Seeking an SEO expert based in Dumaguete

Im seeking a SEO expert for my website. The expert should be based in the area of Dumaguete.

 

Yeah, good luck. There isn't a lot of "web" talent here since nobody cares about the web in Dumaguete. Here it's all FB, SMS and messaging apps as more people are able to afford smart phones.

 

Sorry, Dustin. I will try to keep this on topic.

Actually, if I may veer off topic to further explain imposter syndrome and indent the section.

Imposter syndrome is something which is widespread in the tech industry. This following article describes this well.

A computer engineer describes five ways learning his job made him incredibly insecure - Business Insider

Imposter syndrome has nothing to do with misleading others with your level of knowledge. It's a feeling of inadequacy, by tech workers who are actually highly competent. This also has nothing to do with the business end.

As a psychological method for dealing with it, I choose to embrace it. The tech field is huge and fast moving. As the curve of difficulty in keeping up continues to rise, developers often experience this. I meant this to show that my mindset is the polar opposite from "knowing everything." That said, I have my niche areas I operate in and I deliver in those areas. I almost exclusively work with teams of other developers and there would be no way that I would get past the first stages of the hiring process (let alone delivering the work to my team) if I didn't have the required skills.

I shouldn't have brought this up though. It just distracted from the thread.​

You are correct in that I have nothing here in this forum to show my own level of success (I somewhat try to keep a low profile on that anyways as my market isn't local anyways.) Talk is certainly cheap, though it's still good to share ideas. Perhaps we can stear this discussion in a more productive direction or create another thread. I take full blame for throwing it off track.

I do understand that there are a lot of snake oil salesmen in the field of SEO. It's relatively difficult compared to much of the technical field because there isn't an immediate way to show off your skills. It's not like programming in which the thing either works or it doesn't. As you said, a solid professional appearance is a good first step.

Right now one of the people I'm working for is also looking for an SEO expert to join our team. He has been looking for months and I doubt we will ever fill the slot. The snake oil salesmen have poisoned the pool.

Lesson for OP: Professionalism is the mark of a successful provider. If the provider throws up red flags in professionalism, then that's also a red flag for the level of service this person will provide.

Development and SEO aren't the same, but they have many parallels. I mentioned previously, and not sure that you agree, but the challenge of working from the Philippines is that more lucrative clients are easier to acquire if you are able to meet them face to face (and Dumaguete isn't the place to find them.) Many of the development agencies I have worked for largely operate in their local areas. Larger areas (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago) support larger agencies and greater numbers of them.

Lesson for OP: Though it's ideal to be able to meet your service providers face to face, it's also best to seek out providers from locations in which this talent resides. Regions such as the U.S. where the web is still a major enonomic force are better able to support varied levels of this talent. The highest levels of talented providers are in a position where they can choose who they work with and often view their business relationships as more of a partnership than as a hired gun. Because their services are highly valuable, they could take those services anywhere, including to your competitors. They also need to be sure that they can provide the value for the high fees they often charge. If they can't be sure they can provide the return they are accustomed to returning, then they may reject your enquiry based on the relationship being a bad fit.

To answer your question, I only have the agencies I work with as a demonstration of success. Though I don't provide the SEO services, I'm often knowledgeable of the processes the agency goes through. As with high level SEO experts, they often sell their services based on demonstrable results from past clients. The pitch is that you aren't hiring us to build your web presence, but rather you are hiring us as part of your sales machine, which will provide a return on your investment. We aren't costing you money, we are making you money.

I do have my challenges here though, as I mentioned previously. I often feel that I'm losing out on opportunity costs and that I should be based out of my home country.

Lesson for OP: Canadianized has good advice in sticking with social media. Look to how the successful locals are operating. As Canadianized mentioned, some of these people are running e-commerce through Facebook and they have lots of traffic interacting with their properties. Your time is valuable. Bypass the search engines and focus on leveraging social networks.

ETA: You bring up a good point about "money in pocket." People don't realize that a high level of talent as an independent service provider usually equates to strong compensation for those services. It's difficult to provide solid professional services on a meager income, and the purchaser of those providers should be able to do the math to know if he or she is contributing to a solid income. An independent provider has bills to pay, business overhead, expensive hardware and software requirements, downtime from gaps between projects, time spent in keeping up on knowledge and the list goes on. If you aren't paying professional rates, then don't expect professional service. Otherwise what else can you expect than for provider to have to shut out the lights on the business.

 

Long on words short on results! Show me the money! Then, and only then will I believe the rhetoric here. You missed the intent of "empty pockets." No matter.

 

Just to add to my comment. Everyone is an expert in SEO. A real SEO expert is usually underpaid and under appreciated. Do you want instant success? Take out ads with Google! Would you call that SEO? Google has made it almost impossible for people to rank well in the SERPs. What used to take a few days can take an entire year now. I know this for a fact! I have had three SEO companies here in the Philippines. I know what works and what does not work. So I do take offense when someone starts spouting off about what I am doing wrong. Especially when I don't see them walking around like they have success written all over them. Quite the contrary.

I remember the previous operator/owner of Dumaguete info. He told me that he was successful with DI because they had thousands of pages of content he had purchased. At that time the more content the better. But that has changed when it comes to Google. People are transfixed with Google when there are good platforms around like Yahoo, Bing, Twitter and Facebook to name but a few. But the problem with Facebook and Twitter for one example is that you need to dedicate lots of time to make them work well. Some accounts go viral and your golden. But for the most part they are labor intensive. Many new Internet businesses die because they cannot spare the time or money to build decent social media accounts.

Take a look at Reputation.com | The online reputation management leader At first blush this looks like a great website. Look deeper...Google reputation.com scam. You will see that a "successful" website that garners the #1 position in a Google search and makes millions of dollars is basically a scam. This is a website that cannot do the SEO to get the bad comments about them off the 1st page for "reputation.com scam!" The supposedly best website for reputation management cannot clean up their own mess! But people keep buying their crap services.

So all I am saying is that there are very few people who want to pay for expert SEO. They are like May Flies being drawn into the light! Your friend who claims he wants an SEO expert is a likely a Cheap Charley who want results over night. I have one customer and that person pays very well. But I do not offer my services to anyone else.

I am thinking that if you know so much about how to get quality customers (whales) doing SEO you should start your own business. Seriously, why not make money doing SEO. For that matter why not make money doing what you do now? The biggest hurdle whether you agree with me or not is that good SEO requires allot time and effort. And, most people want instant gratification i.e., getting the first page of Google in 5 days as one example. You may think you have the magic bullet here but I am sorry I disagree!

I have taken up too much time on this subject and will stop here. I hope those seeking a good SEO person finds what they are looking for.

Have you ever seen Twitter or a "Facebook Page" (not the main page) rank high in the SERPs? I have and that ranking will help you main website rank also and will help with your traffic!

 

Talking about being on topic, is there any likelihood of the OP actually Finding an SOE in Dumaguete because that is what the Thread is all about.

Toing and Froing is OK but..................I just don't think he has had his answer Bearing in Mind our Captain needs One too.

Just saying.

JP

 

The grammar is bad I agree but need be aware that they really only know how to push links. I have a software where I can easily scrape and post content into Wordpess blogs/sites easily at 100,000 a day! Your website will shoot up in the SERPs for a few days and drop like a rock in about a week. You could even end up in Google's sandbox! Yes your website could be de-indexed by Google. What most of these people do is Spam websites for links. There is so much more when is comes to professional linking that has longevity. And, when it comes to link building more is not better.
[DOUBLEPOST=1436611412,1436611221][/DOUBLEPOST]Your right Jack, it was turned around and I am guilty too. My apologies.