Own Site(s)To us, this is the most important step. If somebody has not been successful at 1) positioning their own sites and 2) generating substantial revenues from their own sites, then why would you want them advising you? You absolutely are looking for a been there and done that type of company or consultant.Have Them Explain In Detail What They Plan To DoWe always suggest interviewing a minimum of the 3 companies or consultants. Really have them explain what their campaign is going to do, what realistic timelines and costs are likely to be, and why the believe it will work for you. Many fly by night type companies will make you believe that SEO and Internet marking is a black art..... that is far from the truth. SEO is a step by step process that takes a lot of time, effort, and faith but it is not black magic. By the time you interview 3 candidates, we believe it will be clear who has a solid game plan and who is smoke and mirrors.Look For 3 Key ComponentsBottom line, you want to generate additional sales for your company. In our experience, any Internet marketing campaign that is successful requires the components before it really starts making the cash register ring:- Optimizing your web site for key search terms;- Developing a very well orchestrated campaign to get other web sites to link to yours and increase your reputation with search engines;- Constant evolution of approaches to CONVERT incoming traffic into sales.... Very few SEO companies truly do this well largely because they have not done it for thd is measurable. To start with your web page must contain relevant content that relates to the products or services that you are offering. Search engines are not human and rely on the text of the page to inform them what the information is being offered from that web page. You need to ensure that your keywords, (phrases used to search for your website) are repeated throughout the text. This should not be done too often, as stuffing a web page with the same keywords will actually make the search engine rank it lower. You should also use the keyword in the title tag. Using the keyword naturally throughout the page is a good policy.Using back links, or incoming links to your website is essential. This is one of the most beneficial ways to increase your ranking. Incoming links should be from relevant sources, in other words sources related to your own industry. The back link text should be related to your keywords. There are many ways to find places for your back links such as blogs, forums, article and directories. Another method is to contact a webmaster of another site and request a link, or offer to provide content. In many ways it is like getting a vote, the more links there are the more popular the website.