When looking for a Search Engine Optimisation company, you must search with caution and keep a few things in mind. My advice would be to read around the subject for a little while, maybe one or two hours. This will give you a general idea of the processes involved and realistic timescales / prices. There is a huge amount of information online regarding the subject; I would highly recommend Wikipedia as a great starting point.

Like in almost every industry, the Search Engine Marketing industry has more than its fair share of “SEO experts” – i.e cowboys. Exposing cowboys is fairly easy, and looking beyond their “bells and whistles” website is the first step. As you have taken the time to read up on Search Engine Marketing, you are armed with a little bit of knowledge (possibly more than some of the cowboys out there).

Choosing the right SEO company in an industry full of "seo experts" can be difficult!

You can now start making contact with several companies for meetings. Take with you a list of questions, something along the lines of:

How do you check my rankings each month?

What are the short term goals?

Which keywords are we going to target and why?

How are you going to attract inbound links?

How much time is going to be spent link building?

What analytics software is going to be used and why?

Other points to take into consideration:

Previous clients – Request proof of results. Contact previous clients and them for references. Do not be fooled by websites that rank well for obscure terms (that very few people will actually be searching for) such as “Hotel in South East Alston”.

Prices – Search Engine Optimisation is time consuming work. If you receive quotes for under £250 per month, you should be questioning how much time is going to be spent on your website for this.

Reports – How are you going to be kept up to date with the work you are having carried out? How often are you updated?

If you remember nothing else, remember this:  If a company offers any kind of guarantee regarding where your website will be ranked for certain search phrases, run a mile.  I have seen a lot of this over the years, even from the larger, more established companies. Nobody can guarantee your rankings, they can not guarantee number one spot, first page or to be listed within the first 100 websites for a certain search terms. Companies in the United States, are now being sued for millions of dollars for making such claims, see this Press Release. Something tells me that this is the tip, of a very large iceberg.

See THIS for Google’s official recommendations.