any thoughts?

Have you considered, well, asking them?

The fact that you have felt the need to ask others on a public forum to speculate about what their offer may contain is not a good sign. :) If the company is hiding behind vague promises with no explanation of their methods, then walk away. If it's a preset package deal that they offer to anyone who calls, then walk away.

However, if they have offered a serious, personalized analysis of your requirements, have discussed in detail your needs, and have made concrete propositions that you are able to understand, then it could be worthwhile examining the offer.

I agree with encyclo. However, do not expect a step-by-step how-to plan/guide unless you have paid for that service.

Hi guys,

thanks for getting back to me on that.

I asked that comapny about their methods. Obviously they claim they do not use any illegal and non-legitimate ways of improving position in G. what a surprise:)
They have a network of blogs where they would put up a link to my site. That is kinda positive sign.

On the flip side I have contacted about 6-7 SEO companies, and only from 2 of them got back to me. The one I'm talking about in the post, and the other one that admitted they won't be able to help me:(

still not sure what to do.

The 1st thing i would ask is .. can i see some examples of other sites you've had success with, maybe talk to those companies too

Many companies will promise you the earth if it means they get a sale, not all though an i dont want to tar everyone with the same brush. i im responsdible for the development of my companies site an i also freelance SEO sometimes, i always make a clear proposal as to what i can do and never make any guarentees.

Like the guys said you probably need to talk to them more or some of there clients

that link on a blog thing they offered isn't necessarily a good thing, as links tend to carry weight only if the site is popular (presumably it is) AND the content is relevant to your site. it's unlikely that the content on their blog is relevant to your content.
and how do you know that the link will stay there forever? you might be paying through the nose for a few links that will be taken down after a year. (no doubt they will charge you more money to keep the links there year after year)

the best links to have are ones that bring in their own traffic. so if you have a site about widgets, then you want links on sites that are also about widgets. because people using those sites will see your link and be interested in it, generating more visits for you. but if this company is putting links to your widget site on a blog about how great their SEO company is, then no one is ever going to use that link. it's a complete waste of time.

if all they are offering is links then you can do that yourself. devote an evening a week to searching out all the relevant sites (through google, through the relevant yahoo and dmoz directories etc) and firing off some well written and personal emails.
it's tough to get links these days, but i've picked up about ten-or-so one-way links from 100-odd emails. i know i could get more if i could be bothered (but i'm too lazy) but you've got to make the emails personal to each site, and show that you have spent some time at their site. you also have to show them how a link to your site will actually benefit their users. long gone are the days when people will just stick up a link simply because you asked them to.

Some SEO companies resort to spam. So you have to be careful about that too. Try to research about the popularity of your site, and do you have the proper tools to know if your site was visited?

I agree with lynder. Be careful who you choose to outsource your SEO work to. Several of my competitors have done some dirty things in the recent past to try to move up in the serps. I don't know whether they are paying some SEO company to do this for them and they are clueless as to what is happening or if they are just not the smartest people, but I have reported them as spammers and seen them disappear from Google because of the scams they are involved in. Do some research and get some referrals before choosing.

As you have said that you are pretty sure that your website is properly on page optimized. Then it is straight that the only thing you need to get ranking on keyword widget directory is building links.

What i would say is that you can put some time on link building and can get few good quality links easily in a month and if you keep working this way then in few months you can get the required ranking yourself.

It is all about finding good quality links and they are easy to find once you are on the track. In case if you need any suggestions on how to link for free to some trusted domains you can let me know and i will help you out of this.

However, do not expect a step-by-step how-to plan/guide unless you have paid for that service.

I disagree with this entirely. If you get a proposal which does not indicate precisely what will be done, how it will be done and why it will be done then walk away.

I disagree with this entirely. If you get a proposal which does not indicate precisely what will be done, how it will be done and why it will be done then walk away.

I don't really believe we are talking about different things. Of course the proposal should include what steps will be taken along with the problems that will be corrected. I am talking about not expecting a complete guide to what you will be doing.
Why do they need to hire you if you spend hours typing up exactly what needs to be done and exactly what you are going to do?
Sorry, but we have always charged for this type of analysis report, if you want to do it for free...you are welcome to it....hehe