Study the SEO company
Read through the company website. Does the site list specific goals and techniques? Does it discuss using ethical (white hat) SEO techniques? Does it inspire confidence, or does it read like an empty sales pitch?
Check the company domain's.... How long has the domain been registered for? Does the company list complete and accurate whois details? If the domain is new, or if the whois details aren't listed, you may be looking at a fly-by-night company.
Study the SEO results
Start with the SEO company's own website. But "SEO" has 118,000,000 results in Google, and "search engine optimization" has 27,200,000 results, so don't expect the site to rank high for these generic terms. Also note that some SEO companies don't try to optimize their own sites for SEO because they get most of their business through referrals.
The important SEO results to check are those of SEO companies' clients. If they link to their clients' sites from their sites, look for keyword phrases in the title and heading tags of those sites, and see how those sites do in search results for those keyword phrases. Look for backlinks to those sites by entering "link:domain.com" (with the right domain and without the quotation marks) in different search engines.
If the SEO company is on your shortlist, contact some of those clients to ask for feedback about the SEO company. Are they still using the SEO company's services? Did they see an improvement in search results for their site, and have the improvements lasted? If they needed an SEO company for a new site, would they hire the same company?
Ask questions
The answers to these questions will show you if you're dealing with experts or people who don't really know what they're doing.
What steps do you take to optimize websites for search engines? They may not want to tell you exactly what they do, but they should list steps such as researching and using keywords, making the coding search engine friendly, and getting inbound links. If they're vague, or if they name black-hat techniques such as keyword stuffing or doorway pages, go to the next company on the list.
How do you do keyword research? They should start by learning what your site is about, what keywords already work for it, and how your business is different from the competition. A number of keyword suggestion tools are available, both free and paid. The important points are that the SEO company will research relevant, searched-for keywords for your site and that they'll look for keyword phrases, not single keywords.
Do you offer guarantees? If they offer a guarantee other than a money-back guarantee, or a promise that they won't accept payment until your site is on page X in the SERP for a specific keyword, don't trust them. The SEO business is not one in which you can guarantee exact results.
What do you think of Google's Webmaster Guidelines? If they don't stay completely within these guidelines, your site could be in trouble.
What types of sites will you try to get inbound links from? The answer should be relevant, quality sites, including directories, but not including link farms. If they don't think that inbound links are important for SEO, they aren't going to get the desired results.
Do you work on improving the conversion rate? Improving the conversion rate is not SEO. But getting more traffic to your site won't benefit you unless your site works well for site visitors after they arrive. If your conversion rate could use improvement and an SEO company can help with this area too, you benefit more. You can hire a separate company to work on your conversion rate, but they'll need to be careful not to override any of the SEO work done to your site.
How do you keep up with changes in your field? The important point here is whether they do keep up with industry news. But you'll probably know by the answers so far whether they do.
What payment structure do you use? Be wary of companies that ask you to pay the full amount at the beginning. If they're going to be doing ongoing work for you, you should be able to pay at various stages.
Expect to be questioned
The SEO company representatives should have questions for you too. They should want to find out if your expectations are realistic and fit with the type of work they do. They'll need to learn about your website, your audience, your competition, your focus, and your business goals.
Expect to wait
If the service is good, the company will be in demand, so there may be a waiting list. Start researching before you need the work to be done.
2007-07-06 04:53:06
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answer #1
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answered by Consultant 3
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If you are looking for a firm then you will most likely pay a lot of money which is normal due to the overhead costs a company has. I am a freelance webdesigner and search engine marketer. If you are interested in hireing a dedicated freelancer that knows his work let me know. A good freelance can be as professional as a company and service offered is the same at more competitve rates. Important is to ask any freelancer you may hire what seo meassures he/she will implement. Also be aware of freelancers that will do jobs at incredibly low prices, seo is a time consuming job hence the better the results the more effort end obviously the higher the costs. I will give you good pre project consultation and will then do a project plan of what needs to be done based on a number of analysis and will then only quote for the job.
2007-07-05 22:44:34
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answer #2
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answered by Anonymous
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SEO services are always expensive. The last quote I got was $10,000 down and then $700.00 per month. So, I taught myself how to do it and had a site at PR 7.
Search Engine Optimization is a very tricky business and cannot be easily understood in just a few paragraphs. I used to give long answers to this question, but got tired of repeating myself, so I just wrote a 13 page guide that you can download for free and read over. It will tell you everything you need to know about SEO.
http://www.idomainportfolio.com/seol.zip - This has some extra stuff with the eBook for resellers
http://www.idomainportfolio.com/seol.pdf - This is just the plain eBook
I hope this helps, as it covers much more than I could go into in the word limit alloted by Yahoo!
2007-07-06 16:51:00
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answer #3
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answered by Anonymous
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A lot of people have trouble finding a writer who actually knows what they are doing.
Trust me I know what feeling, I had no idea what to look for and wasted countless hours on useless writers.
We want to find someone who write high quality content and available whenever we need something.
I rocommend textroyal.com . In the long run this service is going to make you lots of profit.
2016-02-11 05:09:56
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answer #4
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answered by Ernestas 1
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I use Textworkers! I was ranking on page 15 for 5 keywords, now I an ranking for 25 keywords between pages 1 and 6 in 30 days! Absolutely incredible, I will definitely be renuing.
2014-09-08 12:01:44
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answer #5
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answered by Anonymous
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The best criteria is to ask any SEO company the ranking position of their own websites on Google. After all, if they can't rank their inhouse sites, how can you trust them for your own site.
I know of a company www.ugsoftware.com. They offer many services and SEO is one of them. Their price too is reasonable. If you are intersted please tell me.
2007-07-06 01:11:09
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answer #6
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answered by javascriptquestion 1
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DirectoryBug does high-quality work for reasonable prices. Definitely worth checking out. I know the owner and he's a really stand up guy that knows his stuff.
2014-03-16 14:18:16
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answer #7
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answered by Anonymous
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Seo firm, who has the best packages?
2016-07-20 11:01:53
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answer #8
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answered by Chris Brown 5
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Go with Marvist. You can find out more about them at http://www.marvist.com/internet-marketing/search-engine-optimization-seo.html
2007-07-06 00:32:44
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answer #9
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answered by Anonymous
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