#1: Use the Word Secret. There are trade secrets in every industry, but there are no magic tricks in SEO. If your agency is a quality one, they will go out of their way to tell you that there are no secrets when it comes to ranking your page well.

#2: Ignore Social Media. SEO agencies that concentrate only on article directories and keyword optimization are missing out. Social Media takes subtle, careful, trust-building work, and if your company is serious about ranking online, your agency needs to be serious about social media.

#3: Linkbuild Without Content. Any good company should have someone in-house to generate content for your company, or be able to point you to freelancers who can, or tell you how to create it yourself. Good content is fundamental, and the best agencies will tell you this immediately.

#4: Quickly Pushing More Services onto You. Having you pay extra for big projects and web design is one thing, but if you sign up for SEO and realize youre going to have to pay for ten other services on top of it, whats the point? Differentiating between honest, paid help and aggressive sales tactics is fundamental.

#5: Stay Open Only From 9 to 5. The fact that SEO is a business that operates entirely online gives the SEO Agencies a remarkable ability to stay open. If they are treating it like a normal workday, be careful”the internet doesnt work like that.

#6: Spam. Especially when it comes to commenting on blogs and posting to forums. For the bad SEO Agencies, this is often their entire social media strategy: post generic text, link back to customers site. Buyer beware, indeed.

#7: Learn Nothing About Your Business. The reason SEO companies are like yesterdays ad agencies is because they are promoting your business online. If they make no effort to learn about your company and do research, and instead sell you a one-size-fits all plan with no customization, move on.

#8: Never Develop. The internet changes every second. New ways of search and venues for information pop up every day, and what was a monopoly yesterday can be a bit player tomorrow. Top SEO Agencies will embrace this with gusto, because they have to.

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