There are 3 things you need to know before hiring an SEO company for search engine optimization. The first thing is to find out which services are necessary and which ones are optional. The second step would be to understand how to differentiate between good and bad providers. The third step is working out how long it will take, because this will then determine what sort of results to expect, and the size of the team and budget.
All components (read services) can be categorized as either onsite or offsite. The essential onsite work begins with keyword research and traffic analysis. Existing pages will be modified and new content created based on the keyword list.
There will be some website design and functionality changes involved, with fonts modified and scripts removed or added to make the site easier to use. The web host may be changed or the package upgraded. This will be done to enable faster page loading and other SEO-friendly options such as Class-C IP addresses.
It was necessary to explain this because many times SEO consultants lose sight of the big picture in the process of trying to push rankings up for specific keywords. This means practices like cloaking, redirections and stuffing pages with hidden text. Search engines will see a keyword heavy page while actual visitors will be seeing something entirely different.
Avoid such services, and go by a rule of thumb that any onsite service that makes the website better for visitors is acceptable. As for offsite work, the list of available services will be confusingly large. Forget everything else for now, because all it really needs at first is a link building campaign, a presence on all the major social networks, and a blog.
In this case too, some providers may try to apply short-cuts to get fast results. This means using link farms and big chains of sites and blogs whose sole purpose is to provide links. The golden rule here is to make sure all link acquisition techniques will focus on getting links from sites that actually send visitors. Also try to focus on sites that happen to be in the same sector, including competitors.
The third part is to finalize the period needed to achieve results. This means the time required for the site’s pages to start appearing in the top ten results for the keywords mentioned above. For big sites with a huge number of pages and established competitors who are occupying the first page results, a team effort for a minimum of one year is needed.
Smaller sites with only 5 or 10 pages and niche keywords where the competition is not so intense can get it done in 3-6 months without a big team. Again, the reason for all this detail is to point out that any consultant who offers to provide instant results within a month should be avoided. Such short-cuts will only get the site banned and the pages chucked out of the search index. With a better idea of the 3 things you need to know before hiring an SEO company, look for a provider who happily agrees to these guidelines.
You can find a brief summary of the things you need to know before hiring a SEO company and more information about a reputable provider of Internet marketing services, today.