There are many informative articles online that discuss how to pick an SEO firm. If you are looking to hire someone or just want to learn more about the industry, you can Google any number of terms and find a "How to." article about selecting a firm. There are lots of Blogs, articles and FAQs pages published online that will give you top ten lists, anecdotal records and occasionally a horror story of poor selection. In order to provide some new information along this line of thought, I chose to elaborate on one characteristic in selecting an SEO Firm, the results a company has produced for their clients.

When selecting an SEO Firm all of the industry experts provide many things to examine and discuss with potential candidates. The effect is to do an all encompassing evaluation of the firm by pouring over lots of background, company and policy information a firm offers you to peruse. However, I find that this kind of examination can be time consuming if you are looking at a dozen SEO firms. Hence, I want to limit the scope of this article and give the user a way to do a quick diagnosis of a company. In a way, think of this as triage in order to thin the herd and give you a few solid companies to do your homework on. I recommend examining their results as a way to do a prequalification of a company. Much like the SAT gives colleges a quick measure of a candidate; you can use the results a firm has shown much the same way. If after you have reviewed this characteristic and you feel the firm is a legitimate provider, seek to examine the rest of their credentials.

First and foremost, results are the current rankings of a website that an SEO firm works with under a keyword term or terms. Not to belabor this point, but SEO companies help websites to improve their rankings on essentially a premeditated list of keyword terms. Typically the SEO firm will bill board their best rankings for a cross section of their clients.

Here is a Q& A for pre-qualifying an SEO firm based on the results they have performed for previous clients.

1. Where are the results found?

Any reputable SEO firm will have a clients results page on their website. If you cant find it because it isn't there, do not pass go, end the survey for this firm immediately and find another one to study.

2. How to read results?

Assuming you have found the results page of an SEO firm and you will see a list of keywords terms, company names, ranking numbers and search engines. The keywords are the most important part here, followed by what search engines are listed, and then the rankings and a distant fourth is whether you recognize a company name.

3. What's in a keyword?

Keywords have sort of a general rule of thumb about them. There are exceptions to every rule but at first glance you can use this as a significant momentum builder in your examination. One word keyword terms are very difficult to get listed in the top ten on a search engine. Two and third word keyword terms are next followed by 4, 5, 6 and the rest. It is exponentially more difficult to get rankings for single keywords and then in sequence through 2-3 and the rest. The keywords determine the difficulty level.

4. What search engines are being bill boarded for the clients ranking?

There are dozens of search engines on the market today. But considering Google, Yahoo and MSN control over 90% of the market, don't concern yourself with a list of other search engines. The Big 3 are the only place to be, regardless of what other search engines might say. Look for Google rankings first, then Yahoo and then MSN. There is really no reason to look at other search engine rankings because they do not have a significant market share in order to invest your time or budget. If you rank well on Google you will surely rank well everywhere else. The search engines determine the playing field. The Big 3 are the equivalent of professional sports leagues.

5. Rankings from a numbers standpoint:

On the results page, the SEO firm should have the rankings listed not by page but by the specific spot held by the company in the results returned by the search engine. For example, if the ranking is a 1-10, this is a top ten listing which means the company is on the first page. Search Results are based on pages, each page has ten entries. Therefore if your company is ranking 14 they are the fourth spot on the 2nd page. The rankings are the proof.

Now that we have the answers to some basic information about the results, it will require a bit of intuition and experimentation on the part of the reader. It is very easy to see simple clear cut results like Number 1 on Google or Yahoo. If the company you look at is showing this and the keyword terms are not sentences long, you can feel confident taking a look at the rest of the firms credentials. They have passed the initial litmus test. But if you see a firm that lists a lot of search engines that are not one of the Big 3, and 4-6 keyword terms, be sure to find another firm to review.

SEO Results are a spectrum of sorts. On one end you have a single keyword term, ranking: 1, Search Engine: Google. At the opposite end of the spectrum you have a long keyword phrase, Ranking 1-20 and a lesser known search engine (Not Google, Yahoo, MSN).

Use your judgment based on this criterion and you will be able to sift through the companies to find a partner. Remember the keywords determine how difficult and how widely searched, the search engine determines what league you are playing in and the rankings show the proof. A final thing to consider, there are many reputable firms out there as well as snakes in the grass to steer away from. Use the best information you can and never base a decision on one characteristic. This article was intended as a way to cut down the list of candidates.