Trying to do SEO for your company can be overwhelming. You know your business well; however the web can be unchartered territory. Compared to traditional advertising cost, SEO is the most affordable of all marketing strategies and offers the biggest ROI, depending on your business model. Keep in mind, SEO is only a portion of your online marketing strategy, as it often focuses on getting the right people to your website. Conversions or getting the right people to do the right things on your website are equally important factors to your online success.

In order to be successful with your online marketing strategy, you may be considering hiring an SEO firm. If so, some things to look for in a firm include:
 

• The firm works to understand your business and clearly defines your goals and objectives. If the SEO firm does not understand your business, how can they understand your market or know how to speak to them?
• Measurable Goals. With the information today, you should be able to not only set goals, but deliver those results. An example may be to increase search engine traffic for the specified keyword term by 50% or 200 clicks per month. This is something you can measure and clearly know if they deliver.
• References. Always check other customers and look at the corresponding websites they work on. Do they come up under the term they said the site does on the first page or first result?
• Works Collaboratively. An SEO firm cannot be successful without your input or feedback. You know your business best and no one can say it as well as you do. An SEO firm must work with you to approve keywords, content, etc. for optimal success.
• Explanation. Your SEO firm should be able to explain their process and what they are doing for you. If it sounds too good to be true, or seems more like smoke and mirrors it probably is. 
• Conversions. Even though SEO does not always clearly tie to conversion, it is something that should be discussed and part of your overall plan/strategy. If your SEO person is bringing people that don’t lead to conversions, you may need to determine if it is because of your keywords, or your user experience on your website. Also, if your SEO firm does not know what a conversion is to you, how do they know they are bringing you the right people? While conversions may not always be a measurable goal for your SEO firm, it should always be a topic of discussion with them. If your SEO firm does SEM for you, conversion should most definitely be a goal/measurable result.

Many people try to take advantage of the new market and need for SEO and have created unethical, black hat companies to make a quick buck. If your SEO/SEM firm claims any of the things below, you should avoid working with them.
 

• Guaranteed Placement. There is no way to guarantee placement of an organic/natural keyword result on Search Engines. No one person truly knows Google’s full algorithms, and results can change daily. Traffic results are often much more predictable if you do the right things.
• Keyword Ownership. If a firm says you can ‘own’ a keyword for a fee, this is nothing more than a hoax. Keywords do not work that way. You can do a Pay-Per-Click campaign on a keyword, but you will still never own it and be shown with all of the other advertisers/bidders for that word.
• They Do it All! When an SEO firm does not work with you to understand your goals, business, or target market, or have you proof and approve anything they do, this may be a sign that they are just trying to get your check, throw something together and be gone.
• One Time and Your Done. SEO is a continuous process. Traditional marketing of I got a phone book ad and I am done for a year, does not apply here. You can’t do SEO once and expect it will work continuously for you. Behaviors change, competitors change, and your business may even change. 
• Too Good to Be True. If you are made outrageous promises that sound too good to be true, they probably are.
• Link Building Overnight. There are some black-hat techniques that some companies use for SEO, particularly with Link Building. Black-hat techniques are considered unethical, or trying to trick search engines, which they do not like! These techniques can get you banned from search engines. There are sites that are just for link building. While they may work immediately, when the search engine finds this out, it will have a negative effect on your SEO.
• Black-hat techniques. Some companies may do things that are not ethical or they are trying to trick the search engines. Do not let a company do this for you because it will hurt you in the long run. Black-hat techniques may include but are not limited to trying to stuff keywords in the site that do not make sense, adding text that is the same color as the background, hiding things from end users just for search engines, or adding a lot of pages that are not visible to end users for search engines.

We have all received contacts online and by phone that offer to take over your SEO/SEM services for your business. When dealing with an unknown firm, it is worth the time to check them out and ask around, even search them online; using as many channels as possible to research them. Look before you leap!