As more and more of the business marketing companies are turning to the online sector for promotion, more and more SEO and internet marketing cowboys are popping up onto the scene. Making it harder for not only small businesses but a selection of the larger businesses to actually work out the good from the ugly so I have put together a few tips which may help in eliminating this problem
Search engine optimization has become an integral part of any successful website, without search engine optimization a website has a poor chance of making good rankings. The term ranking here refers to the position of a website whenever a user searches for a particular keyword in any search engine, for example lets assume a website xyz sells spare parts for cars, search engine optimization would actually make the website appear on the first page of results for keywords like 'car parts'. Often effective search engine optimization can make sites like xyz come up as the first result that search engines like Google, Yahoo etc. show

Firstly you should check to see how long a company has been around. If they have been around for say 5 years or more, then you know that they must be doing something right. Also a great tip is to check how many employees they have because a company with only 1 employee that has been around for 5 years is quite an easy achievement. But if infect they have 10 or 20 employees, each would have to get a wage therefore the company would have to be bringing in legitimate money to last 5 years.

Next I would ask them to show me some results of any previous clients they have worked with, if they come up with an excuse such as we can't as we don't list our clients results, then I would be quite precautious. Also ask to speak to some of the clients directly to maybe get a few good references.

A lot of SEO companies promise the world and fail to deliver, or they just lye to you from the beginning. You should never believe an SEO company that guarantees results within 30 or 60 days nobody can guarantee anything, what a legitimate SEO company can do is apply there knowledge both onsite and offsite to improve overall rankings and drive targeted traffic and conversions into a website.

You should be on the look out for companies that want you to sign a long lasting contract, as if you do this you may have to pay the company month in and month out, while they are not doing anything to help your sites rankings. Finally you should try to discuss what the steps will be with an SEO company, SEO is not a quick win solution, it cannot be completed within a day or two, and it should be an ongoing process for the rest of your websites life. You should beware of companies that promise too much as they may be breaking the search engines guidelines which will ultimately result in your sites demise.