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HERES’S HOW! A website sitting in the wastelands of pages 2 -10 is like that boat your friend bought that sits in his backyard slowly wasting away, it’s useless and a money trap! So Marc at Elevate SEO Perth has put together a few of the key things to note when needing to pick the company for you. So, you decide to do something about your under performing website and look to hire an SEO company to give your site it’s rightful exposure on the first page of your important search keywords so you can get your product or service out to the world where it needs to be ! This is where it can get incredibly confusing and stressful and to compound this, it is an incredibly big decision, with big financial consequences. Not only are you facing a not too insignificant monthly outlay that can take more than 6 months to see any significant benefit. But, also, if you get the choice correct, the right SEO company can make you tens of thousands of dollars more per month than a company that delivers little. By picking the correct company, you can not only make sales and therefore money, but also grow your business into something much bigger and fulfil it’s greatest potential. Compounding this is the ability to follow this trajectory on a much faster timeline. So let’s get started and start with a couple of the things that you DON”T want to do! THINGS TO AVOID * Go with the company that comes up first for SEO in your particular city or area. This seems counter intuitive as anyone that can get the ranking in this field must be the best right? Not always, granted it can be the case. However, it can be reflective of a company that is spending it’s time and recourses on this and not their clients and perhaps they do not have many clients to begin with and this is a sign of a lot of spare time. Quite often, the best companies are incredibly busy from word of mouth and referrals and do not have time to worry about their own keywords. * SEO Online Lists- These are usually created by the author as a ‘pay to list’ page where the highest bidder becomes the number one spot. Not only does this mean that you are getting a company that has to pay for their clients in this way but you are probably the one wearing the bill in the form of higher rates that are then passed onto you! * Mysterious operators. If asked about any details, these companies will begin to act like magicians that create slight of hand moves that can not be explained for special reasons. SEO is a fully transparent industry that can be easily explained. Much like a plumber can explain what he/she will do to fix your plumbing, a good SEO expert can do likewise. In fact, at Elevate SEO Perth, we firmly believe the more you can educate the client, the more benefit to the project at hand. * Number 1 Guarantees. Any company that is making a claim that they can get you to number 1 is lying. Good companies can deliver these results but nothing is for certain. There are so many variables that no one can be sure to get this result. Avoid anyone that tells you otherwise as this is a sign that they will tell you anything to get the sale. * Spam Emailers. Any company that is willing to spam email you and thousands of other people at the same time is no doubt going about their backlinking strategy in the same fashion. This is a certain way to get average results and to also increase your odds of acquiring a Google rankings penalty at some stage. THINGS TO INCLUDE IN YOUR PLAN Set goals and make sure they are important and positively related to success. * Traffic that is incoming from your target market * Boosting revenue from an increase in conversions or an increase in profit margin * Increasing your click through rate on your calls to action. These are things like buttons to call your business direct or a file to download that is from your business. Try to avoid goals that are not important in the scheme of your businesses success and growth, these can include things such as * Traffic increase that is not targeted. Whilst it may stroke the ego to increase overall traffic to your website, it is of little benefit to your profit numbers if it is not targeted. * Sole focus on rankings. In a similar vein to the point above, it is only beneficial to increase rankings that are identified as important to your business converting sales. * Beating your competitors. While it is nice to get ahead of your competition it is more beneficial to focus on your own business and style and this, once mastered, will be a far more attractive trait for your customers to see. ASK QUESTIONS AND LOTS OF THEM! This is key, for reasons that are two fold. Firstly, they will help to educate you on the ins and outs of what to expect and what will be needed on your climb to the top. Secondly, a good SEO business will build trust and confidence in their clients as they address the questions and give clear answers. So, let’s begin with a list of important questions that should be asked before signing on to an SEO comp 1. What processes are you going to undertake and why? Thi great thing to ask first up and you should be able to have a great understanding of what both parties will be doing in the journey to achieve the goals. Make sure if you do not understand any of the lingo that you get a clear explanation in more basic terminology. We will be putting to together a SEO Lingo Dictionary that will be available from the www.Elevateseoperth.com.au 2. Find out about their reporting practices! How often? What metrics do they use? Why do they use these metrics? This is a great insight into whether both the client and SEO company are on the same page with their goals. We feel it is important to report on a monthly basis as a minimum. As far as what to report goes, you should be looking for companies that will focus on Activities Summaries / Search Traffic / Search Rankings / Conversions. On top of this there may be some more customized metrics that are tailored to your requirements. 3. What happens if the results are not going so well? This should give you some good insights into the process the company uses and the ethics of the company. As far as processes are concerned, they should be able to detail a plan to increase results and they should be able to clearly communicate this to you. Also, they should give you a clear timeframe and some sort of reimbursement of cost, whether that is a reduction in rate or refund until results are forthcoming. An ethical company should not baulk at this kind of an offer. 4. Are you an ethical company that uses practices that will not penalize my site? This is very important to know, as any penalty from Google can seriously hinder your sites rankings for months, if not years. The company you decide on should insist that they follow Googles best practices policy and should be able to answer what this entails in some detail. What SEO do you do? While this could take hours to detail and most would go straight over the heads of the majority of clients. You will want to find a company that is happy to outline in a little detail what they will be doing to deserve taking a fairly substantial amount of your money each month. Things to look out for are companies that focus on three areas. a) On Page Optimization – This in short is the content within the site and how well the website has been setup for optimization (I have a blog that details this in full if you want to know the complete list of things to focus on) b) Off Page Optimization – This is basically the creation of page / domain authority and is something that your SEO company should be able to outline at length with you. c) Technical Optimization – When a company does an initial website analysis (and they always should) they will be doing this so that they can optimize the site so that the Google spiders and crawlers can understand the site as easily and comprehensively as possible MAKING YOUR DECISION After you have set your goals and asked enough questions that you feel comfortable in the direction you want to take and what the process actually entails, it’s time to make a choice. A few things to keep in mind: * Pick a company that has built some trust with proof of results and has also put you at ease with their conversations with you. They should feel like they understand your company and your objectives. * It is always good to have some positive stories about the company through word of mouth. Whether this is from someone you know or maybe from you calling a client of theirs and asking for yourself. * They have given you a price and contract structure you are happy with and you understand exactly what needs to be paid. Also, an understanding of what is required from both parties to achieve the ultimate goals.