Well done search engine optimisation, often called SEO for short, is designed to allow websites to show up in search results when individuals search for goods and services rather than simply company names. The idea is that people trying to find things online are able to find a business website without any prior knowledge of the business or its name. There are all manner of tricks and methods which fall under SEO, although the good sustainable methods (also sometimes called "white hat SEO") are based around the notion of making your web site easier for search engine to read and understand, meaning they rank you higher in searches for appropriately relevant terms.

It is not uncommon to decide to outsource SEO to external marketing agencies and other companies, but you will find far too many dodgy types around who like to take companies seeking SEO - especially local and smaller companies - for made a post really expensive ride. How then does one actually go about finding an excellent, honest and legitimate search engine marketer?

It is actually incredibly easy to find a good SEO agency online. Go to a search engine like Google or Bing and type in "SEO agency." Ignoring the paid advertisements at the top, whichever firm has landed at the very best of the search results are what you want - they must be very good at SEO or their own website would not be so high in the natural listings!

To narrow things down a bit, you might try extending your search. Say you live in Essex and want a local agency - just type in "SEO agency Essex." Or if perhaps your webpage is specialised and also you want particular help with it you may add your industry or site type - "SEO tourism" or "SEO eCommerce" for example. This can be a good way to search out niche SEO agencies that have specialist expertise in your field.

Sometimes SEO agencies (or at least people claiming to be SEO agencies) attempt to solicit companies by sending them emails or submitting contact forms with various enticements and offers. However if you see something like this come in then it's best to ignore it - if a company which supposedly specialises in search engine optimisation is reduced to spamming inboxes to get business rather than, say, doing SEO so their very own website ranks highly and people can find them anyway, chances are they are not excellent. The same is true of SEO services advertised on paid ads at the very best of major search engines or on banner ads on other web pages. If their search marketing is any good, why are they having to pay for their placements?

Something else to bear in mind is to steer well clear of any SEO agency that promises you "top position for x keywords" or something similar. Virtually all modern search engines used personalised searching, meaning that everyone sees web pages in slightly different ranking positions according to their personal search history. Absolute rankings are a thing of the past, any anyone claiming to deliver this sort of service is lying through their teeth. Modern SEO shall utilize sustainable "white hat" techniques as a way to bring useful traffic to your web page, not use exploits and dodgy tricks, that may constantly get them slapped by search engine updates like Google's infamous Panda and Penguin algorithm changes.

Once you've found an SEO company that looks mostly all right you definitely will need to ask them some questions prior to deciding to leap into their services. And the usual checks like existing client list and testimonials, it really is a wise idea to speak to someone directly on the phone or in person.