What do SEO companies do?

Hi;
First of all I would like to know one important thing. I have a web site about real estates in Cyprus. Web site URL is www cyprusestateagency com (I hope I didn't break any rules by writing it here), I just opened this web site, let's say around 1 week ago. Anyway, I did nearly evertyhing I could. I used software to submit my website to thousands of search engines, I wrote all the META TAGS very carefully, the links are either text based or if there is an image, the alt tag is filled... I mean I feel like I did anything can be done. At least I think like that.
Ok, Now I want to know. What do SEO companies different than I do? What is the secret of this business? I read so many forum posts and poeple say that they increased a PR0 site to PR5 in 2 months... HOW? I tried to get as many backlinks as well but it's such a hard work and I don't think SEOs do something like that.

I hope you understand my point and I hope you answer my questions honestly.

Thank you for your attention,

Arda K.

That's exactly what they do to get your PR up.
Backlinks from high PR websites.

They also know alot more ins and outs of what's currently working best on Google.
I'm no SEO, but I'm learning alot just hanging out here.

Check out dazzlindonna's 1000th post about SEO for newbies.
Its a great resource.
http://forums.seochat.com/t8704/s.html

Thank you for your answer.
But is it all about backlinks from high PR sites... Then it sounds easy. I wanna know complicated techniques. Do they edit my web site? Is there any tricks of this business?

By the way please send me your feedbacks about my sites optimization? What do you think? Does everything look fine?

Thanks again...

Arda K.

Thanks I'm reading that post right now. It sounds like a good resource.

This site has only been up a week and you say that you did everything that you could? Do you really think it is that easy?

Most people here who have successful sites have been working on them for 100 times that long. That number is not an exaggeration. They have been researching and writing deep content about their topic and making a site that is a resource to the visitor and impressive enough that people WANT to link to them. I spend 1/3 of my time minimum writing, researching, building, rewriting, getting links, rebuilding... not because I like tinkering, but because I want a site that people will email the address to their friends and those who have related websites will put up a link to me.

You have an interesting concept.... and if you are really serious about what you are doing and want to be the best real estate site for your area at #1, get good information about the real estate in your area, photos, prices, trends, maps.... make a site that blows the competition out of the water. And, when you have this... you will not only have high rankings... but just imagine what people will think of you - you will be an expert in their eyes. But all of this will take time and work and patience... and a lot of tweaking and reconcept/retooling along the way.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is not simply something that you "do", and then forget about it.

It's not like placing a photo on your home page or something.

SEO is not any single activity. SEO is an ongoing long term process that has many goals. Most obviously, you are attempting to rank highly in as many search engines, for as many related search terms, as possible. That takes time and patience. Results may take months to show up in the various search engines.

Your goal may be to improve your site's sales conversions rates. When you make those changes, are they providing positive quantifiable sales results, while helping your search engine rankings.

Are you developing a solid linking strategy for your site? Along with links to your site, complete with strong anchor text, are they from topic related relevant sites. You want other sites linking to yours both for SEO purposes and for traffic purposes. Once at your site, you want to convert them.

Be sure to develop a promotional plan for your site. All the SEO in the world won't do you much good if the search engines are your only hope, especially while still a new site working your way up the rankings.

You make some chages to your site, check the results, tweak some some more, and then check the results again. That takes months and years.

SEO is indeed a process and most definitely not a one shot quick fix.

I couldn't get my answers really... I wanna know what does SEO do? Do I have to give them my web site FTP passwords or what?!?! ... If you can give me detailed information I'll be so much glad.

Thanks.

Arda K.

If you want the SEO to make changes to your pages, they will either have to have access to your code (via ftp), or you can send them the page and they can send it back to you for you to ftp up to the server.