Choosing A Good SEO
Congratulations on your decision to select an SEO vendor to optimize your corporate website for natural search. I applaud you for beginning a tremendously powerful revenue generating process. Now the fun begins. Before you is a incomprehensible process with intangible deliverables and imprecise timing. How can you successfully oversee and evaluate this process to maximize your websites results?
SEO must be a marketing priority. With the help of a good SEO you be able to stress the importance of SEO to your team. The director of marketing, the president, web designer, and IT support will participate in the process but may have different priorities. Getting everyone on side will speed the process.
You need to be able to ask the right questions. So learn what you can. I recommend the excellent articles at Search Engine Guide that cover the full SEO process. You need to understand the terminology and concepts of SEO so that you can evaluate the metrics of your campaign.
However, be careful not to get so deep in studying that you begin to second guess your SEO vendor. They have the experience and knowledge that you lack, with a firm grasp on all parts of the process. Although it’s empowering when you begin to understand SEO, it can be very dangerous to your results if you direct your vendor too sternly. Do your due diligence to choose a competent, reliable vendor, then rely on that due diligence to assuage your fears about them down the road. And remember: any vendor should be happy to see that you took the time to understand the basics, and should be willing to answer any tough questions. They should also be transparent about their methods and processes – don’t work with companies that aren’t. However, if you’re comfortable with your vendor, let them do their job.
Because SEO marketing works so differently from regular marketing, it can often make those on the outside leery even when it’s functioning perfectly well. Figuring out exactly why backlinks or RSS feeds are crucial parts of online marketing techniques isn’t necessarily an easy thing. But then, that is, after all, why you rely on the experts with training and experience in the field to do their jobs right. However, you should keep in mind that you still need standards when hiring these people. As with any other profession, there are some bad apples in SEO marketing. If your SEO person is evasive or not forthright in offering information, if he gives you advice such as to use link farms or stealthy forms of text, or if he tries to encourage you to knowingly violate the guidelines of popular search engines, he’s a bad apple. Drop him for a fresh granny smith.
Even a well-run campaign can still encounter bumps in the road: search engines occasionally change their criteria, which can work against a company even if they’ve followed best practices. For example, Google’s “Jagger” update hurt several companies’ ranking: this update makes it difficult for newer websites to rank well for competitive terms, and requires that links be 6 to 12 months old before they are effective. This badly impacted many newer companies, while adding some unexpected wind to the sails of more established companies.
Measure your results. All campaigns need clear metrics to chart success. A high-level web analytics system like Click tracks 6 is essential to track your results. You may tens of thousands of dollars on SEO so be sure that your optimization decisions are based on complete, well-tracked information. Be very cautious about using an SEO who does not offer advanced web analytics.
