Wherever I go, I run across consulting/service firms that guarantee they can get your company’s website on the first page of Google’s search results. Usually this claim is to be accomplished by using something called “SEO”. Let’s take a minute to understand the term “SEO” and evaluate claims made by SEO firms.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or Search Engine Marketing (SEM)?

SEO is the practice of improving the amount and/or quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine listings. In other words, the goal is to have pages from your website rank high in the natural search result listings. By contrast, SEM is the practice of improving the amount and/or quality of traffic to your website through paid advertising (such as Sponsored Links on Google).

Some SEO offerors improperly include SEM within the SEO designation. In fact, they are two different but related areas.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

As indicated above, SEO deals with organic listings. Typically, increased organic rankings are achieved by the quality of the content on your website and the frequency with which others on the Web link to that content. Therefore, SEO practitioners have as their primary goal to increase the quality of your web content and to advance your outreach to increase linking from your online market: web-savvy consumers, peers and partners.

The effectiveness of your website’s content, considered as part of an SEO strategy, is very dependent on your ability to manage the content fluidly. SEO-ready web content management systems (CMS) are a prerequisite to competent SEO management.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

High organic search result rankings are generally preferred to high advertising positions (such as you might see in Google’s “Sponsored Links”) gained through SEM. However, SEM provides several valuable functions. First, at the least SEM gives you a search engine presence while you are working on the position of organic listings. Second, SEM can provide reinforcement for your organic listings (the consumer sees your company in two different positions on the same page). Third, SEM might provide more return on investment than your SEO efforts—thus making it the place where you decide to devote your resources.

Guarantees

Once you have found out how the offeror achieves the result (SEO and/or SEM), it is important to note the nature of the guarantee (if any). Examples:

• For SEO, the guarantee might not consist in the ability to get your site on the first page of search results, but merely that you won’t pay unless the desired results are achieved. For example, once a page from your website hits the top 10 in response to a given keyword search, you will be charged $400 dollars per month, per keyword for every month in which the same result is achieved.
• Also for SEO, the guarantee might state that you will not have to make any changes to your website. This means that the results will likely be achieved solely by setting up referral content (content at other frequently visited websites that point to your site).
• For SEM guarantees are much less frequent, because the position of your advertisement is based solely on your ability to fund the campaign necessary to achieve top rankings.

Further Questions for the Consultant

• Be careful to ask discerning questions about methodology—some consultants use less than scrupulous methods, which will result in only short-term gains.
• Ask what level of control the consultant will need to have over your content (whether it appears on your website or elsewhere). Your content represents your company. Make sure that the consultant doesn’t start populating your website (or feeder sites) with poorly written content that drives traffic but does not result in sales and further, degrades your brand.
• Request a preliminary review of the SEO ability of your current website—this will make sure that you don’t get halfway through an engagement, only to find that you need to spend thousands of dollars on renovating your site.
• Request case studies of work performed for named, knowledgeable companies that paid going rates for the services that they received from the consultant.

Finally, SEO/SEM consultants can spend between several hours and thousands of hours on related strategy, management and execution for your company. Make sure that you clearly state your budget and expectations when hiring a consultant.

There is much more that can be written on this subject! However, this article should provide a primer for those pursuing SEO/SEM consulting services to benefit their company.

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