If you have an email address, then I’m sure you’ve received numerous emails or cold calls from companies claiming to get your site ranked at the top of major search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN Search.  Be sure to do your homework before forking out the dough.  Since increasing your search engine ranking doesn’t take place over night, you could end up paying for several months before realizing the company working for you isn’t delivering real results.

Typically there are a couple of stages to search engine optimization.  First, if you already have a website, the SEO company will make suggestions your webmaster should make to properly optimize your site to receive targeted search engine traffic.  This stage, if done correctly requires extensive research to properly determine the most commonly searched keywords and key phrases related to your site.  After the research is done, implementation takes place which primarily takes place behind the scenes (in the html code of your website).  Then, once your site has been properly optimized, link builing will need to take place, this should be done on an ongoing basis.  Most companies charge a monthly fee for this.  Typical peak search engine ranking increase takes place between 90-180 days.  

Without a monthly Search Engine Marketing campaign, site maintenance and updates, you search ranking can easily be lost.  Any good SEO company understands this and provies a monthly SEO service which typically costs around $300.  For some smaller companies that might seem like alot of money, but if you compare this to other forms of marketing/advertising on the web, you will see this fee is cheap, and gives you the best exposure by getting your site ranked in the #1 most visited website people go to for finding information, products and services on the web.  My company Seattle Web Services offers search engine optimization services, and we deliver results.  See Below:

My SEO Blog Ranks #1 in Seattle by Google for Seattle SEO Consulting and Seattle SEO Conultant.

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