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• Selecting keywords
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• Choosing a search engine marketing company
• Choosing the right SEO company UK
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Choosing the right SEO company

You're best off shopping around - before you invest any hard cash into any search engine promotion / optimisation company - that's the bottom line!

At some point, maybe after you have tried to promote your own website in the Search Engines unsuccessfully, you have come to the conclusion that you need to hire a Web Site Promotion or SEO firm or person to get that traffic moving through your site via organic or PPC listings in the major search engines.

To save you from wasting some of that hard earned cash, you need to be asking the following questions of your prospective business partner. I say business partner as Website promotion / search engine optimisation is not a quick fix, its an ongoing project.

Question 1. How do you intend to optimise my site?
And the answers to that question want to be somewhere along the following:

• Through keyword analysis
• Keyword integration
• Web design consultation / optimisation
• Link building strategy
• Search engine & directory submission and registration
• Monthly reports and support
• Guarantee's

Keyword Analysis - You need to come to an agreement over what are the best keyword phrases for your services / product. Any unscrupulous SEO firm can guarantee top postions for keyword phrases that have hardly any competition or traffic for that matter.

See my advice on Keyword Research

Keyword Integration - The correct integration of your agreed keyword phrases within your websites copy and code. You don't want a bunch of keyword phrases hidden in the code or just placed at the bottom or your webpage.

Web Design Consultation / Optimisation - This involves the SEO firm consutling you on design changes that maybe required. Basically, looking for spider traps - anything that may stop a search engine spider robot from indexing your pages.

Link Building Strategy - Whether the SEO firm is going to carry out the link building process or offer you advice on what to do, make sure their is in fact a link building strategy - as some search engines rank your site predominantly based on incoming links to your site.

See my advice on Link Building Strategy

Search Engine & Directory Submission - What good is it having a fantastic website, fantastic products and customer care second to none, if your website is not submitted to the saerch engines and directories. However, don't be fooled by the claim that your site will be submitted to 200 top search engines. The only ones that matter are Google, MSN, Yahoo, AOL and ASK. All the other search engines get feed their results by these major search engines. Make sure you're going to get a listing in the DMOZ directory and other related directories, like trade directories.

Monthly Reports & Support - How well is your site doing? You want to be getting a monthly report showing where your site ranks in all the major search engines and for what keyword terms. You also want informaion on your search engine saturation and link popularity.

Guarantee - Be wary of any company that offers a full blooded guarantee. And if they do, please read the small print and don't be forced into using keyword phrases that they have suggested. It is possible to guarantee page one rankings within a set period of time, but are the techniques being used ethical? if not you could get banned.

If your SEO person / company is close to the above you're on a winner. Read on...

Question 2. What techniques WON'T you use?
Listed below are some of the techniques that you don't really want to be using:

• Cloaked pages
• Sneaky redirects
• Keyword stuffing
• Doorway pages
• Duplicate sites
• Repeated submissions

Although a couple of the above do have an ethical place in website optimisation it is far safer to stay clear of all of the above.

Question 3. Do you have any current examples of sites you have optimised?
Hey! what kind of search engine optimisation company is it if they are not happy or don't have any CURRENT sites listed well in the major search engines. If the company is reputable they will have sites that you can view. Check those sites rankings on the Search Engines, and most importantly check the competition for that sites keyword phrase.

Check the top right of Googles results pages and you'll see somethig like this:

If the number is less than 100,000 ask the seo company for more examples as getting good rankings in a none copetitive arena is relatively easy for any half decent SEO company.

If by now you are getting all the right answers to your questions, you should feel confident that you are going to be employing the services of a reputable SEO Firm.