What to Look for in a SEO Firm

Hiring an SEO can be nerve-racking. Here you are putting your baby website in the hands of another! You want it to succeed and flourish, but you fear for its safety.

You are not alone! Many webmasters agonize about the decision to let someone else step in and take over the SEO of their site. The best way to get past this is to assure yourself that your pet project is in good hands.

Do a little checking around. A reputable SEO firm will have a good rep both offline and on forums and blogs in the internet world. There will always be a few bad apples anywhere there is market, demand and competition, so try to get a balanced overview.

If your budget is short, try to get a consultation to find out where you are in the most need of SEO. A good SEO firm will help you pinpoint your weaknesses and figuer out how to maximize their help.

Any SEO worth their salt will tell you up front that they can guarantee good solid work, not that they can guarantee a certain ranking. SEOs don’t control the search engines (although we wish we did) so changes in algorithms are beyond control!

One thing an SEO firm CAN do to help you is to optimize your website based on proven tactics and linking procedures to improve your chances of ranking highly. This is the best way to get your website noticed!

This includes optimizing content such as web pages, urls, title tags, meta tags, articles and graphics with appropriate keywords, helping with keyword research, submitting to directories, blogging, and searching for links for your site that will improve PageRank and increase traffic.

These are the sort of things you want to hear from your SEO, not vague promises and vaguer descriptions of how they plan to make good on those promises. You have the right to a look at the game plan, and explainations of how the process works.

The last thing you want is to be taken for a ride by a company that will take your money and waste your time, or worse, one that will use shady tactics to temporarily boost your rankings then disappear, leaving you holding the bag when Google pays a visit to shut you down.

Steer clear of SEOs that claim they know secrets – there are none. Look for a company with transparent tactics, that will honestly tell you what your site needs and how they can help you accomplish it.

Once you have found the right company, stick wit them! Even if you just are able to budget a small amount per month and hire them to do a run through of your site and add some more details every quarter or six months, you will find the investment can pay for itself!

There’s a reason you have a mechanic to work on your car, if you aren’t a mechanic yourself. Same with your website – hire a good SEO and you’ll never regret it!