Last week I posted about 11 Ways to Recognize a Bad SEO Firm. This week, in response to many requests, I am going to turn it around and talk about a set of things to look for in identifying a good SEO firm.

Unfortunately, it is much more difficult to be declarative when looking at this side of the coin. There may be more things that you will need from your SEO firm than are listed below. Every web site is very, very different, and they all have different needs.

Also, for definitional purposes, I am assuming that the term SEO includes responsibility for developing inbound links to the site. Without further ado, here is the list of things that Good SEOs will do:

1. Don’t always tell you what you want to hear, right from the start. This may even happen in the first call. Remember, the reason why you are bringing in an SEO is that you have a problem. It’s their job to help you understand the nature of the problem and the fix.
2. Use a teaching oriented approach. From the very beginning, you want an SEO that will teach you the basics, by explaining everything that they are doing. This is a critical element of a successful SEO – Client relationship.
3. Start strategic. Good SEOs do not bring a one size fits all formula. They will help you understand the strategic plan for your site. This should start with the first call also. You have investment decisions to make, and you need to have the complete picture to make those investments wisely. Note that there are many high quality people that focus on one vertical area of expertise. Depending on your business, they may be an excellent resource for you. Just make sure you understand how they fit into the broader strategic picture of the plan to grow your site’s traffic.
4. Know that “Content is King”. At the end of the day, you need links. It’s nearly impossible to get links unless you give people a reason to link to you. The best answer for that is quality content. Even for smaller sites with limited budgets, this must be addressed. Fortunately, there are many creative solutions that don’t necessarily involve a huge investment.
5. Has worked on a large number of sites (they have breadth of experience). Every site is different, both in terms of its structure and the market it competes in. SEOs with a broad range of experience are less likely to run into problems with yours.
6. Preach link volume and high value links in balance. It’s great to get lots of links. Most likely though, you need some authoritative links as well. How you going to get them? A good SEO should have good fresh ideas on this topic.
7. Offers up freely available case studies or testimonials. Not every client wants to reveal all the details of their traffic, but some will be willing to let an SEO do so. At the very least, however, the SEO should be able to offer up testimonials from past and/or current clients.
8. Willing to provide references. If the case studies and testimonials are not enough for you, then the SEO should be willing to provide you with people that they can call for a reference.
9. Of course, does not do any of the bad seo things. Quiz them on the bad SEO things and see what they say about them.
10. It’s a definite bonus if they have a reputation to protect. A reputation is an asset, and business owners don’t like losing assets. That said, there are SEO firms that do good work that may not have as visible a reputation as some others, so view this as a bonus rather than an absolute requirement.

If you know of any other things that belong on this list, let me know about it and I will add it.

Recently I interviewed Wordtracker’s Ken McGaffin. Ken and I discussed recent changes in Wordtracker and advanced tips and techniques for keyword selection. Check it out, and feel free to discuss it below.

There are lots of different people out there calling themselves SEOs. Some of them are actually really good. But, for today, let’s take a look at 11 sure fire signs that your dealing with a bad one:

1. Focuses a lot of energy on meta keywords. Yes, they are still out there – SEOs that think that meta keywords are the best thing going.
2. Offers to do a lot of search engine submissions for you. These will do absolutely nothing for you. Nada. Zip. Let the search engines discover you through links.
3. Recommends 302 redirects. I saw this just this past week. A major SEO firm that was helping a client with a move from domain to another, and they recommended 302 redirects. No faster way to destroy all the historical trust built up in a domain.
4. Focuses on link swapping. This is OK, up to a point, but it is not the fundamental building block of a long term link building strategy.
5. Uses the same link building methods on all clients. If it sounds like the link building strategy is the same for all their clients, you need someone else to oversee your overall link building strategy. Note that working with specialists is an OK thing to do (e.g. someone that focuses on social media), just don’t let that be the only thing you do.
6. Recommends micro sites as a way to rank for more terms. Unless you have been penalized, you are almost always better off putting new content on the existing domain. Every time you create a new site, you have created a new thing that you have to go market to get links for. Much easier to keep it all in one place.
7. Recommends that you run your content across multiple domains. I saw this recently. A company was doing a site move, and their SEO firm recommended that they keep the old domain running, then create the new domain, and leave them both running for 6 months. Not going to work.
8. Talks about hidden text (or other tricks such as cloaking) as a strategy. If it feels like a trick, then it’s probably a bad idea.
9. Says they know the Google algorithm. Hell, Matt Cutts doesn’t know the (entire) Google algorithm. Sure, he knows more about it than anyone outside of Google does, but the Google algorithm is really a large morass of different algorithms, and no one person knows all of them in intimate detail. In any event, even if a single individual inside Google knew the entire set of algorithms, they won’t be sharing that information with an outside SEO firm.
10. Promises #1 rankings. An old favorite. No one can guarantee #1 rankings, unless you are talking about “left handed oil based bottle washer”. Face it. Your space is probably competitive, and there are lots of people who want to rank #1 for the most important terms, and they are all trying to do it. Good SEO firms will bring you good results, and help you grow your business. Basically, it’s the wrong metric. How big is your web based business today, and how much can the SEO firm help you grow it? That should be the focus.
11. Don’t want to let you know what they are doing. If you get one of these, it means one of two things are happening: (1) they are doing nothing, or: (2) they are doing something bad.

So as I said before, there are good SEOs out there, in fact, there are lots of them. They can really help you. Unfortunately, a bad SEO firm can really, really hurt your web site and it’s traffic from search engines. Learn what to avoid. In addition, learn what to look for on the positive side. A good start on that task is to find SEO firms that will start be educating you on the challenges you face, and then focuses on the nuts and bolts about how you meet those challenges.