Are you working with the right SEO? How do you know if your SEO specialist has the capability to deliver the results he/she has been promising you?

I think the answers to these questions can be narrowed down to two very important concepts. First of all a professional SEO must be able to demonstrate a track record of results for their own web properties and those of their current clients. This goes along with being able to offer those clients as references. You’ll know you might be dealing with a poor SEO if he can’t show results for any reason. Some may claim confidentiality of clients’ information, but it’s not likely that all or even most of their clients have requested this. Further, to insure that the SEO your are talking to has actually worked on said project, you must contact available references.

I see some great results from this SEO, but how do I know he/she will be able to deliver the same results for my company? To answer this question you must look for clues of scalability. Can this SEO scale their services? They must understand not only the technical aspects of SEO, but understand enough about systems and business to scale their offerings. A professional SEO must be able to scale up to take on more clients. Sourcing inbound links for your SEO project is one example of the hard work that a good SEO may be able to handle for their own project, or maybe even a few clients, but will soon be overwhelmed if they don’t have solutions to help them scale their business.

Everyone wants a good deal and loves to save money, but SEO is still far from becoming a commodity and you must be careful with regards to what you’re paying for SEO. Some SEO freelancers may not understand their value and won’t charge enough money for their services. This causes them to take on more clients than they can handle just to pay the bills. Even if a good SEO has good intentions and a superior knowledge of SEO, they may end up “churning and burning” clients if they lack the ability to charge adequately and scale their business.

There are a few things about on-page or internal search engine optimization that you should know before attempting it on your own website or hiring another SEO firm to do the work.

First you need to make sure that you are not creating a website entirely of Flash, using frames or placing all of your text in images. Google and other search engines don’t yet fully understand how to work around these formats or methods of constructing a website.

Next, you should cover the basic meta tags and properly title your web pages. These components of a website’s structure have been around since the late 1990′s.

The page title is the single most important on-page SEO component for a multitude of reasons. First it’s limited to roughly 65 characters by Google and doesn’t allow for limitless spam. The page title is also displayed in the search results listing and greatly affects CTR (click through rates). For these reasons and more, Google and other search engines place a lot of value on the page title. Keywords should be used in the page title and unique page titles should be created for each web page within a website. See an example below.

<title>Indianapolis Web Design & Search Engine Optimization | Slingshot SEO</title>

The description meta tag also affects CTR and communicates a website’s content to the search engines. Keywords and a good call to action should be used in the description meta tag to entice searchers to click on your website listing in the search results. Unique description meta tags should be used on every web page within your website. See an example below.

<meta name=”description” content=”Slingshot SEO offers professional web design, development and search engine optimization SEO services to firms in and around Indianapolis, Indiana. Our Internet marketing services will help you compete on a local, national or global level. Specializing in eCommerce, services websites and fully custom web design.” />

Although many top SEO experts say that most of the popular search engines completely ignore the keywords meta tag, I strongly suggest that you take a little time and add keywords to this meta tag to further reiterate your website’s content and to reinforce word relationships. Whether or not popular search engines utilize this meta tag may be up for debate, but little proof has been shown to completely rule it’s use out. I also don’t like to leave any scraps on the table, especially if there is no logical reason that adding this meta tag can have a negative impact on rankings. See an example below.

<meta name=”keywords” content=”Indianapolis web design, indiana web design, web design, indianapolis seo, indiana seo, professional web design, slingshot seo, indiana search engine optimization, indianapolis search engine optimization, indianapolis web designers, website development indianapolis, indianapolis website development, indianapolis ecommerce, web design indiana, indiana web development, zionsville seo, carmel seo, website development, google internet marketing, web site design.” />

Well, I would consider these meta tags the very basics of SEO for beginners. Stay tuned for later blog posts for beginners discussing XML sitemaps and other important tags.

There are limitless ways of effectively marketing B2B and B2C products through the Internet. In my opinion, the first steps for most organizations to take is Pay Per Click ad campaigns through Google Adwords, Organic Search Engine Optimization and a website with Conversion Rates in mind to help turn those visitors into customers.

If the product is new, such as an invention of sorts, that the public is not yet aware of I would suggest Social Media and Viral Marketing campaigns.

The next step for retail would be comparison shopping networks such as Froogle, Yahoo Shopping, NextTag, Amazon and others.

These suggestions just scrape the tip of the iceberg, but most companies experience phenomenal ROI regardless of the path they take as long as…

A) They have a quality product or service
B) They have margins that allow profitability
C) They hire the right Internet Marketing firm

Keep in mind that SEO and other forms of Internet Marketing are NOT a commodity.

When looking for a good firm I would set a few priorities.

1) Look for the best at Organic SEO (get traffic)
2) Find a firm with solid Conversion Rate strategies (turn visitors into customers)
3) Ask for a number of references, not just a few trophy clients