How to control an SEO specialist?

Question

Search Engine Optimization

Good evening!
I need advice on the following issue: there is a site with a gift theme, made on the Shop Script engine, there are about 500 items. We found an SEO specialist who, for $350 a month, promised to bring them to the top for all queries within a year. Recently I contacted another person who said that buying links is dangerous now, and that for SEO you just need to buy a plugin and write a title in the style of Buy {product_name} in the online store {such-and-such}.
Two questions follow from this:
1. Which of the two specialists is more competent - the one who says that you can promote sites without buying links (according to him, the site goes to the top in 2-3 months if there are unique descriptions and the title is correctly formulated), or the second, which now charges $350 a month.
2. Does optimization really take that much time and that much money? The theme is excellently laid out, there are no errors, the structured markup is in order.
3. How to control an SEO specialist? How to understand that he does not "pull rubber", but works? What reports to require, how often, and what should be in them (number of purchased links, their price, etc.)?
4. What are the real terms for bringing the site to the top with a budget of $350 per month?

Answer 1

Good afternoon!
Yes, the mass purchase of links is now dangerous (Yandex, for example, has the "Minusinsk" algorithm). But only VERY massive and for a fairly serious, well-known (even if niche) resource. By buying links, you most likely will not make a serious promotion in natural search results (especially for highly competitive queries).
Simply setting meta tags (including title) is a necessary action, but not sufficient. Ideally, you need to take seriously the quality of the HTML code on the site, including the fact that it satisfies SEO needs.
Now a very important role is played by content (quality, uniqueness, volume, frequency of updating and adding information to the site) and behavioral factors (starting from the convenience of using the site, ending with its interest for the visitor) and many other factors.
Promotion of each specific project is, as they say, "a separate song".
For your specific questions:
1) both specialists issue a partial solution. I would not stop at just one option, or just the other.
2) Yes, indeed. It is an ongoing process, like the cultivation of bansai trees by the Japanese. In markup with high competition, even such moments as the presence of microformats in the markup (and they are not on all sites) and so on can be relevant.
3) Objectively - only by the number of calls to your sales managers from the Internet. There are several ways to understand who came to your salespeople from where and what they bought. But here it is necessary that web-promoters and your sellers work in close integration. Otherwise, the "cart" will not "move". With reports - it is difficult and subjective, it depends on the situation, niche and store.
4) Terms can be any. Incl. endless. Algorithms for ranking sites of modern search engines are often impossible to predict. Even the parameter "output to the TOP" now has a rather slippery REAL (I emphasize: real-commercial) meaning, and many search engines make every effort to ensure that it remains "slippery" in order to undermine the SEO services market.

Answer 2

I would definitely not trust the second one. Ask him how many stores he brought to the top only by buying a plugin, in which city and what requests they were. According to the first one, if I were you, I would ask for statistics on several of his current works, what requests, for which sites in which regions, and then check the reliability that these requests are true for those sites and contact the owners to clarify whether this one is true the person promoted and what kind of exhaust from this - maybe there are requests, but low-frequency or non-target ones and no one buys anything for them, and for this budget it is more profitable to buy several articles on popular sites.

Answer 3

Each niche has its own promotion rules. In Moscow, links have definitely been disabled, for 7-8 months already. But the quality of Moscow sites is so superior to regional ones that they will be in the top in terms of monomes (combination of ranking factors) in any case.
If you don't understand seo, I don't know a single sane person who knows seo, including myself and Yandex *without comparing the latter ;)*. Make technical optimization, microformats (crumbs, pictures, ashkard, etc.), match the ranking to the commercial algorithm - your site, and that's it. Periodically, you can edit the tags by viewing the level of behavioral factors in the webmaster's office.
All the rest of the money to put on groups in social networks. Due to the work done earlier + social networks, you will crawl upstairs.
The key word is crawl out.
1. Both are wrong, the first is inadequate, the second keeps back the limited effect of actions.
2. Yes, how to calculate: the average cost of a lead from the context * the number of leads from organic * conversion rate (if more from organic) * salary coefficient (the higher the salary, the more the seo specialist has in his pocket and the work budget is reduced, for the customer as a result makes no difference, always general according to the formula
Qualitative special = margin of safety, intensive growth) proves competence, mostly screenshots from analytics systems that do not say anything. Ideally, a case in the form of a project timeline + acts of work performed + screenshots.
At the stage of post-analysis - measure profit))
4. No one knows, absolutely no one, even in Yandex with Google I don’t know the answer to your question.

Answer 4

To the first question - for what money? And what will he do for a year?
The second uses a very formulaic technique - headlines with the word "Buy" at the beginning, although the approach has the right to life.
Conclusion: ask both for an audit or the cost of an audit and implement recommendations that do not raise questions.

Answer 5

$350 is little money to keep the top for a long time, to get in is one thing, but to keep and earn it is another, show the site itself, you need to start with this and then ask questions. Shop Script is, as far as I know, such an old brahlo, here you need to look at many factors in order to cut it all and bring it to the top, SEO is not a panacea, here you need a team of at least 3 strong specialists. SEO specialist + marketer + programmer.