Which Optimization firm should I hire?

I consider myself to be somewhat of an SEO but I need help from someone better than myself.

I am considering hiring "Submitawebsite.com" to perform SEO work for my affiliate marketing site.

Does anyone have experience working with them. How's their reputation, success rate, are they good, am i making the right choice in selecting them as my SEO consultant?

I would appreciate your feedback.

Thanks

I currently have two sites and choose two different SEO firms. The reasoning behind that is the portfolio of example they showed me containing to my site, and also there confidence in each area.

The two I hired and have seen great results from after just 4 months is ETrafficJams & Submit Express.

Ooooyyham,

hire someone appropriate to your needs and budgets. Some firms charge thousands just to talk strategy. Others will rework your site for the same money.

Be sure to ask for references.

I'm still in favour of your learning yourself....

It's a little underproductive to base a decision on others (in most incidences).

The talent of any firm isn't based solely on their abilities (which tend to be associated with their pricing model) but also on your website's current assets and merits.

You can search the web and find "rants" against most firms.

You can search the web and find praise for most profile firms.

Any firm can have great success in one area and lackluster in another.

Look for firms that have successes in your specific industry (or complementing industries).

The best advice - gain quotes for 6 or more companies and then guage their quotes and offerings against each other. Dump the bottom 3 and then pit the 3 maining ones against each other to guage which one is most trustworthy.

Then get a 2nd opinion to back up your choice (if your choice is the only firm you really looked at... you are not interested in hiring a trusted firm... just a firm and the risk of that decision is all yours).

Lastly, a firm that sings nothing but praise for themselves thus walks on water - must have independent 3rd party reviews (not just testimonials offer a somewhat bias view).

Fathom has an excellent point. Results are based many times on the existing merit of your website. A poorly designed site with weak content and low link popularity is at a big disadvantage when compared to more established sites with better content.

Explaining these nuances in a professional and educative way is what seperates the good SEO's from the bad SEO's. The optimization and link building methodology itself is not overly complex. Truly understanding these nuances and applying the correct strategy on the other hand can be challenging.

Again, a good SEO firm will successfully review these principles with the client. Expectation setting and trust goes a long way in this process.