Search engine optimization has become a vital part of any sort of marketing or business on the internet. With millions of people daily using search engines to find information on just about everything under the sun, NOT being optimized is simply bad business. And while there was a time when do-it-yourself SEO was effective, that time has passed. There are so many facets to optimizing a web page for the search engines that it really does take a professional to do it properly. Choosing the right professional can be tricky though. There’s no accredited school of SEO, and no professional organization that certifies professionals in search engine optimization techniques, so you may as well be on your own when you’re searching for a good SEO firm. It’s not as bleak as all that, though. There are some tips that will help you find good SEOs and questions you can ask that will help you choose the best of them for your web site.
1.Ask around among professional acquaintances for any recommendations. If you don’t know other webmasters, you can try posting requests for references on web development and SEO professional discussion boards.
2.Check the search engines and find web pages that rank high in your field or others, and write to the site owner asking if they’d recommend the SEO firm that did their pages.
3. Once you have a few prospects for SEO firms to hire, call them and ask for references. Any good SEO firm should be happy to give you the names of customers with whom they’ve worked so that you can check their own standings in the search engine rankings, and speak with the customer themselves.
4.Ask what techniques the SEO company will use to optimize your pages. Be aware of the best practices in SEO so that you’ll know if they’re being realistic. Watch for companies that advocate using ‘black hat’ techniques that may get you a temporary boost, but can ultimately damage your reputation and even get you banned from the top search engines.
5.Check the firm itself out on the major search engines. An SEO company should be able to rank its own pages in Google, Yahoo and MSN search engines. If they can’t get themselves listed in the first few pages of each of those sites, you’d be right to question whether they can do the same for you.
6.Look for an SEO firm that will contract to provide ongoing support and reports. While it may be tempting to grab a one-time one-price overhaul to make your site search engine friendly, it’s not the most effective use of your money. SEO techniques change frequently as the search engines develop new and different algorithms and techniques for ranking pages. Look for a company that is willing to work with you in the long term to get you to the top and keep you there.
7.The cost of SEO services can seem outrageous, but be aware that optimizing web pages for a medium to large size site is time consuming and work intensive. If you want to save money, consider retaining and SEO firm to do consultation and make specific recommendations for your site and pages that you can then put into practice yourself.
As you can see, finding a good SEO firm is not so different from finding a good contractor to work on your house. Ask around, get references, and know enough about the work you need done to ask intelligent questions and recognize good answers. If you can do that, you’ll be sure you’re working with an SEO company that is worth every penny you pay them. |
