Posted by SEO'd in 
I have always believed that a company that is looking to hire a SEO company needs to go through a through due diligent process to make sure it’s getting what it’s paying for. A lot of SEO agencies charge you a hand and a couple of leg to “optimize” your pages for search engines. Many SEO companies are great at sales. In other worlds, they can convince you they can do anything when they are in reality in capable of getting the job done. These folks believe that they can always do their research and learn things on the job to get the work done for their client. So they put a loaded presentation up for the management to get the gig, and once they’ve got it, who knows what’s going to happen. That is of course until they get caught asking questions on forums about how to do certain things.
Hiring a SEO company is not a simple task. Your goal should be to do everything you can to make sure you are paying someone who knows what they are talking about. Don’t get me wrong. There is nothing wrong about asking questions on forums. No SEO knows everything. So you can always count on colleagues and peers to help you out and give you ideas about your projects. But make sure you stay as vague as possible when it comes to your client. And if you have to share a link with your peers, either don’t do it on a public forum or use TinyURL. Search engine optimization is a changing field, and even the best SEOs consult with their colleagues and mentors to find ways to solve complicated SEO problems. So asking question is not a dis-qualifier. Having a bad track record or lousy reputation is.
When it comes to paying a company $50,000 or $100,000 to get a SEO job done for your company, you want to make sure you get what you paid for. Don’t hesitate to search forums and blog and do a comprehensive research on the reputation of the company you are planning to work with. You should also talk to at least 5 references to make sure the company you are trying to hire has enough experience and know-how to get the job done. You may say, 3 reference are enough. But trust me. People have a lot more trouble giving you 5 references than 3. You should try to outsmart some of these companies. Many of them find 3 or 4 references and rely on them to get jobs quick. Some even make up references. So the more references you talk to, the better idea you get about how these companies work.
Hiring a SEO company can take a day or weeks. Unless you know and trust your SEO company, you can’t possibly complete the process in a matter of days. Doing research and background check takes time. So make sure you don’t cut corners. If you take your business seriously, you are going to have to take this process seriously as well. There are no short-cuts here.
Stay tuned for the part II in which I discuss how to identify legitimate SEO companies from posers.
