The last few days there has been some heated debate over an article written called SEO Workers.
Now it reminded me of a year ago when I found on a forum a company that claimed they provided SEO services. They would not touch HTML code at all. This just went to show you they did not understand onsite optimization. You see, engines look not only your incoming links, but also at your title, heading tags, and even ALT’s for your images to see how relevant it is to the search term. Of course there are a few rouge sites that show up for terms that don’t even appear on the site, and I think this is not common and they just are not competition. So if a SEO company will not change your content or site structure, stay away.
On the flip side if they believe all you need is onsite optimization, also stay away. Engines also look at your incoming links and the anchor text used in those links to also judge your ranking and relevance. If they are unwilling to do things such as directory submissions, article submissions, placing links on relevant sites, and blog/forum posts, Stay away.
These are the two extremes I have seen in the last year in the SEO world. And a company that goes out and blindly does some of these thing does not know what they are doing. They need to know what areas need work and focus on that, while keeping their client informed and analyzing results. In the article mentioned above Janeth mentioned a list of things a site should consider doing to be successful on the web. But here is a list of things an SEO company should be performing or willing to do if necessary.
1. Change your HTML.
2. Create internal links.
3. Analyze keywords, and see which ones are worth ranking for (conversions and traffic).
4. Aggressively seek for incoming links.
5. Research and test areas for improvement.
6. Keep the client updated.
