Hiring a SEO Consultant or Company?

SEO as the profession is open to abuse and misinformation, the following will hopefully give you a basic understanding of SEO and enlighten you about what to look for when hiring an SEO consultant or company.

Openness and education are incredibly important, especially when it comes to SEO, as the profession is open to abuse and misinformation. In order to better inform my site visitors I have prepared this article which will hopefully allow you to gain a basic understanding of what is involved in SEO and what to look for when hiring an SEO consultant or company.

What do you see when you use a Search Engine?

Once a user has submitted a search query to either Google, Yahoo or MSN they will see a list of ordered results that take 2 forms:

Pay Per Click (PPC) Adverts

PPC adverts are how the main 3 search engines make money, an advertiser chooses the search terms that will trigger their adverts and whenever a user clicks on the advert the advertiser pays the search engine. PPC adverts are shown down the right hand side and sometimes above the other results that appear on the page. On Google, Yahoo and MSN these results are labeled as either “Sponsored Links”, “Sponsor Results” or “Sponsored Sites” respectively.

Natural (Organic or Algorithmic) Search Results

The Natural (Organic or Algorithmic) Search Results appear next to the adverts, and are served up based on the relevance of each given page to the search query that was entered. It is commonly suggested that these results enjoy around 75% of the clicks for any give term, but in my experience this can vary greatly depending on the search term selected and the competition.

What is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?

Search Engine Optimisation or (SEO) refers to the process of improving the results of a given web site/page in the Natural (Organic or Algorithmic) search results, using both onsite and offsite elements. A good SEO will consider how search engines work in light of what people have historically searched for, the relevance of the phrase and the strength of the competition for each phrase.

What do Search Engines want?

As established above the main search engines (Google, Yahoo and MSN) make their money when users click on the adverts that appear alongside the natural (organic or algorithmic) search results, when a user clicks on the adverts the search engine in question makes money from the click. The key word here is relevancy; if the results served up by the search engines stop being as relevant the users will leave and try to find what they need from an alternative search engine, and the clicks (and therefore the revenue) will start to dry up.

What do your Site Visitors want?

It is quite common for people to implement SEO thinking that ranking for a given phrase is the only focus; this can lead to a poorly designed site that doesn’t work for the site visitor. When implemented properly SEO should lead to the addition of site content that will improve both the standing in the search engine rankings and the experience of the sites visitors.

What is Black Hat & White Hat SEO?

As we have already seen, search engines attempt to provide relevant results to their users, SEO’s attempt to manipulate these results to place the pages of the sites that they work for high up in the results. There are broadly speaking two types of SEO; White Hat & Black Hat. White Hat SEO’s employ techniques that involve no deception and which conform to the search engines' guidelines, they also favour producing content for users not for search engines' alone. Black Hat SEO’s employ Black Hat SEO or Spamdexing techniques, intended to manipulate the search engine results. The search engines frown on these techniques and attempt to remove offending pages as they undermine both the relevance of search results and the user’s experience of using the search engine.

So what does all this mean?

  • Excepting PPC there are no short cuts to getting listed prominently in the Search Engines
  • Search Engines are interested in good relevant content
  • Site visitors are interested in good relevant content, served up on websites that are easy to use and navigate around
  • Tricking the Search Engines can get your site penalized or removed from the Search Engines

Further Reading

Find out more about SEO by reading the following articles:

SEO on Wikipedia.org

Wikipedia.org provides a brief explanation of SEO and the history behind the profession: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization

Google Webmaster Guidelines

The Google Webmaster Guidelines are a good place to start if you’re interested in hiring an SEO: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35291

Google Search Engine Optimisation Starter Guide

The page also contains a link to this useful guide: http://www.google.com/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf

The SeoMoz Beginner's Guide to Search Engine Optimisation

The SeoMoz Beginner's Guide to Search Engine Optimisation provides an overview of many of the processes, techniques and strategies used by professional SEO’s: http://www.seomoz.org/article/beginners-guide-to-search-engine-optimization

Contact Me

I am a UK based Freelance SEO working in Stonehouse near Stroud in Gloucestershire I provide my SEO services to clients in Bristol and Gloucestershire and throughout the UK. Please feel free to call me for an informal chat about your requirements on (01453) 824 406 or fill in my online form.

 

Justin March offers this set of instructions as ‘Guidance Only’. Therefore, Justin cannot be held responsible for any work carried out by YOU and/or ANY third party using the instructions.