Does anyone really understand SEO?

I think a lot of the SEO companies charge you for cetain things that you can do yourself

I built and managed my website myself. We started in May 2008, and have been on the first page of Google since August 2008. It seems to me that a lot of it is common sense. With that said, I just read a great recommendation from ActiveRainer Lenn Harley to use Katerina Gasset as an SEO consultant. Katerina is also on AR, and runs a real estate company. Even though my website has done well, I'd like to take it to the next level, and I have signed on with Katerina. This will be my first time hiring anyone to help with website issues; I've been self-taught.

You might look up Katerina and give her a call, just to chat about your experience, and what you need.

Good luck!

I read everything Katerina Says as well. She seems to have it down and teaches it. If ever I have a closing...

I want to take her class!!!!!!!

You really can SEO a Point2 site and rank well.  I am in a very competitive market and am on page 1 for some pretty good search terms.  Unless someone is pretty tech illiterate I would recommend learning SEO rather than going to a company.

I have also created and managed my own website since 2006. Back when I started I didn't know anything about SEO - I was paying a ton for PPC for not a lot of good results. I decided I wanted to learn more about SEO and try and get the organic rankings for free. It took me maybe 2-3 months of research but all of the info is out there for you to learn. The main issue is, for lots of agents, there just isn't the time to keep up on all of the latest in SEO. The industry is constantly changing - when I started, link farms and reciprocals were all the rage. Now it's completely different. Perhaps that's why there's so much conflicting information. Also, you have to understand that SEO is like a marathon, not a sprint. It generally takes time to get rankings and it takes a lot of work to keep them. I would start learning some of the basics yourself and then later decide if you want to do some or all of it yourself and farm the rest out. Just the fact that you're blogging means you could be doing some of your own SEO if it's done right.

Eric has great advice.  We had help creating our site in WordPress, but we maintain it ourselves.  Time is the biggest challenge.  Time to blog and keep up with the social networks that helps our ranking.  It is full time job in itself.  Like Eric mentioned, you have to decide what you can afford: time or expense, then push forward. Good luck! 

Jake Accardi - Georgia State Inspections

In my opinion, whether you decide to do it yourself or whether you hire an SEO expert it's still critical that you learn enough about SEO from trusted sources (like posts here at AR) so you can make an educated decision. You're right, there is conflicting information and often the 'less-than' capable experts are feeding half-truths to try and steal your hard earned dollars. If Lenn Harley recommends someone, that's like gold! She knows her stuff from extensive experience doing SEO on her fantastically ranking websites.