Chicago SEO
Choosing a Chicago Search Engine Optimization company is extremely difficult. There are many companies out there that take short cuts or practice what is called Black-Hat methods. These companies will skyrocket your site in the Google rankings virtually overnight. However, this will not last long and you will see your site disappear from Google completely within days or weeks. Do not take chances with your SEO. If you want your potential customers to find your site, hire a reputable company that will increase your results over months or sometimes even years! Quite simply, nothing happens quickly and there are no guarantees.
Here are a few absolute things to avoid:
- Guaranteed top ten rankings - These are 100% con jobs. No company can guarantee you any ranking on any search engine. Unless the Chicago SEO company secretively owns Google, they should be avoided.
- List your site in 10,000 search engines – There are four search engines that account for 98% of the Internet searches. The rest have absolutely zero value. These companies will blast your URL to all of them in the matter of minutes using automated software. Quite simply I would not pay $1 for this service, it cannot help you and it may actually hurt your rankings. Indeed, don’t even accept the service for free!
- Top x within x number of days – Again, avoid this like the plague.
- 10,000 backlinks – Backlinks is one way of many for letting Google know your site is important and should be included in their index. However, links should be built naturally over time. Here is a scenario that a lot of SEO companies use to get paid quickly. They build you 10k or more links to your site virtually within hours using automated “Spam” software. Google sees all these links and assumes there is a major news event in your industry. Google then ranks your site extremely high as they feel the news took place on your site. However, after a few days they figure out what you did and either ignore ALL of the links or remove your site from their index. Avoid this!
- List your site in 2000 directories – This is another virtually worthless service. While it doesn’t hurt your rankings it doesn’t add much value either.
Many otherwise reputable companies have turned to these types of services just because many customers expect them. It is very difficult for a legitimate company to compete with “I’ll have your site ranked #1 on Google by next Tuesday for $400”. Proper Chicago SEO services are expensive, time consuming and hard work! However, this is the only way to ensure your site gets ranked high and remains ranked high.
Look for a company that, well, seems a bit boring. A typical plan would be something like this:
- Keyword Research – The Chicago SEO company will research your industry and find out exactly which keywords your potential customers are using to find your services. This is one of the most important steps. It is NOT as simple as “I sell hot dogs, I want to be #1 for the keyword hot dogs”.
- On page optimization – The SEO Company will make suggestions to change the content of some of your pages.
- Link Building – The company will go over your vendors and partners to find potential companies in your industry that will link to your website. In addition, they may suggest a blog or other social media.
- Press Release – Many companies will build and distribute a press release to jump start your campaign.
- Analytics – The company will either install or suggest an analytics package. Again, proper SEO is not a set it and forget it process. Each month a good company will evaluate the campaign and make changes. Each and every keyword is different and requires monthly or sometimes even weekly changes.
- Reporting – The SEO Company will provide monthly reports on your progress. Again these reports will not make you jump up and down. However, you should see your site ranking higher for the keywords suggested.
I hope this doesn’t scare you off of SEO. There is no better way to advertise a business these days. A customer is searching for your products or services right now!