How do you choose a SEO company?

Word of mouth. Trust, but verify.

Thanks Brian,
How do you verify?

Very good answer Brian.
I am not sure what you are referring to as "effort based".

Blocking and tackling. Just put in the time every day and you will see results. It's a continuous process.

Do you think much follow up work is needed to maintain your SERPs? (Search Engine Results Positions)

It has not been so in my experience.

If you are working in anything competitive, the answer to that is a resounding yes.

I do not find that.
I have had #1 positions out of over 18 million competing sites with one link and nothing more than on page work.

Reg, I'm curious what you would recommend, considering your success. It seems like you are a veteran who should already know the answer to your own question. Can you provide any insight into the topic?

I'd love to see that, Reg. That would be unheard of unless you are moonlighting as Wikipedia's or Google's webmaster. There has to be more to the story.

Kate you are right on the money.
Brian, I have been doing SEO for well over a decade and frankly I am just plain upset at the advice given by majority of those that claim to be experts.

All the hoopla about SEO and linking, SEO and social networking, SEO and blogging, and anything that relates to "off page SEO" is mainly BS designed to give the search firms extra avenues of revenue.

The majority of SEO is done on page.
Linking, social networking, blogging are all worthwhile things to do, but their effect on search positions are negligible.

I don't claim to have any special "insider" information on how Google's algorithms ranks websites but what I do have is a systematic, in depth analysis of the obvious factors that govern a websites ranking.
I have studied all their literature, guidelines, and patents.

I have watched the experts, read most every article, browsed endless threads on webmaster world, SEOMOZ, and other SEO forums, hung on Matt Cutts' every word, and designed and tested, tested, tested.

I know EXACTLY what to do and how to do it and it is dead simple.
I could teach anyone in an hour.

The first factor is relevance. Relevance to a keyword phrase.
Notice I said phrase and not the singular 'keyword".
That is because more people search using a 2 or more word phrase than with a single keyword. The general public in their quest for information has discovered that a phrase has more relevance (turns up better results) than a singe word search.

So has Google.

With relevance to the keyword phrase being the first line of the sorting process, we have to look at:
Keywords in the domain name.
Keywords in the title and the description and keyword tags.
No more than that either.
A long flowery description is not called for at this point. The searcher is just interested in seeing confirmation and relevance to their keyword search and exact matches are the way to do this for them, AND the Google search algos. Words that one *might* use to describe the page content do not belong in the keyword tag, just the words that are repeated on the page. And not all of them. Target the most used search phrases which apply to your content.

After relevance comes application.
When you compose a webpage you should ideally be writing it to be as efficient as possible in the transmission of information on the subject.

How your write this, your font sizes, keyword position on the page and emphasis all tell the human reader the importance of each element.

Eye tracking studies all pretty much agree on how a page is viewed, which is in a F pattern.

The visitor "enters" the page top left, scans across (the header) and down and over to the left column to a position just under the header.

This and the real estate to the right and immediately below is the "hot spot" on the page. The best place to put important information.

When the visitor enters the page they "scan" passed images and large text and pause at smaller text. If you want someone to read something, put it in small 10 pt text.

Since they come in top left on the header, the first thing they see is the logo. If you build your primary keyword phrase into your logo design you can use a CSS image replacement to put the corresponding keywords into an in-line h1 text string. All the top sites for a search for SEO do it. It seems to carry more "weight" than a graphic with an alt tag. This also goes toward accessibility.

The next thing the visitor should see in the header is the primary keyword phrase and the area the business covers. If the market is global, then a mention of the city.

People tend to search for products locally before doing a global search.
(I have the #1 spot for SEO Comox Valley )
Google also is quite strong on local search so this fulfills one of their algos.

The first place a person's eyes pause at is the hotspot.
It is here that you want to put your h2 text, which would be descriptive keywords relating to the h1 keyword phrase.
On my site it is a heading "SEO Options" with links to the options under it.

Navigation should be positioned by relevance.
Navigation to products/services, to product information, being in line before any "About us, Contact us, TOS, Links", or material dealing with the site and not the product/service.

As the user’s eyes move from the top left hotspot they leave the left column and enter the main page content. The first entry (heading) should be a h2 tagged descriptive phrase relevant to the primary keyword phrase. The body text should start with a benefit and conclude with a call to action. (More information or buy now using anchor text).

I am certain you have heard most of this before.

What you might not have heard is how to tell Google the exact same thing as you are telling people in the visual medium.
This is done using semantic hierarchy in the form of h1, h2, h3 tags links and emphasis. The position in the code also matters.
The closer to the beginning of the code, the more importance Google assigns to the copy.
This is one reason to move any javascript to the end of the code and to move stylesheets off page.

To sum it up.
Tell Google and people the same things.
Present your keyword phrases as soon as possible.
Use proper hierarchy to present your information to humans and search engines.
Do not leave a page open ended. Terminate with a call to action.
Keep primary pages short and to the point. If the subject deserves more copy, expand with additional pages. Remember, each page is a new chance for a top listing.

Best,
Reg
http://NBS-SEO.com