Midwest Fresh is a Columbus-based produce distributor, and we were able to get their website on page 1 of search engines, resulting in them securing 5 new clients in the first 5 months of our SEO efforts.

Getting a company's website to show up on page 1 is only relevant if their website shows up for the keywords their clients and prospects are using to search for their services. One of the most important questions to ask any Columbus website design firm saying they were able to get their clients' website on page 1, is: show me the keyword research from Google's Keyword Tool. Showing up on page 1 is only relevant if you show up for the keywords Google's Keyword Tool shows as being searched.

How to tell if a Columbus SEO firm knows their stuff.

Any Columbus SEO firm can get a company like Midwest Fresh to show up on page one for a search term like "scallions with faces." That's because Google will tell you: no one searches for that keyword phrase. If no one searches for "scallions with faces," then there'd be zero competition for that keyword. And when you have no competition for a keyword, it's easy to show up on page 1.

The difficult part is getting a company's website to show up for the search terms their prospects are actually using. So be sure to ask to see the Columbus SEO firm's research, and ask the following questions.

What keywords did Google show people search?

Ask to see the results of Google's Keyword Tool research, which would look like the screen shot below. Google tells you the exact phrases people are searching for when looking for what a company does. Once you know the top keywords, you can build them into the website.

Obviously, you want to focus on keywords with the most searches and "Low" competition. However, keywords with that combination aren't always an option. More often, keywords with the most searches also have "High" competition. But if you do find that golden combination of lots of searches and "Low" competition, that's the ideal phrase.

The three keyword phrases below (food distributors, produce wholesale, and produce distributors) all have a good amount of monthly searches with "Low" competition.

See how they work the keywordS into the page titles.

One of the most important places to use those keywords is in what's called the Page Title. To see how Google uses Page Titles (and Meta Descriptions which we address below), watch the first 40 seconds of this video about Page Titles and Meta Descriptions.

You can tell if the keywords are in the Page Title by  going to the website, and either:

a) hovering your cursor over the tab so the Page Title keywords show...

or,

b) if you're viewing the website in Safari, see the Page Title keywords just below the URL:

This is the simplest way to see if a Columbus website design firm knows about SEO.

See how they've worked the keywords into the Meta Descriptions.

Unless you have access to the backend of the website, the only way to see the Meta Descriptions is in the results from a Google search:

Showing up in the search results

If a Columbus SEO firm has done their job correctly, you should see their client's website on page one for the search terms you know  people are looking for.

CLICK TO See midwest fresh's google search results page here.

CLICK TO See midwest fresh's search results from bing here.

If you're looking for a Columbus SEO firm to help with your website, be sure they can show at least one client's website showing up on page one, and their design skills stand out from their competitors. Not every Columbus website design firm has that combination.

Those two skill sets will give you the best chance of having an awesome website that shows up well in Google.