One of the biggest problems about finding a reputable SEO company is that generally anyone is able to offer SEO services. You don’t need training, experience, qualifications or indeed any knowledge about how SEO works in order to say ‘hey, do you know, I can do SEO’.
And of course many people do just that.
Web design agencies, IT companies and freelances, and even print design firms all believe they can offer SEO services that are just as good as those offered by professional search engine optimisation companies – or least, they claim they’re just as good. Whether they believe they are, or not, depends on their level of self delusion. The problem is that many people wouldn’t know who was spinning them a yarn about SEO, and who genuinely knows what’s what – especially if the company in question has a reputation already for whatever other service they happen to perform.
Of course, just because a company is great at print design, and has developed your company’s brochures and catalogues for a number of years, doesn’t mean they know the first thing about SEO. Here at StuckOn, we wouldn’t claim to know how to design your company’s printed material – but we do know how to achieve rankings within Google. That’s kind of our thing.
Jack of all trades companies, who claim to offer SEO services alongside their other services, need to be scrutinised about their level of expertise. How long have they been in SEO, what experience do they have, what are their thoughts on PageRank sculpting? If they answered ‘eh’ to that last one, then they’re not really an SEO company at all.
It’s like those takeaway flyers that we keep getting through the post in Manchester: the flyers claim to be for pizza parlours, but they also offer fried chicken, chips, curry dishes and kebabs. These aren’t pizza parlours at all – they’re takeaways that ‘have a go’ at everything, and to be honest (having tried them) aren’t very good at any of them. When you want a curry, go to a curry house, when you want a pizza, use a pizza parlour, when you want fish and chips… you get the idea.
