When looking to hire an SEO company, it’s good to be prepared with a set of questions that will allow you to further understand what exactly the company will implement for your business, how it will contribute to your business growth and what results will be achieved.
In order to find out this information, you not only need to ask your prospective SEO company about what they will do for you, but also what they have done in the past for other businesses.
Through a series of specified questions, you will be able to drill down what online visibility tactics will be carried out. Not all SEO businesses will provide you with the same service offerings. Some will be more basic and others will provide a more in-depth service.
Here are top 4 questions to ask during your initial discussions in order to get the best results for your business.
Who have you worked with in the past?
This is one of the most important questions to ask. When you have a current list of past and present businesses that your expert has worked with, you can then do your own research and analysis of potential results that could be achieved for your business.
Simply do an online search of these previous clients. From here, you can then determine what their keywords might be and what their target market might be searching for online.
When you have an idea of what type of keywords are associated with these businesses, do a search on these terms and see where this business appears in search rankings. If they appear on the first page, then you know their online visibility activities are working for them and giving them results.
Another good research activity is to see if they have current and ongoing blogs, directory listings, a Google Business page and active social media postings. All these activities should be part of an overall SEO plan.
Will you guarantee me first page position on Google?
If they answer yes to this question then they may not be the online professional for you. Of course, the aim of carrying out online optimisation activities is to get your business seen and a key way is appearing on the first page of Google.
However, there are no quick fixes or guarantees when it comes to appearing on Google’s search rankings. It takes strategy and a consistent approach, which includes looking at your website functions, content generation, keywords and more. A professional should be able to tell you what exactly needs to be done and how each activity will help your online visibility.
What “on page” and “off page” tactics will you use?
A professional should provide you with both types of online visibility tactics known as on page and off page activities. Types of on page activities include ensuring your URLs are in the right structure, updating internal links, developing the right H1’s and alt tags.
Types of off page activities include writing content on other external websites, including guest blog posts, social media postings, directory listings and press release submissions.
Will you write the content?
Many reputable SEO agencies will write the content for your website. However, sometimes your marketing professional will not write the content. This is because developing content can be one of the most time consuming parts of your online strategy. Therefore, sometimes they will require the client to write content, in which they will update with keywords and adjust with on page activities.
Make sure you understand who is responsible for what. If you don’t have time to write content or you don’t feel comfortable in doing so, let your expert know so they can schedule this in.
Reaching out to an expert is always a great way to get ahead in the online world and get noticed. However, just make sure you have your list of questions lined up and don’t forget to ask about previous clients, what activities will be carried out and whether they are a legitimate service provider.
Kidal Delonix is a contributor to Mr. Hoffman's blog. The views and opinions are entirely his/her own and may not reflect Mr Hoffman's views.
Learn more
It is important for all website owners to encourage as many visitors to their pages as possible. It can be extremely frustrating when so much time ...
After you’ve created the design for your website, it’s time to consider the content that you’ll use to populate every page on that site. And w ...
In this day and age of insane online competition, a simple website can be the difference between someone hiring you or choosing someone else. Mark ...
Internet marketing is getting more complicated as time passes and the really successful marketers are always learning new ways to get the results ...
Let's face it - most small companies are not in the marketing business. Whether you are an engineer, an architect, or something else equally inte ...
