When it comes to online presence, you'll always want that your website is in reach of the eyes of the potential customers. One of popular ways to increase your presence on the Internet is SEO - Search Engine Optimization. SEO matters and every small or big business owner should opt for an SEO campaign to eventually drive more traffic to their business websites. Such campaigns are offered by SEO experts in whose offices are links built all the day. Or at least, it's expected to be so.

What I want to say is that out thousands of SEO companies, maybe just a dozen is honest and hard-working. Such companies are using white hat SEO tactics and in the first place they don't promise #x spot in 2 weeks. Most other companies are just imposters who use automated tools and build spammy links, which boils down to that looking for a decent SEO guy is equal to looking for a needle in a haystack. But don't worry, it's not that bad.

Here are some advices you should consider before ordering an SEO campaign. In the first place ask the company/individual do they have some kind of portfolio where are shown latest project by theirs. Surely, you'll want to check current rankings of the websites they used/still working on to make sure the websites are ranking fine and the SEO company actually achieved some kind of result, whether it be a position in top 5, top 10 or top 20. Most serious SEO experts have a portfolio where you can find basic information on the campaigns, prices and - guarantees. Some SEO companies absolutely guarantee to their users that they will achieve a certain result within a time frame. C'mon. No one can't guarantee for sure that a particular position on the SERP will be reached. As Google started to introduce algorithm changes every once in a while, practically it became unpredictable what will be your next spot on the result page. You may think you'll easily surpass a competitor, while it happens just the opposite.

The next thing you should check is site's PageRank. I must aware you there is something suspicious if the PageRank is zero, or nay, PageRank is N/A but at the same time the website rankings are nearly perfect. Now you may want to check for backlink sources. Some (or better say - most) SEO companies are using spammy and blackhat link building tactics. You can check site's backlinks using online tools. If you notice most of the website's backlinks are consisted of blog comments and social bookmarkings, then you may want to start looking for another SEO company. Hopefully this time the real SEO company and not an "SEO" company.

Once the portfolio and PR of the websites listed in the portfolio is fine, next thing you should do is ask for the price. If the price is sky-high or if the SEO company is ready to work on the hourly rate of 3$/hr, then something is wrong there. Make sure the price is somewhat reasonable. Once you reckon everything and you deem everything fits in, order the SEO campaign. But everything doesn't end up here. You will make sure the company is providing you with reports at least on 2-weekly basis. On that way you'll have an idea what's going on and you'll faster realize whether the company is worth extending the agreement or not.