How to Find a Great SEO Company
While checking referrer stats yesterday I found the question “how to find a great seo company” which indeed is an obvious one and nevertheless a good one. I won’t recommend you a single SEO company in spite of writing for one.
Sadly searching Google, especially Google.com for SEO company is not really the best way to determine one. Why? Try searching for the keyphrase car company.
Do you see the best or most important car company on top? Is it Rolls Royce, Ferrari or even Toyota? Instead I will show things to look out for to find a SEO company that will suit your needs:
Connections
Nowadays most businesses already have some experience with SEO, some who approach me already have several attempts of a SEO campaign behind them. You could ask your online friends at Twitter or LinkedIn or even better, real life business partners.
Portfolio
Some questionable SEO companies do not have a portfolio at all. They don’t tell you who they have worked with. You have to check the sites from the portfolio with Google. Do they rank on the first page for the first keyphrases they display in the page title? Has this company already worked in your industry? Be it travel, real estate or gambling, some sectors require special skills.
Personal branding
Is someone working for the SEO company who is recognizable by name? Has this person a positive record of appearing publicly both in writing for search and marketing related publications or appearing on industry events? It’s not proof of authority by itself but it certainly shows a level of expertise that stands the test of peer review.
Local presence
SEO is about trust. You surely have read or heard stories about black hat SEO or spam discovered on high profile sites. Local companies are not better by definition but at least they have to abide by the same laws as you.
History
How long is a company around? The SEO industry is a young one. A company that exists for more than 10 years is of course good news but not a guarantee of success. How much has a company achieved in that period of time? Has it evolved? Does it still offer SEO for Altavista like 10 years ago (some really do)?
This is quite a short a list, it’s not meant to be a long one. In case these 5 factors are OK in that
- someone recommended the SEO company
- the SEO company has a portfolio that makes sense
- it’s not only an anonymous SEO company but real people or better, known industry figures are there too
- the SEO company is not on the Cayman Islands
- the company offers SEO for a while without being still the same as in 1999
You should ask for a quote and compare. Most notably it’s important what the company offers. Does it focus on outdated or incomplete offerings (mostly rankings, traffic and PageRank)?
To add some other opinions I asked my (@onreact_com) Twitter followers for other suggestions. I edited them slightly for better readibility:
sumesh: Look for SEOs known for honest industry info on their blogs (like Matt Cutts but from independent companies)
sharkinvestor: I look for these who create good widgets and give them for free.
sharkinvestor: Widgetbait has worked very good for me. Doing good one requires more effort and research – so these companies should be cool
hannah_bo_banna: look for SEO companies who have got good results in your niche
February 9th, 2010 at 3:28 pm
? | “How to Find a Great SEO Company | SEOptimise” ( http://tinyurl.com/c4ep9v )
February 9th, 2010 at 3:28 pm
How to Find a Great SEO Company http://tinyurl.com/c4ep9v
February 9th, 2010 at 3:28 pm
How to Find a Great SEO Company http://tinyurl.com/c4ep9v
May 7th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
Connections is by far the best indicator. Ask around. Plop down the $$$ and go to a conference and ask people at the bar.
This method also works well when hunting for an electrician, plumber, or carpenter. :)
May 8th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
I think another good tactic would be to follow up with companies that they’ve worked for to get some feedback. A lot of times that will tell the tale.
May 8th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Good idea but I’m not sure about that. For instance I worked for an ecommerce site for years for a low price (they paid the price of years ago) and everything worked perfect for the site. Then all of a sudden their PageRank fell (like the PR of most sites during that time) and they got angry at me. So we parted as I didn’t want a client that doesn’t pay much and behaves like that inspite of my work being great. Now what will this client tell you?
May 11th, 2009 at 8:36 am
I’d also recommend picking an SEO company of an appropriate size.
From a client’s perspective it’s often better to be a big fish in a little pond. For example, if your budgets are limited, you may do better with a smaller SEO company who really value your business, rather than a larger company who may pay you less attention as you’re not spending as much as some of their bigger clients.
May 15th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
One great way is when you find a handful of companies you are considering to use try search their business names and see what you find. Most companies will practice what they preach. If you don’t see a lot going on in the search results I would find another company.
May 23rd, 2009 at 7:29 am
several ways to trust on the company just type SEO at google the site which you get in top ten they are the providers who are the best becuase as they are in the most competative keyword and they will do good SEO of your company…….
May 25th, 2009 at 10:02 pm
I believe that a decent SEO company should at least rank for their own targeted keywords, this isn’t the case all the time since there are some great companies that do not have the time to optimize their own website but usually it would be the first step.
As far as the portfolio anybody can search for a generic keyword in google and put in their site that they were the ones that optimized the page. I would suggest to contact the SEO company and ask them to provide an email address or a phone number (if possible) for at least one of their previous customers to get a real feedback.
October 21st, 2009 at 8:06 pm
This is such a great resource that you are providing and you give it away for free. I love seeing websites that understand the value of providing a quality resource for free. It’s the old what goes around comes around routine. Did you acquired lots of links and I see lots of trackbacks ???