RE: search engine page rank

On Tue, 10 Aug 2004 09:25:39 -0500, Austin, Darrel wrote
> 
> And with all due respect to John and his skills, I'd like to ask the 
> group at large if anyone has ever used a SEO firm and, if so, what 
> they felt the results were. Did the SEO firm do anything significant 
> outside the practices of building accessible, well-written web sites?

We've heard there is some value in the SEO firms and have been thinking about
investing, but it's not clear how we would measure/prove ROI, and the person
who worked with one before on another project believes he can implement all
the details he remembers from that effort.  From what I can tell, a good part
of the work is actually on the content entry, and since the SEO would come and
go, maintaining the content for optimization requires some training (move
common search terms to top of content, use keywords matching words in content,
etc.).  Many of these things fit on a checklist so I have trouble justifying
consulting services (vs. just buying keywords, which, unfortunate as it may
be, seems a better investment).  Luckily accessibility and SEO are related and
we're approaching both at the same time.  

Thanks again to everyone for the tips and pointers.