Social Media Systems Social Media Marketing and Website Design Company

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This depends on your situation, but generally, if you’re not knowledgeable, it’s going to be very difficult to choose a good SEO firm. One reason is that the industry changes so quickly and there aren’t stringent standards as to who can call themselves SEO consultants. It’s like a black art. Many of the ones out there are loaded with misinformation and the easily found “famous” consultants cost too much and are over saturated with clients. However, there are several things you can do to determine which SEO company best suits your needs.

First, determine what their definition of SEO encompasses (many SEO firms actually perform many internet marketing tasks) and ask them the following questions:

1. Ask for a general plan that specifically indicates what they plan on doing and in what order;
2. Ask to see examples of successful SEO campaigns they’ve accomplished and be sure they show you ones with competitive keywords (two or three word general strings). Not every campaign will include these, but if they’re good they should be able to rank a site in a competitive industry;
3. Ask them how they stay up on current technology and what their plans are to use mixed media, social bookmarking and viral marketing, both now and in the future.

This should give you some context on which to judge their claims. If any SEO firm doesn’t produce satisfactory answers for all of the questions above, steer clear away.

So how do you know what a satisfactory answer is?

The same way you check anything: reference it online. Generally, question #1 should come back with a list of tasks like: Step 1 – keyword and competitor research, onsite optimization with target keywords, Step 2 - automatic and manual directory submission, specific web service account creation (examples for blogs include Technorati, Feed Burner, etc), link building, Step 3 - creating / adding content to your site, recommendations on purchases, and so forth. You may not know what each task represents, but I’m sure they’ll clarify if you ask them.

NOTE: Watch out for any mentions of secrets, tricks, or an over-emphasis on creating tons of reciprocal links.

Question # 2 is self evident and question # 3 should give you some insight into whether they’re just going through the numbers or are actually committed to staying up on SEO trends and performing well for their clients.

Second, look at the timeline for the project. Be wary of companies offering packages claiming results in less than 3 months. If they haven’t given you a timeline at all, move on to the next company. Keep in mind that it will take some time to see ranking and traffic results, especially if the site is new or has a limited online presence. At the very minimum, an SEO campaign should be 3 months long, with monthly ongoing work as an option after the initial work. While it takes time to see really significant effects, certain campaigns can produce results immediately. However, these are often contingent on other factors, such as the age of the site, how much content it has, if a good article has been picked up on a highly trafficked site, etc.

For example, on one SEO campaign I ran, we set up a blog, optimized it, ghost wrote an editorial and started promoting it online. Within days traffic levels spiked because one of the posts picked up links from many other blogs and got exposure on Digg and Delicious. So you may see traffic levels rise almost immediately, but search engine rankings take some time.

Third, determine if they do blog and web design/ development work themselves and how likely you are to need those services. For most of my new clients, I recommend the creation of blog because of its amazing SEO benefits. If you’re going to need design work, find out if they do that in-house or if they outsource. If your SEO campaign is going to involve any fundamental changes to your website or creation of things like a blog, make sure they can do that for you and find out who they use. Ideally, you want to find an SEO company that can accommodate all your needs.

Good SEO costs money because it takes a ton of labor. Any SEO firm that is terribly cheap is going to do a lousy job because it isn’t possible to accomplish the tasks required in a really low price range. Expect to pay at least $300 per month just for the SEO services, and that’s a bare minimum (our bare minimum package is $500 per month for the first three months). If you’re on a budget that requires a financial commitment of les than $300, look to SEO consultants outside the US, in countries like India, where your dollar will stretch for more man hours, but be careful. They may offer lower prices, but you do get what you pay for. If they end up doing a bad job, you may end up shelling out twice as much as you originally wanted to pay just to fix a problem or see better results.

Fourth, ask what type of budget they require for expenses like link buying or commercial accounts and how that process works. By the same token, be wary of SEO consultants who charge outrageous fees. If they are absolutely huge online, they may be worth it, because of the power of their existing network and influence online. Think of it as being similar to a PR company with pre-existing relationships and connections that are worth a lot of money. However, it’s important to understand that the exact work the big guys are actually doing on your campaign can be done for way less. In general, though, SEO involves a lot of specific labor and specialized tasks, but nothing that should cost $5000 per month unless it includes extensive content creation (writing, programming tools, link bait), design, or commercial purchases.

At almost every price level it will be greatly beneficial to the client to have at least some monthly expenses that can be put towards sponsorships, links, and other items that will greatly enhance SEO efforts (such as a $200/month link budget). I sometimes recommended that new clients submit their sites to the Yahoo! Directory for a one time fee. Depending on the category, the link can be very valuable. To a website that doesn’t have any online presence, it’s definitely worth the fee as it can bring in some targeted traffic and increase the “trust” value of your new site. Direct costs like these should be added to the monthly labor fees for actually doing the work. Any good SEO firm should include these costs in their proposal and break them down so you know exactly where your money is going; don’t work with any company that doesn’t do this.

These are some basics that should help you hire the right SEO Company for your website. If you don’t see results in the first three months in terms of traffic and rankings, find someone else. If by chance your site gets banned or traffic levels greatly decrease, you may want to cancel immediately. Make sure you like the person you’re dealing with, because if the SEO Company you choose is effective you may continue doing business with them for a long time. Choose an SEO firm that can grow with you in the future.

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