Well done search engine optimisation, often called SEO for short, is designed to allow web pages to show up in search results when folks search for products or services rather than simply company names. The idea is the fact that people looking for things online marketing are able to locate a business website with virtually no prior familiarity with the business or its name. There are actually all manner of tricks and techniques which fall under SEO, but the good sustainable methods (also sometimes called "white hat SEO") are based around the idea of making your site easier for search engine to read and understand, meaning they rank you higher in searches for appropriately relevant terms.

It's not uncommon to decide to outsource SEO to external marketing agencies and other companies, but there are far too many dodgy types out there who like to take companies seeking SEO - especially local and new businesses - for an extremely expensive ride. How then does one actually go about finding a great, honest and legitimate search engine marketer?

It is actually incredibly easy to search out a reliable SEO agency online. Go to a search engine like Google or Bing and type in "SEO agency." Ignoring the paid advertisements at the very best, whichever firm has landed at the top of the search results are what you want - they has to be pretty good at SEO or their own website would not be so high in the natural listings!

To narrow things down a bit, you can try extending your search. Say you reside in Essex and want a local agency - just type in "SEO agency Essex." Or maybe if your site is specialised and also you want particular help with it you may add your industry or site type - "SEO tourism" or "SEO eCommerce" for example. This can be a good way to discover niche SEO agencies that have specialist expertise in your field.

Sometimes SEO agencies (or at least people claiming to be SEO agencies) try and solicit companies by sending them emails or submitting contact forms with various enticements and offers. However if you see something like this come in then it's best to ignore it - if a company which supposedly specialises in search engine optimisation is reduced to spamming inboxes to get business rather than, say, doing SEO so their own website ranks highly and people can find them anyway, chances are they are not very good. The exact same is true of SEO services advertised on paid ads at the top of major search engines or on banner advertisements on other web pages. If their search marketing is any good, what makes them having to pay for their placements?

Something else to bear in mind is to steer well clear associated with any SEO agency that promises you "top position for x keywords" or something similar. Virtually all modern search engines used personalised searching, meaning that everyone sees sites in slightly different ranking positions based on their personal search history. Absolute rankings are a thing of the past, any anyone claiming to deliver this sort of service is lying through their teeth. Modern SEO shall utilize sustainable "white hat" techniques as a way to bring useful traffic to your website, not use exploits and dodgy tricks, which can constantly get them slapped by search engine updates like Google's infamous Panda and Penguin algorithm changes.

Once you have found an SEO company that looks mostly all right you certainly will need to ask them some questions before you decide to leap into their services. And the usual checks like existing client list and testimonials, it's a good idea to speak to someone directly on the phone or in person.