Well done search engine optimisation, often called SEO for short, is designed to allow web sites to show up in search results when individuals look for products or services rather than simply company names. The idea is that people trying to find things online will be able to discover a business website with virtually no prior familiarity with the business or its name. You'll find all manner of tricks and also techniques which fall under SEO, however the good sustainable methods (also sometimes called "white hat SEO") are based around the notion of making your site easier for search engine to read and understand, meaning they rank you higher in searches for appropriately relevant terms.

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

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

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

Sometimes SEO agencies (or at least people claiming to be SEO agencies) try and 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 really is 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 own website ranks highly and people can find them anyway, chances are they are not good. The exact same is true of SEO services advertised on paid advertisements at the very best of search engines or on banner advertisements on other web sites. If their search marketing is any good, what makes them having to pay for their placements?

Another thing to keep in mind is to steer well clear of the SEO agency that promises you "top position for x keywords" or something similar. Virtually all modern internet search engines used personalised searching, meaning that everybody sees web sites in slightly different ranking positions depending on 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 so that you can bring useful traffic to your webpage, not use exploits and dodgy tricks, which could constantly get them slapped by search engine updates like Google's infamous Panda and Penguin algorithm changes.

Once you have found an SEO company that looks mostly all right you'll need to ask them some questions before you decide to leap into their services. And also the normal checks like existing client list and testimonials, it is a great idea to talk to someone directly on the phone or in person.