If you’re about to start looking for an SEO agency, do yourself a favour and do a bit of reading about how modern SEO works. One of the biggest changes has come from the shift from coding to content. What used to be about making sure search engines could read your code properly is now all about making sure that your website is actually engaging people. Google might not know the difference between a well written piece of content and barely readable blocks of text, but visitors do, and that’s how Google performs much of its rankings these days.

Keep an eye on agencies that either ignore the importance of content or are promoting techniques designed to trick search engines into believing content exists where it really does not. Things to look out for are keyword stuffing and article generation, which will always produce shoddy work that doesn’t read well and that nobody will care about – certainly not the search engines and definitely not your customers. Instead, take a look at agencies with a proven track record in creating content, employing good writers and avoiding cheap tactics that no longer work.

I’m not saying that adding tags and making sure your site is technically capable isn’t still important, but that sort of SEO doesn’t take long, and won’t reap the same benefits today as it did five years ago. After all, there are plenty of talented web developers out there – far more than there used to be – and plenty more companies, as well. If you want to do well in SEO you have to be moving ahead the competition, and it takes more than just a few Meta tags, these days.