How do I choose an SEO company?

Dear Big Cheese,

I run a small professional services company in Charlotte and I have been talking to other business owners who have told me that I need to find a good SEO company to promote my website—but they disagree on what makes “a good” SEO company. Some of my colleagues suggest price, others performance, others by an SEO company’s client list...

In your opinion, how should I go about choosing an SEO company that will do the best job optimizing my site and get it to the top of the search engines?

Keith C., Charlotte.

Dear Keith,

A lot of decisions a business owner or manager has to make are subjective… but Search Engine Optimization is not! And here is why: A good company will be easy to find—and by finding them, you will know they are good at what they do.

If you go to your favorite search engine, Google, Yahoo, etc. type in your city name and what you are looking for—like you would any other search. In this case, “Charlotte Search Engine Optimization” or "Charlotte SEO" on top, (after the sponsored links if they are there) are the companies who currently understand how to optimize a website the best. They recognize the value, have taken the time to do this for themselves and organically rank for a keyphrase that they have chosen, and for which they have supporting content in the site.

And this is what they will do for you!

From there you can narrow down the choices by recommendations by satisfied clients, range of services (such as do they do Pay-Per-Click, as well as organic SEO), and their performance with customers they have been working with for more than 6 months who are in similar industries to yours.

This is what you want your prospective customers to do when they do a search for your city and service... so find a company who can do this for themselves!

Big Cheese Tip of the Day: Always ask your prospective search engine optimization or pay-per-click vendor if they are working with a company that would be in direct competition for your preferred keyphrases--you don't want them to have any conflicts of interest when working to get the best qualified traffic to your site.

Check back here soon for a list of things to ask your SEO company.

The Big Cheese
Mouse and Man - A Charlotte Web Design Company