dumb question about seo?

[leoarce27]

how can all seo gurus that charge for seo services claim to be able to get sites on first page of google search results for their keywords when there are only 10 results per page?

every keyword and set of keywords for every industry has more than 10 people or companies trying to be on the top. if 11 seo freelancers or companies for every combination of keywords say they can get their client to first page, then 1 of those seo people are lying. maybe not intentionally, but it still ends up working out that way.

[Matt]

Look at the performance of your SEO for previous projects and the competitiveness of their keywords there is a clear hierarchy among SEO's. One of the first things an SEO should do is analyze the competitiveness of your market and advise you on the best keywords to target to maximize your investment. There are many niches which are not competitive at all but could yield excellent conversions and qualified leads vs trophy phrases. Also with Geo-targeted search results you need to realize that you may rank in one area for your keyword but not in other areas. I have not seen many keywords which are so competitive that they have 10 seo's working on one keyword.