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SEO_For_Dummies_How_to_Choose_the_right_Firm_for_You
| SEO For Dummies; How to Choose the right Firm for You.
Ok, so you’ve finished your web site. Now you just submit your
web site to a couple of search engines, sit back, relax and wait
to see your bank account grow. Yeah, that’s what I thought as
well. You wait and wait and wait... nothing. No hits. No growing
bank account. You cant even find your web site on the search
engines when you searched for your company name. Are you even
listed? How do people find you? Finally fed up with all the
waiting, you decide to do some research. You go to forums and
read article after article, and one acronym keeps popping up. SE
What? What’s SEO? You continue to read and find out more about
search engine optimization, and come to realize that you’re a
“novice” to the World Wide Web and you feel left out in the dark
and unavialable to the possibilities that the Internet has to
offer small business.
I was like you not so many moons ago, and I had absolutely no
idea where to start. What is a meta tag? Key word density? Link
development? Isn’t that what we did when we were 3? Connect the
links and see how long it goes? As I recall, I believe they were
monkeys in a barrel.
It’s not as daunting as you might think. The first step is to
figure out whether you have the time to put aside to learn about
search engine optimization. What methods should you use? Where
should you go to ask for help? But like many businesses on the
internet this isn't your full time gig. You actually have a job
you have to attend for your bread and butter so to speak. So the
decision is made, I’m going to get professional help. Now....who
do I go to? This may be the ultimate question when it comes to
SEO, who do you go to? I have been working in this industry for
quite some time now and the answer is never clear. You don't
want to go to a company that’s too cheap - can they produce the
results? What are they actually doing for your web site?
What I tell anyone who comes to me is do your homework. Look at
what the company has done for previous clients. Look at what the
cost is, and what is included in the cost? How did you find
them? Can you contact them by phone? Or did they contact you?
Look at their rankings. What methods do they use to provide you
with your results? Are they one of the good ones? Can you trust
them to get the work done? Ask as many questions as you possibly
can to find out if what they are saying makes sense to you. Ask
them to put it in to terms you can understand and stay away from
the fancy computer talk, and last but never least, go to more
than one company.
An example of a good SEO campaign is ongoing work, open
communication and the willingness to help you understand the
optimization itself. Any ethical and honest company wants to
have an ongoing relationship with their clients. They want their
clients to feel like they are treated well during every step of
the process. So when you are looking for your SEO company, make
sure they make you feel like you’re going to be included in the
process and not just tossed to the dogs once you have signed on
the dotted line.
Link development is just one example of ongoing work that should
be done on a consistent basis. In simple terms link development
is how the search engines find your site. The more links you
have coming in, the sooner you will be found.
The web is evolving everyday and search engines are constantly
trying to stay one step ahead of SEO companies. The frequent
change of search engine algorithms is just one example, so it is
a good idea to find an SEO company that will stay on top of SEO
methods and practices in case there is a change in algorithm and
you get dropped like last weeks potato salad. These two reasons
alone is why you should find a company who is looking for long
tern relations and not ones who are trying to get you the easy
answer and get you up in the search engine rankings fast and
dropped even faster.
In this industry, you have to work with blind faith ...a scary
thought, and there are many companies out there who have put a
bad stigma on SEO. Many people have been burned more than once.
If I had a nickel for every time I heard a story about an SEO
company that put forth promises and couldn’t deliver I would be
retired and living in Tahiti right now. The advice I have for
the “newbies” coming in to the e-business is do your research,
find out your competition, and make sure you are looking at all
your options before you choose your SEO provider, because if
something sounds really good, there could be a big, bad wolf
behind that red shawl ready to gobble you up.
About the author:
Carrie Haggerty is the General Manager at - Abalone Designs Inc. - one of
the world’s leading search engine optimization firms. More
of Carrie’s articles can be found at http://www.abalone.ca/res
ources/
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