What to Look For in an SEO Provider

You’re looking for the best search engine optimisation company or provider, to drive some qualified traffic through your website, and the choices are endless. You want to know that you are making the right choice from all the SEO consultants and search engine optimisation specialists out there. After all- they play an important role in your business, generating mechanisms to attract more organic traffic and increase revenue. Here’s the word from the inside- know what to look for, and build a positive relationship with a desirable, positive outcome.

Get your SEO right from the start!

The criteria presented here will help you make a more informed choice in this important area.

It might be beneficial for you to take an seo short course, to learn some seo basics. Even if you never want to do your own search engine optimisation, you will be better equipped to deal with an SEO company at the front line. It’s a clear advantage to you, if you understand the techniques, terms and strategies used by somebody who does website optimisation.

The Best SEOs Rank Organically

A search engine optimisation provider should rank on page one of Google for something obvious, like seo experts Melbourne, “seo consultants melbourne” or “seo specialists melbourne”- provided they are based in Melbourne. You can append the city of choice to the end of the query. Businesses who train students in SEO, should rank highly for “seo courses melbourne” or “seo training melbourne” – try “beginner seo course melbourne” and so on.
SEO professionals will have worked long and hard to get to where they are. Part of this journey would have involved ranking their own website for terms relating to their industry.

Busy SEO People Don’t Cold Call

You should immediately be suspicious of any SEO company that cold calls you, whether by phone or email. There’s so much work around for search engine optimisation providers, that cold calling should make you wonder why they need to search for work this way. Remember that someone who cold calls you is pursuing targets- “numbers” to help sales. Do you really want to deal with a business so obsessed with closing as many deals as possible?

The Page One Guarantee

We know that as a business operator you want a return on the money you spend with your SEO provider. There are many dubious offers getting around at the moment where you don’t pay anything for SEO until you have reached page 1 organic listings. The problem with this is, that the search engine optimisation company carefully leads you through a rehearsed pitch and throws in a couple of non-competitive, seldom-searched keywords, to make it easy for you to reach the organic listings of page 1. Once that happens- with no benefit to you- you’re locked into paying a hefty monthly retainer for a year or two.

How do we know? People come in and tell us how they lost tens of thousands to questionable SEOs.

They Should be From Your Own Country

Always deal with SEO providers who are from your own country. You need to know the person is real, and that the company is real and operates from a proper base- not from a virtual address, house or Skype account. Most of the problems we are paid to correct have been caused by offshore SEOs who canvassed by telephone, promised the world to get the job, and sent the client’s business to the wall in the process. The long-term damage done by bad SEO can take many months and dollars to repair. Aside from the money spent on correcting the problem, there’s also the loss of revenue and momentum a business faces as part of the ripple of bad SEO.

Dealing with a local SEO person or company gives you the assurance that they exist, and you’re not Skyping with someone half a world away.

Deal With the Person Who Handles your Work

No doubt you’ve heard the term “Chinese whisper”, which means the details of the message get diluted in transmission from one person to another. Dealing with the person who does the work means you can present your requests so that they make sense to the person doing the work. Determining and setting your online marketing strategy should never be left to interpretation. Effective two-way communication with your SEO person will soon let you know if they have your best interest at heart. Know what’s happening with your search engine optimisation, and know who is handling it.

Listen to a Case Study or Two

It doesn’t take much listening skill to work out whether or not the search engine optimisation person knows their work or not. Their previous achievements can be verified online quite easily- and you’ll soon understand whether or not their strategies and methods make sense.

An SEO specialist will be able to give you an overview of a project or two, which should help you understand their method and mind frame.

Don’t expect all the tactical details- SEO consultants know that if you go visit another provider, you’ll talk about what you just heard… and giving free education to competitors is never smart.

Promising you the world- front page rank for single, highly competitive keywords in a short space of time, is only seo salesmanship
Questionable prices for SEO- something way different to what everyone else charges- should set alarm bells ringing. The compromise of discounted seo has to be somewhere.
It’s generally in the labour- outsourcing the work offshore.

Don’t Be Guided by Greed

Clients often ask us how quickly we can get them to page 1 of Google organic listings.
We understand that this is the way most website owners think when they are hungry for traffic- but it’s not the wisest approach for long term success. The aim is to get more people to your website who are ready to do business with you- and keep producing the results over the long term.

Look at a long-term strategy for your seo plan.

Don’t list a property with an agent who promises the highest price. The market will only pay what it will pay.

The same goes for search engine optimisation companies. You don’t want a fast track to page one rank, followed by a Google penalty and removal of your website from the Google index later. Ideally you want to be in business after any algorithm updates. You don’t want to merely survive in business, you want to prosper.

Insist on the best seo- using only current optimal practices. This will ensure your website is shown in the best possible light to receive favourable rankings for your ideal visitors.

The Best SEO Companies Aren’t Cold Calling or Emailing You Asking for Business

There are lots of companies and individuals in need of seo help out there right now. The best search engine optimisation providers don’t go out canvassing. The clients find them.

If you get the standard email which starts with something like “I noticed you weren’t on the front page of Google…” you’re not alone. Almost everybody does, and those emails are almost always from a developing nation, and peppered with with typos and grammatical errors.

Who do you turn to when it all goes bad?

More importantly than the “money back guarantee” which cannot be enforced- is the damage to your online credibility in the eyes of search engines.

Choose your SEO provider with at least as much care as you would use in selecting a business partner.Today’s search engine optimisation professional blends traditional marketing with online awareness and website ranking skills, to give your website the best SEO possible.