Second Opinion on Web Changes

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networkn

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Topic # 225864 8-Dec-2017 12:04

Customer has asked me to find someone to give him a second opinion on changes they want made to their website. I understand it may be difficult to get an accurate idea without having seen the actual website, but I thought I'd see if this looked within the ballpark of expectation as a first instance:

I've added below a proposal of costs:
· SEO Improvement. - Ongoing -
I'll put about
2.5 – 3 hrs into this initially - $
250 - $300
· Locking of images

1. 5- 2hrs- $150 - $200
· Pop-up box to collect emails. - We have a mailchimp email account that I will send you details for Jake (I can also do the pop-up design if needed just send me dimensions). - End of Jan
3 - 3.5hrs - $300 - $350
· Block all those spammers from sending emails though the contact page. -
1.5hrs - $1 50
· Any Speed Issues the site has would be good to look at but it seems to be running fine at the moment. - Ongoing
Ongoing improvements @ $100/hr
· Google analytics set up - End of Jan
2- 2.5hrs - $200 - $250

Do these look reasonable ?

wpcharged

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Reply # 1915258 8-Dec-2017 12:41

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The two things which seem quite high are:

· Block all those spammers from sending emails though the contact page. -
1.5hrs - $1 50

Depending on the form it should be a fairly quick job to implement spam protection. But may require a couple of on-going tweaks to block the outliers.

· Google analytics set up - End of Jan
2- 2.5hrs - $200 - $250

It should only take a few minutes to set up and add analytics. I would hope they were adding custom analytics reports that suit the website and events that might need to be tracked eg clicks on submit buttons, which would explain the extra time. Ecommerce and A/B experiments would require extra time as well.

Apart from that everything else seems standard. I'm not sure what "locking of images" refers to though.

chewster

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Reply # 1916591 11-Dec-2017 12:08

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Bit concerning you're getting an ongoing charge for something as vague as "SEO Improvement" should really ask for what exactly this entails - what, when and how many monthly deliverables to expect. If I was buying I'd also ask them how they are planning to prove the results they generate.

If they're setting up Google Analytics as an afterthought - how are they getting an organic baseline to compare against?

For email popups - yeah sure but be wary they do it in an "accessible" way, Google has officially indicated they will penalize pages with popups/interstitials that impinge on usability.

Block spammers from using contact page - yeah I mean sure ultimately it's a business decision - some customers prefer to have an email address available, some prefer to not bother with email and prefer using a contact form - IMO publish an email like info@[domain] and use an email provider with good spam filtering.

Locking of images - is this a layout thing? No idea what they're meaning there.

"Any Speed Issues the site has would be good to look at but it seems to be running fine at the moment" - bit vague there, have they run it through a PageSpeed Insights at minimum? They could be making specific recommendations as that is one of the few things you can immediately measure & make some quick gains on.

Ultimately though most of that stuff is just basic technical SEO and you need to consider that isn't only what matters, but is a good first step.

MikeAqua

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Reply # 1916644 11-Dec-2017 12:42

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SEO Improvement is fertile ground for fairy dust.

I get unsolicited offers of free SEO improvements most weeks tot he company enquiries account and the messages always demonstrate the authors don't have a clue what the business is trying to achieve via its website.

I'd be concerned that for the fee the provider will roll out a boiler plate approach to SEO without considering the actual needs of the business

Mike

timmmay

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Reply # 1916645 11-Dec-2017 12:46

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Looks generally on the low side to me. Even if a task is short there's usually overheads, and things aren't always as simple as they may first appear.

Also, pop-ups are bad, and Google have started to penalize in terms of SEO. Don't do it.

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mattwnz

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Reply # 1916666 11-Dec-2017 13:13

timmmay:
Looks generally on the low side to me. Even if a task is short there's usually overheads, and things aren't always as simple as they may first appear.

Also, pop-ups are bad, and Google have started to penalize in terms of SEO. Don't do it.

The mail chimp pop up isn’t a pop up window, like the old traditional pop ups, it is a layer in the webpage. It seems fairly common practice for shopping websites to now do this when first visiting the website to get you email address.

martyyn

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Reply # 1916874 11-Dec-2017 17:22

It's already been pointed out the number of hours may be a little high but $100 an hour seems perfectly reasonable to me.

I was speaking to two friends the other day who both said they wouldn't engage with someone charging them less than $120 an hour, which made me think I should put up my rates !

I always add a little 'fat' if I'm asked for a quote up front, scope always creeps in my experience and I like to cover myself for that.

chewster

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Reply # 1917567 12-Dec-2017 16:37

mattwnz:
The mail chimp pop up isn’t a pop up window, like the old traditional pop ups, it is a layer in the webpage. It seems fairly common practice for shopping websites to now do this when first visiting the website to get you email address.

Common practice doesn't mean good for UX or SEO. More info

nunz

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Reply # 1917709 12-Dec-2017 21:08

If the site is wordpress based, then the contact form having a Captcha or similar is as simple as a plug in and 5-10 mins work on the form.

As for SEO - have they done the basics right? AMP, Schema.org type meta data, unique content, remove 404 errors, alt tags etc are all more important than most of the rest of it.

Good content, links internally, external references etc. It's the old pareto rule 80% of your SEO takes 20% of the effort and cost. Get the basics right, the rest is often quickly diminishing returns.

nunz

chewster

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Reply # 1919021 13-Dec-2017 13:05

Not convinced AMP is part basic SEO setup. Having noteworthy, unique, regular content is far more valuable. Does Google even present a News carousel for the keywords being targeted? Typically only large blogs or big publishers feature in SERPs for AMP anyway. Also, it's not really confirmed as a ranking signal...yet. Would say other basic stuff to do first (in most cases).

nunz

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Reply # 1923759 22-Dec-2017 19:50

chewster:

Not convinced AMP is part basic SEO setup. Having noteworthy, unique, regular content is far more valuable. Does Google even present a News carousel for the keywords being targeted? Typically only large blogs or big publishers feature in SERPs for AMP anyway. Also, it's not really confirmed as a ranking signal...yet. Would say other basic stuff to do first (in most cases).

google are defintely pushing amp - and strongly enough to peeve a lot of players in the industry who have worked hard to get good responsive sites running.

amp for wordpress is reasonably straight forward with two good plugins dooing 90% of the work.

nunz