SEO is an industry that is very fluid-like and has a history of shifting shapes, which leaves those who need the services in a confusing state when it comes to selecting an SEO company in 2013. The industry of online SEO offers a very cloudy mixture of SEO tactics. Many of these are still being sold as viable methods online, despite their lacking of SEO value in the current landscape of SEO that Google as created through algorithms. Avoiding companies of SEO that game and abuse both the system and clients is one of the very first tactics that you need to adopt in your strategy of SEO. Much easier than said done ÔÇô the water isn’t very clear here.

Aiming For Page One

The effort to make it to page one needs to incorporate a myriad of optimizations to linking, web page structure, media, content ÔÇô the list seems to be very long. Standard optimization using well-known and regular methods includes adding tags and keywords and using social media to make the site popular. In the past, tactics that were utilized by optimizers brought immediate results and many of them were impressive. Reaching page one for any keyword in weeks were very common claims and they are still found within the recesses of online. These optimizations either caused the site to be hit rather hard by Google or didn’t last very long filtering out SEO gamers and spammers in their updates.

Various Flavors Of SEO Companies

In an attempt to show what there is available, the SEO providers are categorized that are existing today in these kinds:

• Resellers ÔÇô They are very good at closing deals, but the simply outsource all 100% of their work to counterparts leaving them no room for flexibility. They bid mainly on pay per click, and generally talk big game. There are more focused on their generation of traffic rather than SEO.

• Cookie Cutters ÔÇô These are generally the larger companies that have had many previous clients. They are very good at demonstrating their SEO prowess with sophisticated reports from very clever software. They generally have very little updated knowledge about trends in the changes of algorithms and the industry.

• Followers ÔÇô these are the SEO firms that are medium sized and working on being like the larger firms. They are wanting to be ranked on each one of the top SEO lists available, and they thrive mainly on buzz. Their ultimate goals, more profits, and industry recognition; generally at the expense of their performance of the client’s or a result that is short term. They supply SEO reports from the exact expensive software like the Cookie Cutters.

• The Guy Next Door ÔÇô This is generally a web design company or guy that offers SEO services as their secondary income. They are all talk and to some extent follow fundamental guidelines of search engines, however they may lack the requisite resources or knowledge to obtain sustainable results. They most likely can’t afford mainstream software to the larger firms.

• The Company Next Door ÔÇô These guys are known as the smaller SEO companies that you see with an office next door to a local corner plaza or real estate agency. They generally have connections with a couple larger contracts that will allow them to stay in business. They are much more than just a storefront and rely mainly on marketing and image to live.

• The Company To Stay Away From ÔÇô This company guarantees high rankings, submission of your site to hundreds of search engines, directories and will promise thousands of other useless activities such as a fast food menu. They will offer thousands of inbound links for cheap, promise you top of page, super fast ranking and show their methods as a industry secret that they can only know.

• Company You Have Been Searching For ÔÇô This company has references that you can talk with and testimonials from real live clients. They need to offer a clear method which they will share with you. They need to be backed up by reliable (and most importantly), non-complicated information that is easy to understand. They will integrate both SEO hybrid and Social Media into your strategy for SEO campaign. You need to be able to read accurate case studies that will prove how worthy they are, accompanied by reports from Google whose information may not be manipulated and can be trusted. They also follow publishing guidelines and search engine optimization and stay updated with algorithm changes and trends. Additionally, everything you are paying for will be documented in an understandable and clear format.

How To Measure SEO Success?

We measure our success of SEO through lead/conversion rates, rankings in search engines and traffic reporting. The calculations aren’t very difficult to make if you have a before and after report on your traffic. To check if you have had a good ROI, you need to look at the increase of traffic percentage. If that results into more revenue and a good position in searching for the right keywords, then you have probably chosen well and will be seeing success.

Parting Shots

Strategies of SEO have come a very long way since 1990. SEO success is not based upon keeping up with updates in algorithm, reacting and watching the trends in ranking, and taking the right steps to combating web spam on your own site. You would expect that your SEO company would help you with this, but it will pay for you to notice what you are doing and why you are doing it before you pay for SEO.

SEO has always been one of those long term efforts for those individuals that are successful at it. Selecting the right type of SEO company is mainly about trusting that they are ready for long term effort, and knowing what the effort involves. We all want to go worldwide and see the larger numbers in traffic, but rarely anyone does; if they happen to, it is generally hard to replicate and short-lived. Making the correct decisions in choosing an SEO firm may require very little more than just common sense.