Is it worth paying for Search Engine Optimization?

[db_uk]

Hi,

Really simple question, I have spent time building and designing my website and now want it to be looked at/ work for me.

I am considering testing the waters with a cheap investment of £15 to a company on ebay to do a load of backlinks etc.

Would like to know what other people have done etc, and if this stuff works or if its all about big budget big response? Also find it strange there is know SEO section on the forum, is this not big business / important to website production?

Many thanks and hope I don't sound stupid. I was taught html but nothing to do with SEO.

[bcarl314]

£15 to a company to post a ton of backlinks is probably a sure-fire way to get your site blacklisted in google.

Real SEO, is expensive, but just like any other marketing strategy, you need to balance expense with revenue. I've seen some companies dump hundreds of thousands into SEO to increase sales 1 or 2 %. In my opinion (and if you keep up with google, it's pretty much their mantra) it's best to build for your users first. If you're site is easy to use, has good content, and your users like it, so will SEs.

That said, there are a few things you can do to help improve your SEO performance:

1) Watch your content to code ratio - use Semantic HTML
2) Don't keyword spam.
3) Make sure each page on your site has unique content, a unique title, meta description, and h1 tag.
4) Ask for links from sites that are relevant to your business. A wedding planner shouldn't ask for a link from a lawnmower company website and vice-versa.
5) Don't get hung up on irrelevant metrics like PR, Alexa rank, etc.

[db_uk]

Wow, thank you.

It does seem like there is a dark art to getting a good reputation / SEO performance?

Surely this is not healthy for websites for the mass?