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The importance of choosing the right SEO is greater than many of us can imagine. Search engine optimizing is what keeps your site indexed and ranked by search engines and ensures you a good amount of traffic. Without it, your website is either dead, or struggling for survival, hoping to be noticed.

The area of SEO is very complex and it's permanently extending. New companies and consultants seem to appear out of the blue. SEOs use a wide variety of search engine optimizing tactics, with different efficiency levels. Consequently, before hiring an SEO consultant, it is very important to make sure you'll be getting what you need. Apart from what you'll be able to find out from the SEO itself, you can also perform a previous research on your own.

Things to find out on your own

' Find out for how long has the company been in business. This should be listed on their website.

' Search their website for previous projects to find out whether they have a marketing related experience.

' A reliable company also has client testimonials and case studies to prove they are able to keep their customers satisfied.

' Be skeptical with companies that email you out of the blue to advertise their SEO services.

' Beware of SEO companies that claim they can provide a #1 ranking guarantee. Ranking is determined by many factors that are beyond the SEO's control.

' Beware of SEOs that claim they have a priority submit or special relationships with Google or other search engines. There's no such thing.

Things to ask the SEO consultant

Do they include link building in their SEO services?

A professional SEO consultant doesn't limit to building keyword rich content, but also incoming links from relevant website to increase your PageRank.

What are they doing for website conversion enhancement?

A high traffic is meaningless unless your website provides what the users are looking for. A good SEO consultant uses several conversion enhancement techniques, such as copywriting strategies, site usability, call to action tactics and advanced conversion reporting.

Do they help you with calculating your ROI (Return of Investment)?

SEO services can be quite expensive and you need to calculate your potential returns. ROI depends on various factors, such as target population, size of your market place, the sales value of your services and the number of people searching for them on the Internet etc. An experienced SEO should be able to help you predict your ROI.

Do they use SEO best practice and anti-spam methods?

There are many SEOs that use various strategies to trick search engines in thinking your page is more relevant than it actually is. No SEO consultant will admit to using spamming and other unethical strategies, so you can't ask him the question directly. However, ask as many questions as possible about the methods they will be using and make sure you receive straight answers.

Do they put a limit on the number of search phrases?

Many SEOs have a limited number of phrases they will optimize for. However, if you're paying a monthly retainer to the SEO Company, they shouldn't do this. Even though there are a few phrases more important than others, the rest shouldn't be neglected either.

The first thing a good SEO consultant will do is perform an analysis on the current state of your website and provide a Website Analyzing report. Further analysis should be performed on a regular basis and your website traffic should be permanently monitored. A professional consultant understands the difference between bulk traffic, getting to your website for irrelevant keywords, and qualified traffic. Making the right choice will provide you with qualified traffic, as well as well-structured pages and a high usability level.

Copyright ' 2006 Andreas Obermueller