How-To Choose a Search Engine Optimization
Company
You may have spent countless hours
trying to get a good search engine ranking. Maybe you
have been successful and maybe you haven't. In either
case you may have considered outsourcing this part of
your website promotion to a professional search
engine optimization company.
Here we will provide you a
few tips on how to choose a good company.
1) Find a Company by Searching the Search Engines
What better way to find a company that practices
what they preach? Look in all the major search
engines to see which companies come up on top most of
the time. You can do a search on keywords such as
"search engine optimization" or "search engine
placement." If a company can get itself up in the
top, then chances are they can get you on top as
well. Narrow down your search to a few different
companies and follow the rest of the steps below
until you find one that you like. You will find our
search engine optimization partner listed very highly
in all the major search engines.
2) Guarantees
Find out what kind of a guarantee they provide.
No one can guarantee that 100% of your keywords will
get a top 10 ranking in all the major search engines.
However, most companies will give a minimum guarantee
and a refund if the guarantee is not met. Some
companies, such as us, provide a pay-per-performance
type placement, where you may pay an initial set-up
fee and nothing more until you see results in the top
10
or top 20. Note that most companies will only
guarantee results after minimum of 2-3 months,
because search engines do not index sites
immediately.
3) Reputation
Find out how long the company has been around and
who are some of their clients. Ask them if they can
provide you with a client list that you may contact.
You may also ask to see some recent ranking reports
for their existing clients.
4) Technique
Ask them what technique they use for
optimization. Almost everybody uses some
sort of doorway page technique for placement.
Some may use cloaking software and some may use other
redirection techniques, where the visitor does not
actually see the optimized page.
Some do not use any redirection and
the visitor may end up on an ugly entry page
constructed only from a few sentences of text.
Cloaking software may be a little bit risky because
the search engines may detect them, and also it
requires a high level of maintenance to keep up with
the IP number changes. If the optimization company
does not update their IP addresses on a regular
basis, then you may lose all your rankings.
Also, ask the optimization company if they use any
software for optimization or if they use manual
techniques. Stay away from companies using software
such as Web Position Gold. Just recently, AltaVista
dropped many sites that use Web Position software for
optimization. This type of software usually places
certain text on all pages that can be detected.
Although, Web Position now states
that they have randomized their software. However,
companies using such software normally do not have
true knowledge of how search engines work and they
rely on software that anyone can buy to do the work.
A true search engine placement expert will not need
any type of software to get you a high ranking.
Here at Submit Express, we do not use cloaking
software. We use our own proprietary Frames and Java
based redirection technique, which we will gladly
explain to anybody interested in our services. We
also do not use any type of software to create
optimized pages.
5) Directory Submission
Since directory submissions are reviewed by
actual humans, other techniques must be used for
optimization. Make sure that the optimization company
knows what they are doing. Make sure that they will
submit you to Yahoo, LookSmart, Open Directory (Dmoz.org),
Go Guides and Snap.
6) Keyword Consultation
Most optimization companies will help you decide
keywords for your site or can recommend better or
similar keywords to use. There are tools that
can determine what the most searched keywords are.
A good optimization company will have such tools and
will help you decide keywords for your site.
7) Who will own and host the
pages?
Make sure that you have full ownership of the
optimized pages. Some optimization companies
will register new domain names under their own names,
host it on their own servers and redirect all traffic
to you. The problem is that the day you decide to
cancel service you will lose all traffic to your
site.
If new domain names are being
registered for optimization, some companies may offer
to host the optimized pages for you and redirect
traffic to you. However, make sure that the domain
names get registered under your own name. Note that
it may not be
necessary to get a brand new domain name. Some
companies will optimize your existing domain name. If
so, make sure to ask what changes will be made to
your site in advance.
8) Ranking Reports and other Extras
Make sure that the company offers you monthly
ranking reports. Ranking reports could be a
very time consuming process, unless you have your own
software. Most search engine companies will offer
this in the deal. Also, ask what other extras or
options can be provided.
For example, with our plans we
provide submission to 2500+ search engines,
installation of a counter program that keeps track of
search engine traffic, Yahoo and LookSmart Express
business submissions and link popularity
improvements. Link popularity is a very
important ranking factor these days. Make sure that
the company you choose offers a plan for improving
your link popularity.
9) Fees
Some companies may charge a one-time flat fee and
some may have monthly
maintenance fees, or some others may have various
options to choose from. For those that charge
monthly fees, make sure they are on either a flat
monthly fee or pay-per-performance model. Stay away
from sites charging on a per-pay-click basis.
Some companies will offer to
redirect search engine traffic to you and charging
you only for the keywords you have chosen upfront.
They will install a tracking software that can track
what keywords your site is being found with and they
will charge you a certain fee, such as 50 cents a
click to your site. In the long run, you will end up
paying a lot more using per-pay-click placement vs. a
flat monthly fee method.
There are only a handful of good optimization
companies out there that do not charge an arm and a
leg to do the work and offer everything above. Feel
free to do your own research and compare them to our
services.
If you are interested in a quote for your site,
please email your URL address and 10-30 keywords:
Please click here to Email us.
You can also call us toll free at:
1-866-748-4035
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