Good SEO Guides
Well done search engine optimisation, often called SEO for short, is designed to allow web sites to show up in search results when folks search for products or services rather than simply company names. The idea is that people looking for things online will be able to discover a business website without any prior knowledge of the business or its name. There are 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 idea of making your website 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 determine 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 new businesses - for a very expensive ride. How then does one actually go about finding an excellent, honest and legitimate search engine marketer?
It is actually incredibly easy to seek out a quality seo agency (check out here) 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 must be great at SEO or their own website would not be so high in the natural listings!
To narrow things down a bit, you can try extending your search. Say you live in Essex and want a local agency - just type in "SEO agency Essex." Or maybe if your web site is specialised and you want particular help with it you can add your industry or site type - "SEO tourism" or "SEO eCommerce" for example. This may be a great way to locate niche SEO agencies that have specialist knowledge in your field.
Sometimes SEO agencies (or at least people claiming to be SEO agencies) try and 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 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 advertisements at the top of major search engines or on banner ads on other websites. If their search marketing is any good, why are they 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. Virtually all modern search engines used personalised searching, meaning that everyone sees sites in slightly different ranking positions depending 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 in order to 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'll need to ask them some questions before you decide to leap into their services. As well as the common checks like existing client list and testimonials, it is an excellent idea to talk to someone directly on the phone or even in person. Here are a few good questions to ask them.
Who does their search marketing work? Is it handled by in-house staff? Do they do any outsourcing, especially to foreign companies? A whole lot of agencies outsource to cheap link builders in Asia who have a tendency to produce very low quality work that can have a negative influence on web sites within the medium to long-term.
How often do they report, and what format do these reports take? Any professional SEO agency should be providing regular updates to all its clients, as well as written reports detailing actions taken and progress made.
What sort of skills and qualifications do they have? Take a look at their existing client lists for virtually every recognisable big names, and find out should they have anybody who is Analytics qualified. Some companies even use quality standards like ISO 9001 which is an excellent sign.
What else do they do? A whole lot of these companies are primarily website designers who are resellers for outsourced SEO services to boost their profits. It really is better to look for an online marketing specialist to ensure you get an excellent quality service.
In the event that you don't have the money to employ a professional SEO agency there are actually alternatives available. Some companies will let you pay for a one off website review to make recommendations concerning how to enhance your site from a search marketing perspective, or you can research current techniques and ideas to do SEO for yourself.
Many online marketing methods will be in fact startlingly simple. Boost your domain authority by getting other relevant sites to link back to yours. Get a backlinks boost and additionally general marketing benefit by using digital media like Facebook. Keep your site full of regularly updated and good quality content to encourage people to link to you and grow the site's visibility and importance. Make use of a good, solid SEO plugin for your content management system, and make certain your website's code is error free.
