SEO can be fairly confusing, but every business will need to use it to improve their search engine ranking and customer leads. Many businesses turn to SEO services for help, but this can be as confusing as SEO. There are hundreds of SEO services vying for your business and you need to know how to choose the best SEO expert for you. To do this, you will need to know what to look for in the company and how to determine if they suit you.
Do Not Rely On First Place In Google
Most people will turn to Google when they look for an SEO service and assume that the top result is the best. After all, they need to have good SEO skills to get to the top of such a competitive market. This might seem logical, but the truth is that many of the best SEO services do not actually rank on the first page of Google. This is due to the fact that most of their customers will come through word of mouth and referrals. The top result in Google could be a good company, but they could also be one that simply has a lot of time to pump into their own marketing. Taking search engine ranking alone when choosing a service, is a mistake that you should avoid. There are other factors that you have to consider before you hire any SEO services.
Look At Their Portfolio
Any reputable and reliable SEO service will have a portfolio that you can look at. This will consist of the companies they have worked with in the past along with online reviews. There are some services that want to keep their clients a secret for competition reasons, but the majority of services will be happy to show you their happy customers. If you are unable to find any examples of their work real companies there could be a reason why they are hiding this. It is important that you are not taken in by the logos of major companies that appear on their website. This is a trick that some SEO services use to make you believe they have worked with these companies. However, they could only have a press release on Yahoo! news and not actually have worked with them. You need to be able to verify the work that they state they have done before you hire them.
What Is Their Pricing?
A lot of people make the mistake of looking for the SEO service with the lowest pricing. This is a mistake because they are not going to be the best for you, but you should also look at their pricing structure. If the service offers you a package with a set number of keywords for a set amount or any other form of standardized pricing they are not going to have your best interests in mind. Set pricing services generally have a tool or system that they plug your business in, but a real SEO service will do an investigation into your business before providing you with prices. Watch this video for more information:
Many business owners prefer to hire local contractors to help them develop and implement their SEO strategy. Although there are many global SEO providers, sometimes it’s better to choose someone local, someone you can meet face to face, a service provider who knows what kind of people you intend to target with your marketing activities. As Auckland has its own particularities, if your business targets this city, you should probably seek to hire a local SEO expert to help you dominate the SERPs. Choosing the best Auckland SEO services is a matter of research and direct comparison of all available options. Most probably, you won’t have the time to get in touch with all local contractors, so you’ll need to do an online screening before reaching out to these people.
First of all, you can identify SEO services providers in Auckland by performing an online search. Those who are among the top results in Google are probably good, since they have managed to be on the first page of results for such competitive keywords. Nonetheless, a very new company won’t be able to rank, as this usually takes a very long time. This doesn’t make them less professional, so you shouldn’t disregard them right off the bat. Online reviews can help you rule out low quality services, as unsatisfied clients use to complain in discussion forums and in various business communities. You may also want to ask your friends who own or run businesses if they can recommend you a good SEO provider. If they aren’t your direct competitors, they might be happy to recommend you the experts who helped them obtain good positions in the local SERPs.
Once you manage to put together a shortlist, you have to check their credentials and their work portfolio. SEO achievements are fairly easy to check, as you can search for those keywords yourself, and see where the websites of their clients rank. When you do this, you also need to take a look at the estimated monthly search volume and at the competitiveness of those keywords. Reaching the first position in the SERPs for a keyword with very few searches is fairly easy, so that’s not a real accomplishment. This type of keyword isn’t any good, as it generates a very small number of leads, if any. Last but not least, you need to ask your potential SEO contractor about their methods and their work methodology. Watch this video for more information:
Good SEO experts use only white hat methods and track everything very carefully, in order to evaluate the benefits of each of their actions. Companies that use automation or black hat methods can actually be daunting, so you should stay away from them. It may be nice to rank for a bunch of lucrative keywords without too much effort, but black hat techniques are only effective on very short term. Once you land a Google penalty you may have to kiss your website good bye. This is not a viable option, so do yourself a favor and pick a white hat professional to help you climb your way to the top of search.