Well done search engine optimisation, often called SEO for short, is designed to allow sites to show up in search results when folks look for products and services rather than simply company names. The idea is that people searching for things online will be able to seek out a business website without the prior familiarity with the business or its name. You will find all manner of tricks and methods which fall under SEO, however the good sustainable methods (also sometimes called “white hat SEO”) are based around the concept of making your website easier for search engine to read and understand, meaning they rank you higher in searches for appropriately relevant terms.
It’s not uncommon to decide to outsource SEO to external marketing agencies as well as other companies, but there are far too many dodgy types out there who like to take companies seeking SEO – especially local and smaller companies – for a very expensive ride. How then does one actually go about finding a great, honest and legitimate search engine marketer?
It’s actually incredibly easy to discover a decent SEO agency online. Go to a search engine like Google or Bing and type in “SEO agency.” Ignoring the paid advertisements at the top, whichever firm has landed at the top of the search results are what you want – they has to be very good at SEO or their very own website wouldn’t be so high in the natural listings!
To narrow things down a bit, you could try extending your search. Say you reside in Essex and want a local agency – just type in “SEO agency Essex.” Or if your website is specialised and also you want particular help with it you can add your industry or site type – “SEO tourism” or “quality SEO eCommerce” for example. This could be a good way to locate niche SEO agencies who have specialist expertise in your field.
Sometimes SEO agencies (or at least people claiming to be SEO agencies) try to solicit companies by sending them emails or submitting contact forms with various enticements and offers. However if you see something like this come in then it really is best to ignore it – if a business which supposedly specialises in search engine optimisation is reduced to spamming inboxes to get business rather than, say, doing SEO so their very own website ranks highly and people can find them anyway, chances are they are not good. The same is true of SEO services advertised on paid ads at the top of major search engines or on banner advertisements on other web sites. If their search marketing is any good, what makes them having to pay for their placements?
Another thing to bear in mind is to steer well clear of the SEO agency that promises you “top position for x keywords” or something similar. Nearly all modern internet search engines used personalised searching, meaning that everyone sees sites in slightly different ranking positions based on their personal search history. Absolute rankings are a thing of the past, any anyone claiming to deliver this sort of service is lying through their teeth. Modern SEO shall use sustainable “white hat” techniques so that you can bring useful traffic to your web page, not use exploits and dodgy tricks, which can constantly get them slapped by search engine updates like Google’s infamous Panda and Penguin algorithm changes.
Once you’ve found an SEO company that looks mostly all right you will need to ask them some questions before you decide to leap into their services. And also the common checks like existing client list and testimonials, it’s a good idea to talk to someone directly on the phone or in person.