I ran into this problem recently.  I needed a graphic designer, I mentioned it to a few people and I searched, of course, online.  I looked at all the companies and thought “where do I start?”  I don’t want to be hassled with sales calls from companies that I approach.  I looked at some of the site designs and knew they were not for me.

Eventually I went with a referral from a friend and much to my pleasure it worked out great.  I got to thinking what if someone was looking for an SEO company how would they be able to choose.

This site ranks well for various search terms - seo consultant Dublin, seo company, and seo company Dublin.  However if you change the search query to - seo company Ireland - we drop from 2 to 5, and you again reconsider who you are going to talk to.  It becomes even more interesting when you search for - online marketing - we do okay, but online marketing Ireland 100+ try then for internet marketing training - and there we are again.

This is the way it is for many websites, and unless you want to spend all your time building links to your own site and not working for clients there is not much to do about it.  I know where this site ranks and for what, as I choose the keywords to target based on possible returns.  The site is not very old and it would take a while to target some keywords, (1yr+), and for others it has been fairly easy.

However I drift.  If you search the internet you will find a lot of information on how to pick an SEO company, these are my recommendations.

• If they say or imply they have some sort of relationship with Google they are lying.
• Do they promise anything? Wild claims and guarantees should be treated as just that.
• What are the fees? If it seems very cheap, I’d question the value of what you are buying.
• What is the fee structure? Do they want it all up front, is some based on results? All up front is not good, some based on results is okay - but not it all, I would question their risk profile if that was the case.
• How literate is their website? (I hope this one is okay, well better than okay) Are they people you will want to be describing your company?
• How long do they say it will take to get results? Refer back to 2 above. Getting fast results in Google is rare, it will normally take a few months at least, unless you are currently sitting on the second page, in that case a few weeks might just work.
• Are they members of any trade bodies or the local Chambers of Commerce?
• How long have they been trading, 1 month - 1 year? Big difference.
• Are they a Google Adwords Professional? At least a little something here.
• Are they local, can you meet and talk to them? Sometimes a meeting is a great indicator.
• How did you find them? In the organic search results? If so this at least is an indication they have managed to cut through all the spam and get themselves in front of you, good result. Or did you find them in the Google Adwords section? Anyone can put themselves here; find out if they do actually list for anything for their own site.
• Were they a referral? Good start.
• Are there any recommendations on their site? This is a tough one for SEO companies as they do not want their client lists to be public, often you will not find any recommendation but they will provide them privately. Are the testimonials easy to check? Do they really exist?
• Meet the company and ask to see results from other optimisation clients/ websites.
• Know your budget at the start - how much is it worth to you being in the front page of search results?
• Once you decide on a company, ask them to do a small job first, a web audit perhaps. See how this goes before committing yourself further.

My last point is just a little controversial.  Most companies that advertise search optimisation services don’t know what they are doing.  Take your time dig around, some companies are good and some are bad - intentional or otherwise.

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I so often give Google more credit than they are due, however finding spam like this in the Irish results brings my thoughts on Google crashing to the ground.

While running a rank checker this morning I came across a blog page from Coastal Carolina University at number 4 in the search results for Internet Marketing Company Dublin.  Interesting I though and went and had a look.

As you will see from reading the post it is complete spam - the text does not make any sense.  The page has been written to game Google, there are keywords in strategic places, title and through the paragraphs to make the post rank for the search query.

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We have just launched our new Internet Marketing Training Course.  The course is aim at small and medium sized businesses in Ireland.

Due to the current downturn in trading conditions we have become aware that many businesses are taking this task in-house, where they can.  I think this is a great idea as the basics of search engine optimisation are not difficult to learn.

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Your web designer has built a new great looking website, it is signed off and it goes live.  Great.

The next day your analytics package is showing a load of hits to 404 error pages.  The day after your traffic has halved.   Latter that day I get a phone call - I am losing touch with how often this has happened recently.  Now don’t get me wrong it is good for me and my cash flow - but it is an easy fix - and even easier to fix before go live and the old site is just delete by someone.

If you use 301 redirects it keeps the equity of you website intact and each page stays indexed, traffic drops will be minimal - though they will still happen.

This is the layout for the 301

Redirect 301 /oldpage.html http://www.newsite.com/new-dynamic-page/

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