Keyword Identification & Research - The first thing a good SEO company will do is discuss your proposed keywords and search phrases. Using keyword research tools they should discuss and recommend the most appropriate keyword and search phrase selection for your business. There's no point having a website at the top of Google for a phrase which no one ever searches for is there?
Website Analysis - Is your current website search engine friendly? Website structures and how your website is built, plays an extremely important role in a good SEO strategy. Having the ability to program a website to tell the search engines who you are, what you do and where you do it, is just as important as the search engines being able to read and index content on your website. A quick online analysis will help identify what they have to work with and will tell them what work needs doing to your website either ‘on' or ‘off' page.
SEO Copywriting – After assessing your website, a good SEO company will mention this to you as they will have identified what SEO work is needed on your website. If a so called SEO company doesn't touch your website then you can't be getting proper SEO, it's a fact. There are two types of SEO copywriting ‘on' and ‘off'.
On page copywriting is the use of appropriate keywords on a website that the you and I the user can read and off page SEO copywriting is what programs website to tell the search engines at back end of a website [predominantly what the user can't see] who you are what you do and where you do it. A large part of off page copywriting is programming what is called ‘metadata'. Without this, your website will never be indexed by the search engines.
Competitor Analysis – An excellent indicator of what level of SEO work is required in order to achieve your online marketing objectives is to always analyse the competition. The amount of time, effort and money that your competitors have invested into SEO including link building, article writing and submission, will always influence and determine how much you have to in order to achieve similar results.
SEO Link Building – Once your website has solid foundations, your SEO company should be talking to you about your link building. Your website will rank higher up the search engines the more one way, incoming links from high other ranking website your website has. This is often a very time consuming process and should never really stop.
Feasibility Study – A SEO expert will be able to quickly tell you how feasible your objectives are. Even if they find that your online goals are unrealistic and unachievable given either time, website structure or budgetary constraints, they should always be able to provide you with an SEO solution which often involves a staged approach in terms of both time and investment.
SEO Proposal – After discussing all of the above with you, an SEO company should be able to provide you with you with an approximate quote for your SEO Solution. As long as an SEO company is open honest and transparent with what they are doing and how they are going to do it, you shouldn't go too far wrong. The moral of the story is, if your so called SEO Company has not talked through any of the above with you, then it's highly likely they're not a proper SEO company and simply want your money. What you do need are proper SEO experts from a proper SEO Agency.