Well done search engine optimisation, often called SEO for short, is designed to allow websites to show up in search results when individuals look for services rather than simply company names. The idea is the fact that people looking for things professional online marketing will be able to search out a business website without the prior knowledge of the business or its name. You’ll find all manner of tricks and techniques which fall under SEO, however the good sustainable methods (also sometimes called “white hat SEO”) are based around the notion of making your website easier for search engine to read and understand, meaning they rank you higher in searches for appropriately relevant terms.

It’s not uncommon to determine to outsource SEO to external marketing agencies and other companies, but you can find far too many dodgy types available who like to take companies seeking SEO – especially local and small businesses – for a really expensive ride. How then does one actually go about finding the best, honest and legitimate search engine marketer?

It’s actually incredibly easy to seek out a decent SEO agency online. Go to a search engine like Google or Bing and type in “SEO agency.” Ignoring the paid ads at the top, whichever firm has landed at the top of the search results are what you want – they has to be great at SEO or their own website wouldn’t be so high in the natural listings!

To narrow things down a bit, you might try extending your search. Say you live in Essex and want a local agency – just type in “SEO agency Essex.” Or if perhaps your webpage 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 will likely be a good way to find niche SEO agencies who have specialist knowledge in your field.

Sometimes SEO agencies (or at least people claiming to be SEO agencies) attempt to 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 is best to ignore it – if a business 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 aren’t good. The same is true of SEO services advertised on paid advertisements at the very best of search engines or on banner advertisements on other web pages. If their search marketing is any good, why are they having to pay for their placements?

Something else to bear in mind is to steer well clear of any SEO agency that promises you “top position for x keywords” or something similar. Nearly all modern search engines used personalised searching, meaning that everyone sees web 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 utilize sustainable “white hat” techniques so that you can bring useful traffic to your webpage, not use exploits and dodgy tricks, which will constantly get them slapped by search engine updates like Google’s infamous Panda and Penguin algorithm changes.

Once you have found an SEO company that looks mostly all right you definitely will need to ask them some questions before you decide to leap into their services. And additionally the normal checks like existing client list and testimonials, it’s a wise idea to talk to someone directly on the phone or in person.