• Be extremely cautious of anyone who places great emphasis on “submissions.” They’ve never been trained and do not understand search engine marketing if they place a lot of emphasis on submission services. Submitting to a “Directory” is still important, but there are good reasons why, you should NOT submit to search engines.

  • Ask outright to see the individuals “SEO certification of skills.” If they have one, take a good look at the company that delivered their certification training. Do a search to see if that training company’s Web site can be found in top results for competitive SEO training phrases. For example if the training company only shows up in PPC advertising, how could they possibly be training others in gaining visibility in the organic results, if they cannot achieve it for themselves. The same with any company that uses unsolicited e-mail marketing to push their services. Think about it….if they were up to date in their skills, they would not be resorting to Spamming you.

  • Beware of anyone who “guarantees” a number one ranking in Google or other search engines. These offers are designed to “look safe” and “sound safe” so that you * think* you cannot possibly lose out. A great deal of confidence is bolstered using superlative laden language that convinces you that there is no possible way you can lose. We have seen many people come to study in class to build genuine SEO and SEM skills (unfortunately after they trusted their Web site to the wrong people.) In some case their sites had been banned and then we’ve had to help them clean up the mess to get back into the search engine’s good graces.

  • Watch for hints in dialogue when someone speaks of knowing all the “tricks” to “outsmart the search engines.”
    SEO Professionals do not “outsmart” or “trick” the search engines at all. But they’ve been trained in how to create truly relevant, high quality content that ranks based on developing useful pages that deliver high value to the visitor and satisfy the reason why the visitor searched in the first place. Many bits of dialogue are quite telling, so listen carefully when someone is describing there services to you.

  • As strange as it sounds, this industry is not JUST about top rankings. Ultimately, the goal is to gain top rankings but also you must understand how to compel visitors to respond. It’s only when these two elements together are working that you’ll produce your ultimate objective….to make sales, or earn money and profit from your Web site.
    Even if your objective is not to make sales, you’ll still need to be easily found and you’ll need to compel your visitor to take some kind of action to fulfill whatever objective you have.

  • Ask the company you are considering for hire, to provide you with a few business referrals where you can obtain a phone number and actually speak to a few of their clients. This can be someone who is in a different type of business and it can also be someone who can answer your questions in general.Questions you might ask of their client: 1) In terms of percentage, how much has your company profited by using this service?  2) Are there any pages on your site that you wish might perform better? 3) Would you say that these SEO services have exceeded your original expectations? These types of questions will encourage the referral to reflect on their relationship while not sounding too threatening or prying.

  • Don’t feel that you literally have to become an SEO expert in order to get your Web site performing well. If you have no interest in building the skills, you can still get a solid education in all of the principles and techniques that will help you easily identify truth from error. This education can literally save you thousands of wasted dollars and get your project launched correctly the FIRST time.

  • Watch out for so called “training companies” that may have a secondary agenda (other than teaching you the genuine SEO skills manually.) There are companies that say they will teach you the skills, but in the end, they are hoping to make learning “seem more difficult” in hopes of having you end up hiring THEM to do the work. Some schools give you some general knowledge but in the end, they want you to buy their special SEO tools like an up-sell.