Can anyone tell me exactly how I canknow if my SEo marketing company is actually doign the marketing job they say they are?
Is there some sort of check I can do?
I understand that if I pay them to improve my SEO links within my text, then I should see results, but how will I know if they did their best, or only spent half the chargeable time working on the project instead ofthe full amount?

Can anyone tell me of any reputable company they have worked with in the past please?

I'm not sure of anyone in particular you could use, but I have recently bought a really good book on Google marketing.
"getting noticed on google"
ISBN-13 978-1-84078-332-2
by Ben Norman.
I'm reading it now and it is brilliant. Its step by step guide without too much jargon.
Bought it from PC world

Yeah, I'm the same as you Dave.
I may need some help with SEO. Can anyone advise me on a good SEO company who is genuine with proven results, and importantly won't get me in trouble with the search engines. I keep hearing horror stories of people getting "sandboxed"!

thanks

The golden rule is:

Whatever results are claimed by your SEO companies , divide it by half to see the actual results.

SEO really depends on lot of factors rather than just the work of the SEO Company.

I strongly suggest you start reading about Internet Marketing before outsourcing work SEO Company.

Hope this helps

Thanks for that.

I have asked my potential SEO company for results, but they seem really quite ambigious.
The keywords they have got good results for seem really long and unlikely to ever be entered.
e.g. instead of simply "Cyprus weddings", they have top 10 position for a key phrase such as "Weddings in Cyprus region of xxx"
Well surely obviously they will obtain a top ten position for something like that, becvause there isn't much competition for that exact phrase.

Should I still go with them? Is this normal? Also what is a good idea of cost and budget?