Before choosing a Bay Area SEO company

Consider the following top 10 “things to know”

1. Strategy (aka- SES)
Please, don’t ask for an SEO proposal from SEO Company until you have set your strategy.

If you don’t have an SEO strategy, be ready to invest in one to be developed for you. Too often, fly-by-night SEO companies will respond with a full proposal, including lots of articles to be created, sites to be built and links to be implemented without a clear strategy and a lot of assumptions. Know who your market is and what people you want to come to your website. If you don’t know this, that’s ok. Just say so and don’t feel bad about it. Running a company is extremely tough and requires a lot of ‘head down time.’ I.e. you’re into running you company and not supper analyzing the world and who’s in it and what they are doing.

Someone with experience in your vertical – such as real estate, retail, construction, religion, schools, communities, nonprofits, etc. An SEO company with experience across multiple types of business, as well as experience that is directly relevant to you, will have better problem solving skills and more exposure to technologies and solutions. Experience in your sector will mean the SEO company will be very helpful in defining your strategy, understanding terminology, and knowing what your competitors are doing and most importantly, know why your potential clients are thinking and looking for.

Some website markets (roofing) are straight forward, but others (organic health care) are more complex.
You may have to educate your SEO company. Get them ‘in the game’ so to speak. They need to get into your zone (frame of mind) so they can understand what your market is. Once they are there, ask your SEO company about the strengths and weaknesses of your site, the call to action, what they think of your competitors, and what strategic approach they would take with your marketing project for your site.

Ask your friends to help too. The more opinions, the better.
Most people are happy to share their opinions and you may get some really good feedback. Do not act on one person’s advice though. By the way, this does require you to listen! Not always an easy task for a business owner, so really try to take a deep breath and listen with an open mind. When asking, don’t set up the question- “Ok, I really need your advice on something so I can get the SEO right.” Rather, try “if you were on a computer and wanted to search for ‘puppy diapers,’ what would your search for or how would you find it online.” If you set up the question, they tend to over think it.

Nothing is for free and you get what you pay for
To get the best advice from on the SEO process, expect to pay the online marketing company like KO Websites a small percentage of your online marketing budget for a good strategy that could save you huge dollars in the long term.