Since SEO has no real standard or set core rules to follow it is very hard to provide accurate details on what specific actions results in specific reactions.
There is however other thing we can look at, such as the actions themselves. This article is meant to enlighten you a little about SEO and perhaps help you in the future when you will have to enlist these services. Here are things to consider when you are looking for SEO Services.
Do not limit yourself!
Do not go with companies that put a limited number on the keywords they will optimise for you. While it is taking time and effort to rank for one keyword, you are far better off with SEO Services that allows you to change these keywords when you need to, or even better – a company that manages this for you and keeps you updated to changes and opportunities.
You should always be able to adapt and in many cases starting an SEO campaign promoting one or two keywords will lead to accidental discovery that other keywords or keyphrases are improving – It can result in losing a lot of revenue to not start working on these keywords as you have already signed a contract stipulating that another keyword that is not even visible yet is to be promoted instead.
Ask for Details and Explanation!
Require real proof of what their services will mean and what effect they will have. If your SEO Proposal sounds a bit vague, then there is a very high chance that they do not know what they are doing or that they are unsure about how to deliver this to you. The best approach is to get this on paper, with clear outlines as to what they expect that they can do for you.
While you may not understand that much about SEO you can still adapt a lot of common sense to it, you can ask the same question twice, but with just a little twist to it so that it does not sound the same – but if the answer is completely different, then you know that they are just dumping a lot of fancy words at you in hope that you will succumb. SEO is about research and investigation and you will be surprised at how much money they would have tried to charge you if you hadn’t asked a few serious questions.
Don’t Pay Too Much!
Make sure that you set aside a budget that is affordable to you, many SEO companies have fixed prices and they may seem fair enough, but if the company have fixed prices then they are also very likely to have an “out of the box” solution that may or may not be very suitable for your needs. You are better off trying to find a company that can work with your budget rather than the other way around. In the end it is you that are supposed to make a profit. And do be prepared to invest some money, you will not get that much for £100, but it may get you started.
Using simple mathematics here is that you have a service for which you charge X amount of money. Now within this price is part of the promotion for this product, this is Y amount of money. You also have the manufacturing cost and the administrative costs, that for simplicity is covering everything you have to pay in order to make this product, this is Z amount of money. You profit margin is A, so the formulae goes Profit is A = X – Y – Z. Now you already know how much you are selling and how big your profit margin is, it is from this that you should decide your SEO Budget to spend on the Y, and remember if Y is bigger than X, then you are losing money!
Understand How SEO works!
Be aware that SEO is an evolving service, it actually takes time to work and your goal should always be to focus on your end destination. While SEO initially is quite costly, once it is up and running it will be fairly cheap to maintain and you will see your cost per acquisition go down quite a lot.
SEO is an investment, but it comes with a metric that is fairly new in the world of trade and commerce (outside of the stock market that is) and that is the fact that SEO requires time and lots of it. You cannot just toss a big heap of money on SEO and expect results a few minutes later. There are hundreds of reasons why, but to keep it simple the fact that while you want to be found for one keyword, so do others and they don’t care if it is your website they knock down from that spot or anyone else. Search Engines today are quite fast and updating very regularly, what takes time is to establish long term sustainability so that you remain at the top, even with others trying to take it away from you.
Investigate your SEO provider!
Take a look at your potential SEO company’s website, but look beyond fancy graphics, and read what it says in the content and have your teenage nephew have a look at it and listen to what they say. Remember it is in the interest of the SEO Company to make money and many of them are not afraid to sell you the moon if it means that they will land you as their client.
Today it is very easy to look good, for the price of 2 pizzas you can have a name of a website, place to have your pages and someone else has provided you with graphics so that your website looks very professional and great. What is different for SEO companies is that you should be able to find them in search engines – If they can’t promote themselves, how are you to expect them to be able to promote you?
There is however one forgiving factor to consider when you ask for what keyword your SEO provider can be found for and how many people that search for it, that is that in the world of SEO the competition is so stiff that between number 1 and number 30, the difference is extremely low. An additional question you can ask your SEO provider if they are within that bracket is what they are doing to better their own rankings.
Remember that in the end it all comes down to free will and that no SEO in the world can guarantee that a specific clicker will buy your product, however – the really good ones can make sure that there is every reason for the clicker to buy your services. It is however something that is part of really complex SEO and if you are just starting out, then you need to focus more of your energy on getting visitors to your website.
