is not presently optimized for > search engine performance. A professional SEO report will ensure you change > the right things in the right way. > > The report will identify the best phrases to use to improve your organic > ranking and get maximum free traffic. Using specialist Search Engine > Optimisation tools I will identify the optimum keywords for your business. I > will document where your site currently ranks in the top 100 results for > each keyword and allocate a percentage difficulty to each of them and advise > you (objectively) on which words to integrate into your copy. > > I will ascertain your current link strength/popularity and advise how you > might improve that and provide detailed recommendations on HTML title > elements, meta tags, navigation structure, use of Flash, correct code > validation and much more. It is the best investment you can make before > changing anything on your website." > > > Thanks! > Dannielle > > ******************************************************************* > List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm > Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm > Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > ******************************************************************* -- Keith Steinacher Chief Bottle-Washer ******************************************************************* List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *******************************************************************
