Small business owners who want to strengthen their online presence need to hire a good SEO provider to help them be found for the most relevant search terms in their industry or niche. However, it's hard to know which SEO company to choose, as they all seem to make the same promises, their prices being also very similar. The first thing to do when searching for SEO experts to hire is to ask them for the list of keyword they've managed to obtain good rankings for. You have to make sure these keywords are competitive and have a decent estimated traffic volume. If the agency doesn't provide you these figures, you can use various free tools available today. The reason for doing this research is that everybody is able to rank a web page for a non-competitive keyword nobody searches for. You don't need an agency to help you with that. The niches or industries covered by the SEO provider also matter. Ideally, you should hire someone who has been doing previous work in your industry. This can be hard, as they might have worked for your direct competitors, case in which you might not be able to hire them. However, if you market blue widgets and an SEO company has done a great job for a company selling blue widgets, you could hire them, as they know all about the widgets industry. You should run away from any SEO consultant who promises you the number one position in the SERPs for a specific keyword. Nobody can ever promise to help a client reach a specific position, as search engines keep their algorithms secret. Besides, they adjust these algorithms on a continuous basis, so anyone who claims to be able to bring a website on the first position is either a scammer or a novice who has no idea what he is talking about. Stay away from these so-called experts. The other type of SEO expert you should stay away from is the one who doesn't explain you in detail the methods and the work procedure. As SEO actions done wrong can bring you severe penalties from Google, you need to know at any given time the intentions and the activities of your SEO agency. It's too risky to let them do whatever they want, as they might employ black hat methods that could get you in trouble. This is only a brief guide to help you find a trustworthy SEO provider, but it covers the main things you have to check. Check us out on Deviantart and Livejournal! Related Posts: Is Your Business The Right Business For Using An SEO Agency? The Many Faces Of SEO |