Ok, so you’ve finished your web site. Now you just submit your web site to a couple of search engines, sit back, relax and wait to see your bank account grow. Yeah, that’s what I thought as well. You wait and wait and wait... nothing. No hits. No growing bank account. You cant even find your web site on the search engines when you searched for your company name. Are you even listed? How do people find you? Finally fed up with all the waiting, you decide to do some research. You go to forums and read article after article, and one acronym keeps popping up. SE What? What’s SEO? You continue to read and find out more about search engine optimization, and come to realize that you’re a “novice” to the World Wide Web and you feel left out in the dark and unavialable to the possibilities that the Internet has to offer small business.

I was like you not so many moons ago, and I had absolutely no idea where to start. What is a meta tag? Key word density? Link development? Isn’t that what we did when we were 3? Connect the links and see how long it goes? As I recall, I believe they were monkeys in a barrel.

It’s not as daunting as you might think. The first step is to figure out whether you have the time to put aside to learn about search engine optimization. What methods should you use? Where should you go to ask for help? But like many businesses on the internet this isn't your full time gig. You actually have a job you have to attend for your bread and butter so to speak. So the decision is made, I’m going to get professional help. Now....who do I go to?

This may be the ultimate question when it comes to SEO, who do you go to? I have been working in this industry for quite some time now and the answer is never clear. You don't want to go to a company that’s too cheap - can they produce the results? What are they actually doing for your web site?

What I tell anyone who comes to me is do your homework. Look at what the company has done for previous clients. Look at what the cost is, and what is included in the cost? How did you find them? Can you contact them by phone? Or did they contact you? Look at their rankings. What methods do they use to provide you with your results? Are they one of the good ones? Can you trust them to get the work done? Ask as many questions as you possibly can to find out if what they are saying makes sense to you. Ask them to put it in to terms you can understand and stay away from the fancy computer talk, and last but never least, go to more than one company.

An example of a good SEO campaign is ongoing work, open communication and the willingness to help you understand the optimization itself. Any ethical and honest company wants to have an ongoing relationship with their clients. They want their clients to feel like they are treated well during every step of the process. So when you are looking for your SEO company, make sure they make you feel like you’re going to be included in the process and not just tossed to the dogs once you have signed on the dotted line.

Link development is just one example of ongoing work that should be done on a consistent basis. In simple terms link development is how the search engines find your site. The more links you have coming in, the sooner you will be found.

The web is evolving everyday and search engines are constantly trying to stay one step ahead of SEO companies. The frequent change of search engine algorithms is just one example, so it is a good idea to find an SEO company that will stay on top of SEO methods and practices in case there is a change in algorithm and you get dropped like last weeks potato salad. These two reasons alone is why you should find a company who is looking for long tern relations and not ones who are trying to get you the easy answer and get you up in the search engine rankings fast and dropped even faster.

In this industry, you have to work with blind faith ...a scary thought, and there are many companies out there who have put a bad stigma on SEO. Many people have been burned more than once. If I had a nickel for every time I heard a story about an SEO company that put forth promises and couldn’t deliver I would be retired and living in Tahiti right now. The advice I have for the “newbies” coming in to the e-business is do your research, find out your competition, and make sure you are looking at all your options before you choose your SEO provider, because if something sounds really good, there could be a big, bad wolf behind that red shawl ready to gobble you up.

About The Author

Carrie Haggerty is the General Manager at http://www.abalone.ca - Abalone Designs Inc. - one of the world’s leading search engine optimization firms. More of Carrie’s articles can be found at http://www.abalone.ca/resources/

carrie@abalone.ca