As a professional SEO firm, Netmark doesn't use gimmicks or unscrupulous search engine spam techniques that could get your site removed and “blacklisted” from search engines. Instead we perform legitimate optimized writing and programming that meets search engine rules and makes for top search engine positioning that lasts and continues to perform well for months and, in most cases, years.
Here are some of the questions we believe you need to ask before hiring a SEO company:
- Find out how long the SEO company has been in business (in the SEO world 3-4 years old is very old)
- Does the SEO firm or its principals have marketing experience background?
- Will they perform an analysis of your competition’s websites to understand why the other sites rank highly?
- What will the SEO company base their keyword recommendations on? Keyword research is a necessity to determine relevant, targeted keywords in order for a SEO campaign to succeed.
- What are realistic traffic expectations for your site? Obscure keyword phrases may bring top ten or #1 ranking positions but if only a trickle of people search for the term each month, it likely won't result in increased sales.
- Does the SEO company differentiate between “traffic” and “qualified traffic”? Bulk unqualified traffic arriving at your site for irrelevant keywords is unlikely to convert to a sale or new customer. Does the SEO firm understand what it takes to create a sales conversion? More than likely, you as a business owner knows!
- Does the SEO company fully comply to search engine’s posted best practices and a strict no-spam policy to avoid your website being penalized, possibly indefinitely, by search engines?
- What methods will the SEO company use to increase traffic? Will they make changes to your existing web page coding or will they just be adding or revising meta tags? Will they be performing search engine optimization copywriting and editing to add relevant keywords to your visible page text? Will they be adding new pages, or possibly redesigning your navigation to make it more search engine friendly? Do they recommend an entire redesign when it is not necessary?
- Does the SEO company use Latent Semantic Analysis for proper keyword placement? Do they know the proper keyword density needed?
- Is what the company does standard for everyone, or are certain techniques used for your specific needs? (Keep in mind that the same shoe does not fit all companies feet, so to speak)
- How many pages will they be optimizing in your website?
- How many people actually work at the firm? 90% of SEO firms have 4 people or under. Are they going to have the resources, time, and man power for your campaign?
- How much, if any, of their strategy relies on pay-per-click advertising and how much will that cost? Remember, pay-per-click is like leasing vs. buying a car. When you stop paying, the traffic stops. We sometimes recommend pay-per-click advertising for specific marketing strategies, but not for ongoing search engine visibility. Pay-per-click is not a long-term solution unless you have deep pockets. Obtaining “free” search engine positions in natural search engines, such as Google, is the preferred – and longer-term – route to more qualified traffic.
- If the SEO company is offering high ranking guarantees – how is that possible when no-one can control or influence the search sites? Even Google's own published guidelines states: "No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google. Beware of SEO's that claim to guarantee rankings, or that claim a "special relationship" with Google, or that claim to have a "priority submit" to Google. There is no priority submit for Google."
- How will your website traffic be monitored and measured? What type of reports will you get and how often will you receive them?
- If you can feel good about all of the answers to these questions about your SEO firm, you have probably made a good decision. Why wouldn’t you hire an SEO firm that is willing to go the extra mile to follow strict standards to make sure you see success?
Netmark is the professional SEO firm that you've been looking for. Contact us today, and we'll be more than happy to answer these questions – in honesty.
