Well done search engine optimisation, often called SEO for short, is designed to allow websites to show up in search results when folks search for goods and services rather than simply company names. The idea is the fact that people trying to find things online marketing will be able to discover a business website with virtually no prior familiarity with the business or its name. You can find all manner of tricks and techniques which fall under SEO, but the good sustainable methods (also sometimes called “white hat SEO”) are based around the notion of making your webpage easier for search engine to read and understand, meaning they rank you higher in searches for appropriately relevant terms.
It really is not uncommon to decide to outsource SEO to external marketing agencies and other companies, but you’ll find far too many dodgy types out there who like to take companies seeking SEO – especially local and smaller businesses – for an extremely expensive ride. How then does one actually go about finding a good, honest and legitimate search engine marketer?
It is actually incredibly easy to search out a good 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 very best of the search results are what you want – they must be very good at SEO or their own website would not be so high within the natural listings!
To narrow things down a bit, you can try extending your search. Say you reside in Essex and want a local agency – just type in “SEO agency Essex.” Or if perhaps your website is specialised and you want particular help with it you may add your industry or site type – “SEO tourism” or “SEO eCommerce” for example. This can be a great way to search out niche SEO agencies that have specialist knowledge 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’s best to ignore it – if a company 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 excellent. The same is true of SEO services advertised on paid ads at the top of internet search engines or on banner advertisements on other websites. If their search marketing is any good, what makes them having to pay for their placements?
Something else to bear in mind is to steer well clear of the SEO agency that promises you “top position for x keywords” or something similar. Virtually all modern internet search engines used personalised searching, meaning that everybody sees web pages in slightly different ranking positions according to 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 utilize sustainable “white hat” techniques so that you can bring useful traffic to your webpage, not use exploits and dodgy tricks, which will 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 are going to need to ask them some questions prior to deciding to leap into their services. As well as the common checks like existing client list and testimonials, it really is an excellent idea to speak to someone directly on the phone or in person.