FREE SEO? Shall I go ahead?

[varna s]

Hey people!
Need your suggestion! I want to start a new website and I want to select an SEO company before I launch my site as one of friends has her own website and she told me that to get the best results its better to optimize the website before submitting it to any search engine (that jus bounced over my head). Now she is getting the SEO for her website from a company called Vedikas (Indian SEO Company). Initially they gave a FREE SEO pre-optimization report (15 pages pdf file) for FREE and my friend was very happy with the quality of the work. She made all the changes which Vedikas suggested her. Now, after 2 months, on an average her website is getting 1300 unique visitors daily. 9000 - 21000 hits per day. They are charging $425 / month for small business website. IS IT WORTH IT? I guess its worth the money as my friend is very happy with the company! Still, thought of asking you guys!

PLEASE HELP!!
Hey sorry people! I forgot to mention the SEO company's website URL. its http://www.vedikas.com
About the HITS! The SEO company didnt promise any HITS! Its we who checked the website statistics ad found the HITS details.
Yea around 1300 - 1500 unique visitors daily. Is it a good number?

[Oldmansea]

I'm not that smart, but I would say if you have the extra money why not.

[Rick]

I've been running my own websites for about 3 years now. I can't count how many hours I spent studying SEO. In all honesty, I would never recommend paying for it, because I know anyone can do it themselves. It's not that difficult to understand. One misconception is submitting to search engines - it simply isn't necessary. Head over to digital point forums. There are 100s of professional webmasters who are willing to help you with any aspect of running a website. http://forums.digitalpoint.com/

[Jay Hamilton-Roth]

Ignore the traffic. How much money is she making from the site? If she's not recouping the $425, then she's losing money.

What I suggest to my clients is before focusing on the SEO, focus on the content of your site itself. Who is your target market? What problem of theirs do you solve? How do you solve it? You don't just want traffic - you want people who desperately want what you're selling. You need a strategic marketing plan. Once that's in place, you can improve your site with SEO because you're be increasing the right type of traffic.

www.manygoodideas.com (http://www.manygoodideas.com/2007/02/01/marketing-101/)