The ideas and the whole concept behind SEO is very confusing to many people. Especially to the traditional marketers. SEO is an abbreviation for Search Engine Optimization. SEO is the process of optimizing your website onsite and offsite for the best user experience and search engine rankings so that your website will show up on the first positions when a potential customer searches for the products of services you provide. Appearing on top of the search engine results page will help to improve the traffic to your website and also will give a boost to your sales. Now that you know the benefits of SEO , its simply more traffic and more money in your pocket.
So here is how to assess your SEO company by asking a few questions 1. Which search engines do you optimize the websites for ?
A reputable Search Engine Optimization company will work mainly with the top search engines. They will also work with you to define your target audience and submit to the necessary search engines. If they offer you submission to thousands of search engines, be wary as this is unethical, and no experienced SEM company should do this.
2. What kind of techniques and technologies do you use?
When it comes to this part, its always better to chose a SEO company which has a good reputation online. Ask them what techniques they use to optimize websites. Make sure that they are not employing black hat SEO techniques which will eventually cause your website to be de-indexed from Search engine indexes
3. How long is it going to take to see the results?
Search engine marketing takes time to achieve results so it is difficult to see immediate results. Search engines do not index immediately so expect to wait at least 6 months to see good results. Complete ROI on SEM should take somewhere Around 1 year.
4. How many employees work for SEO company?
See whether the company has permanent staff or not. Always go to a company with permanent staff. Ask them if its possible to get a dedicated account manager for you. Stay away from those seo companies that work from a car porch.
5. Do the company has staff to help you with copywriting?
Check that the SEM company can assist you in copywriting, including defining your keywords and writing titles and descriptions.
6. Do employees in the company have technical background/website experience?
A SEM company that has employees with technical background/website experience may have an advantage within the SEM world, as there a re a lot of technical issues to be resolved in any project.
7. Do you offer a variety of SEM solutions?
Different companies might need different approach to the search engine marketing campaign. The SEO company should analyze the marketing objectives of the company and do research on the target markets of the company to determine the type of online marketing solutions suited for the company. Just check it yourself, if the company provides a range of online marketing services to promote your type of business to target customers or just one service like SEO or PPC.
8. Do you have references from past clients ?
Make sure the company has good track record. Ask them for their past clients for references. Also ask them if you can contact them for references and do call them to verify the recommendation.
9. How do you build backlinks?
Links are the fuel that powers the search engine rankings. Many of the search engine takes great consideration of inbound links when determining the rank of a website or a particular search term. Quality of the links especially. Ask the company how they are going to build the links to your website. A good SEO company will always share this with you. Make sure that the SEO company is not using mass directory submissions of links farms to build links to your website.
10. The SEO company guarantees 1st place positions. Should I believe them?
No! There is no guarantee in the search engine world for any positions. A reliable SEM company will try and assist you to get to top placed positions but cannot guarantee them.
11. What will be the total cost of the campaign?
Search engine optimization is an expensive business. It very time consuming even for a veteran and thus its expensive. The rates for SEO services may change dramatically from one company to another. The rates depends on the location of the company and the level of service they provide. many of the times the price is directly proportional to the level of service they provide. So if you go for a cheaper and offshore SEO company you might not get the results that you should. If you are aiming at high competent keywords, it is going to cost you more. Many of the SEO marketing companies provide Online marketing packages with an additional cost for addons.
12. Do the company has a history of providing good results?
Do a background research on the company. Check how long the company has been existed, how many staff do the company has etc. The World of Search Engine Optimizations is very fast paced, the search engine algorithms are changing every day, therefore a more experienced, at least 3 years, would be preferable.
Ask the SEO marketing company to show you results from their customers, and ask them who their clients are.
Search Engine Optimization
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