If you own a website or an online e-commerce business, you’ve probably heard of, and probably even used, search engine optimization (SEO) companies. These SEO companies offer a variety of services that would help drive more online traffic to your website and which in turn would increase your business revenue through higher conversion rates due to the increasing number of potential customers visiting your website.
Now let’s analyze a few key points to determine what your criteria should be in order to choose a good SEO company that suits your needs.
Numerous SEO companies claim to offer their customers the best possible service. How do you know for sure that an SEO company does what it claims and rely on a good SEO company? The following pointers will help you identify and choose a good SEO service.
1. Make sure SEO services are ranked high in searches on popular search engines. Unethical (also known as black hat) SEO firms would have been blacklisted by the search engines for using various manipulative techniques to rank high. Some examples of this would be link farms, using hidden text for keywords, serving doorway or gateway pages.
2. Find the specific tactics (like keyword research and SEO copywriting) they will use for website optimization and get direct answers and promises about them. If you get evasive answers, the best thing to do is start discussing with another SEO company.
3. Make sure they are using genuine and ethical (aka white hat) SEO techniques and not using unethical techniques that violate search engine guidelines. Note that some other techniques like using per-per-click to get you on the first page cannot be categorized as true or genuine SEO techniques.
4. Check their testimonials and references from customers and evaluate the feedback given. You can also check how their previous clients rank in the popular search engines. You can even email the webmasters of your previous clients and check if they were happy with the services of the SEO company you are now talking to.
5. In addition to the primary SEO services and techniques to improve your website’s ranking on popular search engines, many support services are required to monitor the progress and maintain the rank of your website. Check and make sure that the SEO companies offer you support services like index tracking and rank tracking. You should also offer monthly SEO reports with detailed progress and regularly optimize your website to keep up with any algorithm changes brought about by search engines.
6. Get competitive quotes from good SEO firms and see if you can get a good deal.
I hope this little guide to choosing an SEO company is of use to you!
