Five Things Most Search Engine Optimization Firms Won’t Tell

So, you want your Web site to rank high on Google and other search engines.

To do that, you're planning on hiring a search engine optimization (SEO) firm. Good move -- maybe. A good SEO firm can help make your rankings and sales skyrocket. That's the good news. The bad news is there are a lot of SEO firms out there that will charge you big bucks without delivering results. As someone in the SEO business myself, I've heard countless horror stories about people who have gotten ripped off by paying for services they didn't need, or simply not understanding what their SEO firm is supposed to be doing on their behalf.

Below are some of the things most SEO firms will never tell you. Knowing these insider secrets can save you thousands of dollars and many hours of frustration.

1. Most SEO work follows the 80/20 rule. In other words, 20% of the work will account for 80% of the results. If that's true (and believe me, from personal experience I know that it is), you should make sure that the fee structure reflects this. Ask for an itemized quote, so you can make sure that you aren't paying too much for the other 80%. For example, a lot of SEO experts will tell you they're going to spend X number of hours tweaking your site's keywords and meta tags, but there's really no hard evidence that those techniques have a significant impact on your rankings. Doing simple things like making sure your page structure is "search engine friendly" (ensuring all your pages can be indexed by search engines) is infinitely more important. As part of a comprehensive SEO strategy, you still want to do the other 80%, but you want to make sure that the bulk of the priority (and cost) is focused the effort that will produce the most results.

2. You can receive a guarantee. Most big SEO firms say to watch out for anyone who guarantees results. They'll tell you most places that do so are nothing but scam artists. Here's the truth: I can absolutely guarantee any business I can get you ranked in the top 10 on Google for any keyword you choose. It all depends on how much money you're willing to spend and how long you're willing to wait for the results. If an SEO firm is confident in their ability to improve your rankings, why wouldn't they offer you a guarantee?

3. You can see immediate results. Most SEO firms will try to tell you it takes months to see tangible results. Wrong. In fact, it's often possible to see results within a week, depending on the keywords you're targeting. I know because I've accomplished this for my clients time and time again. Unless you're going after extremely competitive keywords, if the SEO firm bidding for your business says it will take three months to accomplish anything, they're probably just looking to sign you up for a lucrative long-term retainer.

4. SEO work is not too complicated to explain in detail. Too many SEO experts will balk if you ask them to explain in detail the work they're going to do for you. But don't let them off the hook. While some strategies may indeed be technical, most of the techniques are easily explained -- especially some of the most important ones (see point #1 above about the 80/20 rule). If you're going to pay someone a lot of money to work for you, you deserve and explanation of exactly what they're going to do.

5. The greatest factor in SEO has nothing to do with your web site. In my research, I've found that around 80% of the Google ranking factors have nothing to do with the web site itself. The real determining factors are links to your site from other web sites. As long as your site is easily crawled by Google, most of the energy should be focused on getting these outside links. If an SEO firm tries to sell you an expensive package to simply "optimize" your site for Google, it's probably going to cost you a lot of money for very little result.