Before we get to the list it is important for us to set your expectations at a realistic level, as well as help you to focus on areas of Search engine optimisation ("get me on page one of Google" in layman's terms) that are the most important.

The name of the game for nearly all businesses is making a profit, you need to keep this in mind with regard to finding the right search engine company. People often get focused on the numbers game, needing to be on page one of google for a term that is not very relevant and having 3,400 links from sites that have nothing to do with what you sell and are of questionable value and reputation is a poor goal to be focused on.

Would you rather 60 serious qualified buyers make enquiries on your web site?, or would you prefer 30,000 visitors a month that got to your site by accident because they were tricked into clicking a link, or are from a geographical location that is not compatible with your business.

The answer is plain common sense, think of it as panning for gold, using a fine sieve to remove all the worthless rocks before it gets to you so that you are left with a rich deposit of gold dust.

Of the many search engine companies to choose from, you have to figure out which ones will do what they say they are going to do, ensure they do their best to deliver results and do their best to manage client expectations. Many of the fly by night search engine companies out there will tell you everything you want to hear even if its not possible, take you money and do a vanishing act.

Unfortunately this strategy for any business has worked since the dawn of time on some people and will always work. The best way to arm yourselves against this is with some knowledge. You don't need to know the details as long as you understand what needs to be done and are realistic about what is out of reach of the search engine companies hands.

Run a mile from anyone that promises concrete results in short time frames because as much as you would like to believe, its just not possible.

If Google cannot guarantee where you will be on their search rankings, how can anyone else?

Expect to measure results over a time span of a year, during this time if you have followed some of the advice here you should see a marked improvement in the amount of traffic flowing through your site as well as increased profits for your business, all of which is good.

We also encourage active participation in updating your own site. Our clients use a product called Contribute which allows them to make changes without the fear of breaking the actual site, which is easy to do using more powerful programs such as Dreamweaver.

Astute clients can see the value of having a constantly updated site to get the message out to clients.

Many search engine companies will want to do all the work themselves, including updates of which they will require a not so modest fee in many cases. They need to tell their story walking! There is no reason why anyone cannot update the information on their own site. In most cases it makes for a more dynamic, creative and interesting site than one that is managed by the designer.

There is only so many $150 fees to change a paragraph or two that a business will put up with before the site starts to languish and look unloved.

Invest this money up front in getting the designer to show you how to update the site and learning some of the basics of uploading information to your site.

The one proviso to this is if you have taken on the services of a search engine company that has a professional copywriter who has massaged the text on your site to be more readable to your clients and search engines.

I would then recommend you send your written text to them prior to publishing. You don't want to undo all their good work which on the surface may not look that much. However a good copywriters work should be so smooth and understated that it will not be noticed, that's where the expertise lies.

What do we mean by that? well here is a bad example of getting your message out there:

"we provide great PC Support. If you need PC Support and have a PC or Computer then bring your PC or Computer into our computer shop where we will fix your PC or computer for a much cheaper fee than others that fix PC's or Computers"

That's an extreme example of an unsophisticated attempt at writing for the search engines, the problem here is that no human being will be happy reading something like this. No point being high in the search engines if what you have written is rubbish.

A copywriter will take the un sophistication that most of us gravitate to, and make the fact you are trying to get popular completely hidden.

Now onto the top 10 tips for search engine optimisation: