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SEO companies are easy to find. A quick Internet search for “SEO company” will provide you with enough results to surf for hours but you may find yourself asking just what exactly does an SEO company do and how can I spot a good one? Let's start with the basics.
What exactly is SEO anyway?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is the process of altering your website so that a customer looking for your product or service on the Internet finds your website before your competition's.
The text that an Internet user types into a search engine box is called a keyword. The search results are displayed by the search engine on a search engine results page (SERP) in order of the most relevant websites with reference to the requested keywords.
Each search engine like Google, Yahoo and MSN uses a program called a spider or crawler to review the billions of websites on the Internet. These spiders catalog information from each site and lists them in an appropriate index to be retrieved by the search engine when a search request is triggered for a keyword that is relevant for each website.
The algorithms that spiders use to rank websites according to the chosen keywords is very complex and changes frequently to foil attempts to deceive the programs and gain a higher ranking by dishonest methods. Certain aspects of a website can be adjusted to make them spider-friendly and boost ranking. No one wants their website to rank on the 2,568th page of a search result, they want to be as close to the number one spot as possible. This is where an SEO Company can hep. They know all the tips and tricks that will increase a website's ranking.
What to look for in a good SEO Company
A good SEO company will use only honest or white hat techniques to alter your website. When a website utilizes black hat SEO, they run the risk of being banned from a search engine's database for life. Run a search for the SEO company's name on Google, Yahoo and MSN, if you can't find them, don't use them.
A reputable SEO company will be able to provide a list of previous clients and testimonials. If they can't, they may be a fly-by-night company looking to collect your money and run. Common practice is to pay no more than 50% of your estimated costs up front. If they don't deliver results, they don't collect the remainder of their money.
Avoid any SEO company that claims to be able to guarantee number one organic ranking in any search engine. No company can successfully achieve a 100% success rate for the number one spot on all three major search engines. Any company that makes such a claim is dishonest and should be avoided.
If at all possible, talk with a company representative on the telephone or in person. This will provide a better opportunity for you to assess how reputable the company is. Reputable SEO companies are out there, you just have to weed through the rotten ones to find one.
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