Can anyone recommend a great seo company?

[balboafinance]

We are considering contracting with an SEO company for website analysis, optimization and organic link-building. If you've had any recommendations, please send them our way. Thank you!

[JohnW-UK]

How deep are your pockets. A great SEO company costs money. Just so you know you get what you pay for. avoid anyone that offers guaranteed results/positions in google.

You pay peanuts you get monkeys!

[AndySolo]

My company is still in the process of evaluating these guys:

http://www.seobywebmechanix.com/

So far they seem pretty knowledgeable and educated on the subject. Pricing seems pretty reasonable.

[balboafinance]

Thanks, Andrew!

[applesofgold]

I agree that you need to have deep pockets for quality SEO - and even then, I believe that no one can do it better than you with enough time & resources.

Great content that gets others to link to you from high authority sites.

Make sure you have clean code on your site.

Use H1 tags where appropriate.

People debate whether meta tags matter or not, but they certainly don't hurt.

Create a blog and write unique content about your industry with quality writing.

Hope that helps.

[KeriMorgret]

SEOmoz maintains a list at http://www.seomoz.org/article/recommended.

[SeattleOrganicSEO]

We're obviously biased...so we won't say "us."

Keri's message is great, but I would recommend doing the following when you're in the process of evaluating them:

-check out their title tag of their own website; it always confuses me that an SEO company doesn't SEO their own website.  If you need help with evaluating other factors that might point out what they're trying to optimize for their own efforts, let us know (i.e., the h1, h2 tags, meta description, image file names, alt text, etc.)

-if you need reference on pricing, here's a good recent post from Rand about costs: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/seo-pricing-costs-of-services and another post debating/discussing the topic: http://www.seomoz.org/q/2011-sseo-pricing-costs-what-should-you-charge-how-much-should-you-pay

-definitely ask for more than 3 or so case studies, if possible.

-usually a quick answer is a wrong answer in our minds.  Almost every client has different needs.  We always hesitate when someone asks us "how much will it cost?" or "how long will it take?"  While we have standard pricing created because many people do ask for the pricing details right away, I would argue that each case is like taking on a new patient for a doctor.  There's a bit of history with that patient before they see the new doctor.

-thus, they should be asking you guys a lot of questions.  Wouldn't you want a doctor to do that?

DigiJoltMan is right for the most part, but there are also a number of firms that charge a bit more than they potentially should.  So, the reverse is true as well.

Gotta run, but let us know if you need any other questions.  I think it's great you're asking here.  Good luck!