Selecting the Orange County SEO company to help out your business is a critical hire and not one you can afford to get wrong. The company or person you select is going to have a huge impact on such things as whether your PPC marketing campaign is successful, whether your social media accounts are set up correctly, and whether your website is optimized for search engines. Here are some things to consider as you go about narrowing down the candidates.

Don’t Use Google To Find Them

It would seem to make sense to type something like “best Orange County SEO company” into Google. Foolproof, right? The problem is that the SEO companies that are truly the best won’t necessarily rank number one for a term like that, because they don’t need to. They are likely overwhelmed with clients because of referrals and have top-notch networking going for them. Therefore, what you’re likely to get for a term like “best Orange County SEO company” is probably the dregs. These are companies that are trying to drum up new business.

Don’t Use Terms Like “Best SEO Lists”

Again, you might be tempted to use Google and type in a term like “top 10 SEO companies Orange County” or some variation of those keywords. You’ll probably get sent to a website that is essentially an aggregator. For all you know, the SEO companies that are on those lists might have paid for the privilege of being there. Google, and search engines in general, are useful for many things, but finding the best SEO company does not happen to be one of them. If you must use a search engine to find an Orange County SEO company, at least make sure it states explicitly somewhere on the site that it is not a pay-to-play type of setup.

So, How Do You Find An SEO Company?

If those seemingly easy ways of finding an SEO company in Orange County are not to be trusted, then is there a better way? You’ll want to first sit down with your CEO and executives and figure out your goals. They might be something like “we want to boost revenue” or “we want to boost sentiment for our brand.”

Next, you’ll want to figure out a little more about what you want from your SEO company. Is it essential for you to have someone in your region, or is remote okay for you? Alternatively, your choice might be based much more on your budget.

Finally, start talking to professionals in your network. If you know people at similar non-competitive companies to yours, ask them for recommendations. You can also go on trusted SEO sites and get the opinion of industry insiders. You can reach out to them on social media. They should be able to give you an unbiased opinion.

If you go about this process, you should be able to locate some candidates for the SEO company in Orange County that you want. They might not be “the best” according to Google, but that’s not important. What matters is that they came recommended from trusted sources and they fit in with what you’re trying to do. You’ll need to consider such things as their size, price, experience within your niche, whether or not they’re local, and the overall impression you get when you interview them.