If a company can get itself up in the top, then chances are they can get you on top as well. Narrow down your search to a few different companies and follow the rest of the steps below until you find one that you like. Guarantees Find out what kind of a guarantee they provide. However, most companies will give a minimum guarantee and a refund if the guarantee is not met. Note that most companies will only guarantee results after minimum of 2-3 months, because search engines do not index sites immediately.
Reputation Find out how long the company has been around and who are some of their clients.
Ask them if they can provide you with a client list that you may contact. You may also ask to see some recent ranking reports for their existing clients. Ask them what technique they use for optimization. Almost everybody uses some sort of doorway page technique for placement. Some may use cloaking software and some may use other redirection techniques, where the visitor does not actually see the optimized page.