Find good SEO

Who can I trust!?

[davejs]

Hi

I have spent the last 4 hours looking for a SEO company that I feel like I can trust.

So many companies offer guarantees that sound so impossible that you just know they must be bogus.

I have a website, I'm using Adwords, Overture and getting good sales.

I want to employ an SEO expert to get me listed in top positions on google,yahoo,msn... not everyone clicks the sponsored links!

I have the keyphrases that work for me, I'm willing to pay good money as I know it will make me good money but trying to find someone who is trustworthy in this area is big problem...

Can anyone direct me to either a resource that lists trustworthy SEO experts, or better still recommend someone in this field?

Many thanks
Dave

[Webwork]

Hmmm, let's see if I get nuked . . .

I think the guy that runs this website:

[seoconsultants.com...] might be trustworthy. ;)

[BradleyT]

Well if you search for seo specialist or seo company or website seo or a similar term whoever is listed high is probably pretty good.

Or at least they're good at blackhat.

[followgreg]

As from my experience the website mentioned above is not worth more than anything else....really not at all.

I'd say that an SEO firm should be found on search engines for related terms (competitive, not obscure).

And of these SEO firms should be able to give a reference on a competitive market.

Other than that, my company has chosen an SEO which has been very effective but his came after we've tried some "guaranteed" firms which lead us no-where-at-all.

[Rosalind]

What to look for in a SEO? A track record is important, but search engine results vary constantly so the site at the top position now may not have the best results consistently. So ask for testimonials from previous customers, rather than just looking at keywords and current site positions.

Ask these customers how it worked out in the long term, and whether their sites maintained rank after they finished using the SEO company.

How risk-averse are you? If you want steady yet stable results you will need clean, white-hat SEO techniques. So no blog spamming or sneaky redirects. I can't really summarise all the black hat techniques out there in this post, and a dodgy SEO isn't likely to explain it to you clearly anyway.

It's difficult to know what to do about this, since you presumably want to hire a SEO because you don't have time to learn how to do it yourself. But how do you recognise the honest from the dishonest without knowing a lot about SEO yourself? It's a dilemma.

Looking at their websites and clients is a start, but be aware that they may only refer you to their success stories. Perhaps they have clients who they consider small fish, and these do not get as much attention as the big names. They may have more unhappy clients than happy, but how would you ever find this out?

My advice is to spend your money on a copywriter instead and give him/her your list of keywords. That way you will get something tangible for your money. Good content is search engine gold anyway, so you might even kill two birds with one stone.

But, I'm biased of course.