Large cities are fast paced and busy. Sometimes your can spend hours stranded in traffic while travelling very short distances during peak hours. This makes visiting clients very time-consuming for sales reps on the road. In a world where time is money, more and more business owners are turning to the internet to generate new customers and grow their company revenue. But achieving success online is not as easy as it once was. With more and more companies jumping online the competition is getting fierce. Regardless, SEO still provides one of the best returns for marketing investment. With more and more people using Google to conduct research before making a purchase, it is essential that your business can be found on Google. However, if you are like most business owners I talk with you don't have the time to market your own business online. After all staying up to date with the latest search engine guidelines and rules is a fulltime job. It makes sense that most business owners would rather pay an SEO agency, company or individual to complete this work for them. If this is you then make sure you follow these 5 essential tips to achieve a successful SEO strategy for your business. Tip #1 - Choose a Local Provider: The internet and advancements in communication technology now allows us to connect with someone on the other side of the world in realtime. With this technology you may be tempted to find anyone in the world to provide your SEO services. However, the internet has also allowed many doors to open up for scam and fraud artists. For this reason it is always best to be able to meet your future SEO provider in person. By finding a local SEO expert, agency or SEO company to carry out your search engine optimisation campaign, you have the flexibility of being able to catch up with them in person. You can get a lot out of meeting someone in the flesh as opposed to only meeting them via email, texts or even a phone call. Also when dealing with large amounts of money over the internet I am always cautious until I have a good understanding of who I am doing business with. Create a strong relationship between you and your SEO provider by meeting in person, to ensure a strong result from your campaign. Tip #2 - No Overseas Outsourcing: Once you have found a local SEO provider ask them if they outsource any of their SEO work overseas. If they do then you might as well work with someone overseas directly. But of course this is going against the first tip! By outsourcing SEO work overseas, SEO companies can often charge higher amounts in-line with local prices and then get the work done overseas for a fraction of the cost. Meanwhile an overseas SEO provider may have poor English and not fully understand the location they are creating content for. Also they may use automation techniques for their copy writing and link building strategies which can lead to Google penalties. Unfortunately this is a common practice for SEO providers from third world countries. When your SEO campaign is completed overseas you often receive a very poor standard of work. This can portray an unprofessional image for your business and can even lead to your website getting penalised. So avoid this at all costs. Tip #3 - Get a Customised SEO Strategy: Achieving a successful SEO strategy requires complex analysis and planning. There are no one-size-fits-all approaches when it comes to SEO. And for that reason you should not choose an SEO package off the shelf and expect to achieve awesome results. All reputable SEO providers offer a search engine optimisation service that is custom designed for each business they partner with. Reason being is that every business is different in terms of their market, products and services, and business goals. A successful SEO strategy must take all of this into account and needs to be tailored to the individual business to meet their exact needs. Tip #4 - Get Progress Reports: Another vital tip is to ensure that your local SEO provider provides progress reports. Most common is to have a monthly report showing what work was done and how your website rank is tracking. If you are not getting this data then your SEO agency could be doing nothing while taking your money. Make sure you review this report each time you get it and ensure progress is being made on your business goals. Tip #5 - Play Safe: At the end of the day choosing who to partner with to provide your SEO services is not an easy task. Even the most successful SEO strategies take time to blossom into a positive outcome. This is how scam artists get away with ripping people off in the online marketing world. They convey hope to their clients that the benefits will be coming, meanwhile they are simply pocketing your monthly investment each month. Above all else beware of extremely low prices offered from an SEO provider. Quality SEO services normally costs anywhere in the range of $750-$5000 per month. If you are paying any less than this the SEO company may be using dodgy tactics which may result in a penalty once Google catches on. Choose Wisely No-one said choosing an SEO provider would be easy. However, by following these 5 essential tips you will have a much better chance at success. Do your research and take your time in your decision for choosing who to partner with for your SEO strategy. And also be aware that SEO does take time. But when all the quality work starts to gain momentum your SEO strategy will cause your business to steamroll ahead. Best of luck. This article was written by Greg Davids, owner of SEO Sydney Solutions. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/9355065