I recently spoke with a very small company about marketing their website, which happens to be in a very competitive industry. The owner told me he was currently speaking with an internet marketing company in Chicago, and for the one time fee of $2,500, they would submit his website to the search engines (monthly), obtain 15 inbound links for him (total!), and “optimize” his meta tags.

Unfortunately, after letting the client know that it would be very costly and time consuming to rank on keywords such as the ones he wanted to target, he decided to go with the Chicago firm. I mentioned that it would be easier and most cost effective to rank on more tail terms (which would also provide him with excellent conversion rates), but this firm in Chicago convinced him that he would rank well on any keywords if he just gave them $2,500.

To me, this Chicago firm sounds shady. With only 15 inbound links and “optimized” meta tags, this small business won’t see many results, if any at all. They won’t rank well for the keywords they’re targeting. The owner remained convinced, however, that this was the way to go, since they promised him good rankings on tough keywords for a small price.

If you’re looking for an SEO firm, beware the ones that say by submitting your site to the search engines, you’ll rank well. If this is the majority of the work they’re doing for you, you’re getting ripped off. If they only promise you 15 inbound links, again, this is a ripoff.

And, as a reminder, optimized meta tags, while they may entice users to click on your website, don’t do much to help you rank in the search engines. Do your homework before hiring any SEO firm, and beware any company that pushes the importance of submitting your site to the search engines, and altering your meta tags. While these are important things, they make up about 5% of what you need to be doing to rank well.

Talk to several different companies, get quotes, and go with what seems the best. To be a little cliche, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

I was doing some research on a local Utah company’s backlink profile, and I noticed an interesting thing. Despite the fact that they had 20,000 inbound links, five of the links on the first page were from several interlinked sites that were of a very bigoted nature. I was quite surprised because this company is well established in the high-tech industry, and I knew they didn’t represent that. After doing some research into this, I figurured out that this company was hosting these websites, and that’s how they received these links.

I think it is important to track who is linking to your business. Websites that are bigots spouting off are one thing (they do leave a bad and unprofessional opinion), but if there were other more unsavory websites linking to you, that would be something to consider. In other words, make sure you don’t have porno sites linking to yours. Although inbound links are important, it’s more important to be choosy about who links to you. You want your business to be reflected in a professional manner.

As far as getting a link removed, I’m sure a simple request would do the trick. Or, if you’re a business in the hosting or web design industry, don’t put a link on every client’s website. Control as best as you can who is linking to you.

There are several important factors when considering an SEO company to help optimize your company’s website. There are many companies out there that do an excellent job, however, there are some that utilize some techniques that may not be ethical or even useful.

There are several steps you can take to help make sure you’re choosing an SEO company that will provide you with the results you are looking for. It’s just a matter of doing your homework. The first is to find out exactly what they offer in their packages. Do they include a portion of your monthly payment to fund your ppc campaign? If so, does it say, “Up To $100 deposited in AdWords” or something like that? If that is the case, be wary. This means that it is in their best interest to deposit as little as possible to contribute to their own bottom line. If there is a specified amount each month that will be used to fund the pay per click campaign, that is a better way to go.

Another tip - Don’t get locked into long contracts. If you sign a year long contract, you have to pay them whether you’re getting the results you want, or receiving the service you expected. If you have a month to month contract with an SEO firm, there is a very high incentive for them to provide you with high quality service and results. They want to keep you, so they’ll have to work hard every month.

One somewhat obvious thing to do is see how well they’ve optimized their own website. Are they ranking on competitive keywords? If they’re not able to rank their own website well, they’re probably not going to be able to do much for your website.

Another means of seeing what kind of a company your SEO firm is to take a look at their backlink profile. This is a good indicator of what type of SEO they practice. I found one firm that created fake SEO/design companies that said they were no longer accepting clients, but you could contact “X” firm (themselves-I guess they were trying to get relevant backlinks). Well, it wasn’t difficult to find out the “feeder” companies were fake because all of the “clients” listed didn’t have websites, and the company address was just a house (thanks Google Maps!), and their firm was the only referral the website gave. When firms practice techniques like this for their own SEO, what would they do for a client?

Once company I researched tried experimenting with developing backlink profiles. They submitted themselves as a product to Amazon.com, hoping for an amazon backlink. Instead of that, however, they just ended up looking dumb. They received no backlink, but they’re listed in Amazon. Come on! I think it’s pretty funny, but companies practicing techniques like that probably have done other dumb things. I think it’s a good indicator to stay away.

This is certainly not a complete list of things to look out for, but it’s a good start. When you’re investing money in marketing, you want to know that the firm you hired will work hard and provide good results. If a firm promises to have you ranking in the top spot, guaranteed - run. No reputable SEO company will guarantee results simply because there are no guarantees. SEO firms cannot control what Google, Yahoo or MSN do, nor can they control the amount of SEO your competitors are doing. It’s just a matter of staying on top of things, and constantly utilizing the most up-to-date methods to provide the best results for your marketing campaign.