Choose Wisely: Professional vs. Novice SEO Company [Infographic]

These days, there are a lot of people who claim to have the professional skills to optimize a website’s SEO to perfection. We all know there are professionals, there are beginners, and there are people who call themselves SEO gurus. When it comes to choosing the right path for you, it’s always the professional option you should consider. When it comes to SEO, there are no shortcuts. If you choose the novice or “guru” consultants, you also usually opt for some sort of black hat SEO tactics as part of it. You want nothing to do with the black hat tactics since they are going to hurt you more than help. Optimization is a process that is never ending if you have a site where you are continuously putting out content. So how do you go about choosing a good SEO company?

Of course it’s impossible to know exactly who is good at what they do before they actually do their work, but there are a few giveaways that could give you hints about what direction things are going in. If you always remember that SEO is not an overnight optimization, you are equipped enough to spot the novice people from the professionals.

I think with all the constant tinkering, optimizations and changes that Google, Bing and all of the other search engines continuously implement, it’s virtually impossible for an SEO company to stick a simple plugin onto someone’s website and call it a day. It takes a lot of tinkering, as I said, and even though a plugin can do wonders, it won’t take you all the way.

A hand-drawn infographic presented by SubmitInMe (design by Prejushya) is a funny example of what I am talking about. Sometimes brands and companies around the world are a little bit too eager to hand over parts of their work to a consulting SEO company in order to spend time on other things. That’s a bad decision. If you’re going to hand over your SEO to someone who doesn’t work at your company, you need to first do some extensive research about the SEO company of your choice. It will benefit you greatly when you actually start collaborating together.

There are more tricks out there when it comes to SEO than one SEO company could possibly ever know, and it’s important to know that. Why? Because an SEO company who says they will get you the number one result for whatever keyword search you desire is completely “bullshitting” you. It’s SEO companies and SEO people like that who you should stay away from. Far away.

Make sure the process is smooth, professional and linear, and you will see the best results for your money spent. An SEO company is only as good as their knowledge. If they claim to be able to pull off almost unimaginable results, something fishy is definitely going on. If they tell you it’s a continuous work in progress and that you will have complete control of what goes on, and that you will be a part of the entire process, at least you know they can’t screw things up, right? SEO is not an easy task, everyone knows that, but phony SEO companies around the world don’t make it any easier. Introduce yourself to the process and stay in it, it’s the only way to be sure.