The Art of Choosing an SEO Company

Posted by jonathan at 4:04pm EST on 11/25/2008

Choosing an SEO company isn’t an easy process. Which company is trust worthy? Which company has integrity? Which company has a proven track record?

This is how not to choose an SEO company.

I received an email from a LinkedIn group and this is what the discussion said,

Title:Yellow Page Advertising Doesn’t Work; Pay for ********* SEO Instead

Body: Money is tight, the economy is down, and as a small business owner, you are simply trying to find a more cost-effective method of advertising your business. You’ve given up on your yellow page advertising; it no longer works anymore for you.

We have a year-end special introductory rate going on now.
Just $200/month for the first 6 months gets your site to the first pages of the major search engines, like Google, for your chosen keywords. You must sign up by no later than December 31, 2008 to secure this special low pricing. Payment must be made in full for the full 6 months at sign-up time. All major credit cards and checks are accepted.

After December 31st, the rate will again go back up to our normal fee of $4800/year.

Times are definitely tough; let us help you get your site off the ground running into the new year in 2009 today.

What are you waiting for?

First of all, you should never, ever, feel pressured into signing up for a contract. You should only take a contract if you are comfortable with the company, their management, and their business style.

When a company asks for payments up to 6 months in advance, you should be weary and think twice about it. While I do agree, you can’t go from ranking 100 to number 8 over night, that it indeed does take time, I would never recommend to anyone that you sign a contract pre-paying 6 months in advance.

An item I strongly recommend everyone to look at when looking to hire an SEO company are their ethics and morals. Look at what they believe in, how they actually do business, and talk to friends about what they may have to say about the company. Be certain that they are a reputable company.

This is not an advertisement, simply my recommendation: I believe in and recommend two companies to look at for SEO: Bruce Clay Inc, founded by Bruce Clay, and We Build Pages, founded by Jim Boykin. Another company, which I later thought of that I deeply respect, is SEOmoz. SEOmoz also has an amazing set of SEO tools worth looking at.