Agents, I know many of you have your own websites that you promote.  It might have happened to you already too; you get that call from an unknown number that is trying to sell you an Search Engine Optimization(SEO) package.  Claiming they can get you onto the first page of Google within a week.

Be wary. Many of these SEO experts don’t help optimize your website for search engines, but instead want you to spend money on Pay Per Click(PPC) advertising.  This is the type of advertising you see on the right side of Google when you do a search for real estate or any other hot keyword(s).  While effective, this type of advertising could end up costing you a good chunk of change and might not give you the long term results you are looking for. Actual SEO is the optimizing of your website and it’s structure so that search engines can crawl it easily and the process of adding unique content, to name a few tactics.
The best thing to do is ask questions.  Ask your technology experts at your real estate firm about the credibility of the companies calling you.  It’s likely that they will either know right away, or with a little research will be able to tell you whether or not that SEO company is not only reliable, but delivers results.

Also, ask the SEO experts about your website.  Have they actually been to your website? Do they know how old your website is? Do they know where it currently ranks?

Asking questions and staying informed will help keep you a leader in your industry and also save you from being taken advantage of.