Question about SEO and SEO companies?

[Toronto SEO Geek]

Well, I am part of an SEO firm but I will give you some tips without expecting you to give me any work.

No SEO's have any special relationships with any of the big search engines, including the most important one like Google, Yahoo or MSN - In fact Googles says the following in their guidelines; "Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a "special relationship" with Google, or advertise a "priority submit" to Google. There is no priority submit for Google."

As far as doing something 'secret' it is well-known that links on relevant pages will help increase your link popularity which directly effects your SERP's (search engine rank position).

My advice to you is learn as much as you can about SEO, the basics are quite easy to grasp and if nothing else you can start doing your own SEO for your company and if you end up hiring outside help.

Here is a little plug for my own set of 10 basic SEO tips http://knol.google.com/k/jay-g/top-ten-s...r0y2e8g/2#