Every business that has an online presence requires search engine optimization (SEO). This is because you need traffic to make sense of any business you are involved in. And I am not just talking about any traffic, you need targeted visitors. This is why you need the services of a good SEO provider like Concentric Marketing to provide you with relevant and consistent traffic to your website.

If you are already a website owner and a newbie to the whole idea of SEO, this article will help you in what to look out for when choosing an SEO provider.

Here are 5 things to note:

1. View the hiring expenses as a business investment yes, it is that important to your business and should not be seen as expenses. When you are able to view it this way, you will be patient enough to screen pass the chaff and get a good SEO provider that understands your business objectives.

2. Find out how long it will take you to appear on Googles first page this may be a tall order since there are other websites who are into what you do and were obviously there before you. Many SEO providers can claim to get you on the first page of Google and other search engines. However, if the provider is such that promises to get you there in just a day or few days, beware. Getting to the first page is hard work but attainable.

3. Able to provide you with keywords you can rank for going for the obvious single keywords is always very competitive and you may not stand a chance at ranking for it. But if the SEO provider can provide you with long tail keywords, then that is a good pointer.

4. Able to search for your competitors keywords this is very important because if your SEO provider can fish out what is making people in your niche to rank higher and appear on the first page, that will be half of the work done. Make sure that the provider you choose can deliver on this.

5. Able to provide on-page and off-page SEO your provider should be such that understands what on-page
SEO (page headings, keywords, outbound links, usability, internal links, etc) and off-page SEO (citations, backlinks, social media sharing, etc) entail. The SEO provider should be willing to go through your website and find out where you are getting it right or not and make the necessary changes.

Finally, watch out for the answers the SEO providers give you when you ask them questions to ascertain their expertise as regards to the points listed above. If the provider is in a hurry to get paid, be careful. It is best to pay in installments as the provider provides result. That way, you can at least be sure that you are not about to part with your money and pay someone who uses an automated system to carry out SEO.