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Best SEO Company - Assessing an SEO Expert Consultant in India, Los Angeles, or Tucumcari
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We all get the emails... 'Hello, we are an SEO firm based in [fill in the blank], and would like to help your company be on the top of Google. For only [fill in the blank thousands of dollars], we can guarantee your company top SEO placement on Google as we are SEO experts, guru's, fanatics, cognoscenti, tech's, or sophisticants. And then there are legitimate SEO experts, real SEO companies that can work with you to optimize your website and truly help you succeed in your search marketing. How do you assess them? Here are some tips.
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By Jason McDonald
Senior SEO Instructor - JM Internet Group.
Posted: June 11, 2010
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Search Engine Optimization vs. Physical Fitness
First of all, philosophically, SEO is a lot like physical fitness. You can join a gym. You can eat less. You can sign up for the Atkin's diet. You can even take a supplement or a pill to help you lose weight and get in shape. And, yes, there are thousands of snake oil salesmen out there who will tell you it is very easy if you just take [fill in the blank] pill, or buy [fill in the blank] equipment. Yet we all know that ultimately, losing weight and getting fit is a function of -
- Eating less / eating right; and
- Exercising more / exercising right.
Moreover, no one can 'make' you physically fit. A good coach can work with you, and help you understand what needs to be done. But he or she cannot 'make' you get fit - especially without your active participation. So, second of all, my philosophy of SEO is that every client that we work with at JM Internet Group is an active participant in their SEO fitness strategy. That doesn't mean that they do all the work, but they certainly guide it and certainly understand the basic premises of successful search engine optimization. Third, therefore, if someone approaches you for SEO and their strategy is 'secret' or they can't 'tell you' how they are going to optimize your website... Run the other way. Only link-building can be done without your active participation and even there, the link builder needs to understand your business. It isn't just high PageRank websites that you want. It is also keyword-heavy sites in your keyword communities, and you certainly do not want links from bad reputation sites like link farms! So for both On Page and Off Page SEO, you ultimately have to be a participant in your project. Bottom line: anyone who claims that they can do it 'for you,' is pulling your leg.
SEO: To Achieve the Dream, Live the Dream
This concept is sometimes referred to here in Silicon Valley as 'Eat your own dog food.' In evaluating an SEO company or expert, I recommend checking out their own website. If they know SEO, then they should be following the commonly held basic principles of SEO -
- Their home page TITLE tag and the TITLE tags throughout the website should be unique, accurate, and keyword-centric. If they are soliciting you for link-building, then you should see link-building as a keyword in this strategic tag, for example.
- Their home page should be keyword heavy with H1 / H2 gateway tags to defined landing pages elsewhere on the website.
- Their META DESCRIPTION tags should be defined and in use.
- Is you do a site:domain.com search (as in site:jm-seo.org) on Google you should see at least several hundred pages indexed on Google, because if you aren't indexed, you can't be No. 1. And if they aren't indexed, it's hard to believe they can get you indexed!
So, for example, I received this solicitation this morning -
Greetings Jason;
Don't you just love Mondays? I can't begin to tell you how much I adore Monday mornings, specially when we have relatives visiting which make for hectic weekends...
This week I want to shed some light on Tag Clouds -- Cost effective SEO components used to enhance keyword exposure to search engine spiders.
Not familiar with Tag Clouds?
Tag Clouds are essentially keywords "boxed" in a section of web pages formatted to be indexed by search engines. Tag Clouds are much cheaper than full blown search engine optimization yet produce significant results (when done right!).
To see an example of a dynamic Tag Cloud visit www.cybergenica.com and look for it in the right margin, near the bottom of the homepage. Of course my Tag Cloud is not only targeted at search engine spiders, it's fun to play with!
The site has a snappy tag cloud embedded in Javascript, but the keywords chosen such as 'Christian SEO Consulting,' are a bit bizarre to say the least. Moreover the home page TITLE tag - <TITLE>Cybergenica :: Purpose Driven Internet Consulting :: Home Page</TITLE> also reflects a strange choice of target keywords for an SEO consulting company. No SEO, no Search Engine Optimization, and some unusual non-customer centric words such as Purpose Driven. Also their H1 and H2 tags surround irrelevant keywords like 'Tag Cloud' rather than 'SEO.' So I can't say if they are good SEO consultants, but I can guess that since their own website beginning with the home page is poorly optimized on their own targets (SEO, SEO Consultant, SEO company, SEO Expert), that I doubt very much how good they can be. At a minimum, when I interviewed them I would ask about their own on page SEO. It just doesn't make sense!
The bottom line here is: To achieve the dream, live the dream. If the SEO company that solicits you as as an SEO expert doesn't follow the very basic SEO principles I teach in my classes, I would be highly skeptical. Those techniques are not rocket science: they are held by many, many people in the industry. Sort of like a physical fitness expert who claims to help you with getting fit, but he eats at McDonald's every day for lunch, and scoffs at the notion that exercising three times a week is an important aspect of fitness. How can you teach SEO if you don't practice it yourself?
SEO: Guided Link Building
Beyond the SEO experts who will solicit, and possibly help, you with your SEO, there are the link building services. Many of these are located in low wage countries such as India and promise you an excellent link building campaign.
These can be difficult to evaluate. Link building works very much behind the scenes, and it can be time consuming. Again, if possible, I would check out their website and double-check their on page SEO techniques. If they know On Page, they possibly know Off Page. If they do their On Page poorly (e.g., have bad TITLE tags, no H1/H2 family, no ALT attributes in images, etc.), it is almost a certainty that their Off Page link building will be poor as well. Competence in one aspect tends to go along with competence in another.
Here's an example of an India-based SEO solicitation I received this morning:
Dear Sir/Madam,
We are a Delhi-NCR, India based, and leading Web Solutions company with main competency in SEO ( Search Engine Optimization), working as an outsourced vendor for many reputed SEO agency based in USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
With the dedicated team of 33 professionals, we provide the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) solution with top ranking on major search engine as Google, Yahoo and MSN as per the current status of website and requirement.
Also we have an expertise on SEM (Search Engine Marketing), PPC and we strategically manage Google adwords accounts on very competitive rates.
We always adapt the Natural SEO process for optimizing the website and also follow the guidelines of Google and major search engine for SEO result.
We assure you of getting high Search engine Result Page with our high track record of success. Our SEO solution will help to increase the traffic and sales lead to your website which eventually will lead in ROI.
We are looking forward starting a long and healthy business relationship with you.We will be happy to AMAZE you with our work. I will really appreciate if you please let me know your SEO requirement.
Kind Regards !
A second criterion for evaluation is their references. Good link builders should be able to point to happy clients or strong link-built sites (or both). And a third criterion is to take their own website and double-check to make sure it is indexed in Google. Do some searches on Google for their company name and website. The last link building partner you want is a link builder that is on a blacklist! Link farm participation is the most dangerous thing you can do to your website, so I would avoid any of those sorts of link initiatives. Finally, you as the expert in your business will need to guide them in terms of keywords and your keyword 'neighborhoods.' They usually will not understand your industry, nor your keywords. If they do not want your help, I seriously doubt that they can be effective link builders.
That said, lower wage rates in countries like India can make a 'directed' link building campaign with some of these services a good value. Just be careful!
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