How to choose the perfect SEO provider
Finding the right person to work on your website’s search engine optimization (SEO) is extremely important because it can be the difference between making thousands of dollars per month or crippling your chance of garnering traffic and leads. That being said, it can also be extremely hard to do. This is why vetting your options is crucial, whether it’s an SEO consultant or SEO agency, we’re here to show you the proper steps to take to make the right decision.
Ideally, you should ask the appropriate person/people these questions prior to hiring anyone so you know exactly what to expect.
It should be noted that you don’t have to ask each and every question, though keeping them in mind and asking those you feel are relevant would be beneficial.
Prior to walking through how to vet your SEO help, we need to review the various options you’ll have when hiring SEO help:
- Hiring an individual SEO consultant. These are typically freelancers who offer their SEO knowledge and provide their services to you.
- Hiring an SEO agency/company. These are companies that typically have teams of SEOs and standardized SEO processes (generally speaking). They tend to work with medium-to-large sized businesses, who are of a decent size, and charge roughly a few thousand dollars per month for SEO services.
- Hiring an in-house SEO expert. If your business is very large or growing at an increasingly fast pace, it might make more sense to hire an in-house SEO expert or team. You can either set up the SEO plan of action yourself, have the expert assist you, or hire an SEO consultant to help create an initial strategy, than hire help to execute everything.
This post will provide you some tips of things you should do and also help you identify a series of questions and things to keep in mind for the first two of the aforementioned options: hiring an individual SEO consultant or hiring an SEO agency/company. Some of these questions will likely pertain to hiring an in-house SEO expert as well depending on your situation.
WIth the above being said, here is one fact we want to point out right away: A good SEO won’t charge you low prices. If you’re on the hunt for a bargain, chances are you’ll end up with what you pay for, an SEO who cuts corners and hurts your site in the long run.
With this being out in the open, it’s equally important to note that a high price doesn’t necessarily guarantee quality work either. Many SEOs tend to markup their prices by a large amount just because more website owners won’t know how to evaluate the SEO work, allowing the SEOs to take advantage and get away with quite a bit.
Let’s start with the tips of things you should first do if you’re in the position to hire an SEO expert:
Identify Your Criteria for Hiring SEO Help
Think about various criteria that you would like your SEO expert(s) to fall under. Doing this will make you think critically about important facets of the process such as your expectations. Things to keep in mind include the following:
- What is your allocated budget set aside for SEO?
- What is your desired contract duration?
- Are you open to working with a remote agency or do you prefer to work with someone local?
- How frequently do they provide reporting and what do they report on?
Are there any other potential deal breakers for you here?
Talk to At Least 3 Different SEO Providers
Just like when you make other big decisions as part of your professional or personal life, you want to weigh your options here. Talking to multiple providers will also give you some leverage for possible negotiations when it comes to prices, services, and even contract stipulations that may work out in your favor.
Be Prepared with a List of Questions
Similar to the process of hiring an employee, you’ll want to have a series of questions ready. Consider it an “interview” and be sure to take notes so you can compare answers and have plenty of information to make an informed decision by the end of your vetting process.
As long as you ask the right questions during your interview process and pay attention to the answers that you’re given, you’ll be able to find an SEO provider that will make a positive impact on your business. At the very least by reading this article you’ve shown that you’re taking some initiative when it comes to weeding out bad SEO providers.
Without further ado, let’s get into the questions you’ll want to consider asking:
How do you plan to improve our search engine rankings?
You won’t see any significant results without having a defined SEO strategy. Let’s say you decide to target random keywords or to build links, you might see some sporadic results, but you won’t see any consistent increases in traffic or leads. Good SEO freelancers or agencies have a defined process.
What they should be able to tell you: “We’ll start with an on-site technical audit to identify any quick wins and straighten out your website’s ability to rank. We’ll then move on to identify keywords to target.”
What they won’t be able to tell you: “We’ll get links from the following websites: X, Y, and Z.”
Speaking of links, backlinks have been and still are a big part of search engine algorithms. All SEO providers will be building links to your website in order to attempt to improve rankings. That being said, not all links are created equal. One good backlink is worth thousands of low-quality backlinks or more in some cases. Low-quality backlinks are ones that are typically automated and often associated with “spam” websites. Think of the various Fiverr gigs where you can buy hundreds of links for $5 – $10.
Generally speaking, a single good link can cost roughly anywhere from $20-$100+ in most industries/niches. If someone is promising and commits to providing a large number of links and the pricing works out to be below $5 per link, your best bet is to run in the opposite direction.
How will you communicate website changes with me? And how often?
A good SEO provider will send you regular reports. These reports can range from weekly, to bi-monthly, to monthly with monthly being the very minimum you should keep an eye out for.
One thing to keep in mind is that you’ll need to give your SEO provider access to your website (or at least a portion of it). This can be very important specifically because you need to hire someone you can trust with this information.
To help mitigate some of the risks involved you can have all website changes made by an in-house developer instead of passing on that responsibility to your SEO provider. The consequences of making such a move mainly include just everything moving at a slower pace. You’ll also have to remember to keep an open line of communication between your developer and your SEO provider.
If for some reason your SEO provider doesn’t ask for any website changes to be made, run in the opposite direction. Off-page SEO is a large portion of work but on-page SEO and technical SEO are often even more important, especially at the very beginning.
Another note to keep in mind regarding website changes is that all changes need to be tracked. In the event that something goes wrong, you’ll want to know exactly what caused it. If your SEO provider tells you that they track changes internally, this answer should not be sufficient. If for some reason your SEO provider suddenly becomes non-responsive, you’ll be stuck with a broken site. If you end up hiring an emergency consultant or outside help to resolve the issue, they won’t even know where to begin or will take extra time to resolve the matter because they have to dig through everything to find it in the first place. A good SEO provider will give you a detailed change log for any website changes they make on your website.
Do you ever deviate from following Google’s best practices?
Following Google’s best practices, and to a lesser extent, those of Yahoo and Bing is crucial when it comes to ranking well and seeing growth in traffic.
Google releases roughly 500 updates per year and all of these updates intend to provide better results for its users. The guidelines they suggest are essentially the rules you should abide by because they are generally followed by each respective search engine. When you violate these rules, Google isn’t happy and will penalize you for trying to manipulate search results.
On-page violations were penalized by algorithms such as Google’s Panda update. Off-page violations were penalized by algorithms such as Google’s Penguin update. If you get hit by either of these algorithms, chances are your traffic will drop drastically.
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What software/tools do you use to help with your SEO efforts?
With so many SEO tools on the market, SEO providers can really work more efficiently by having the ability to processing large amounts of data rather quickly, saving both time and money.
There are different types of tools that can be useful in different situations:
- Link Building Tools: These typically allow users to create hundreds or thousands of links with a few clicks and a few proxies. Pure link-building tools are extremely bad. They are designed to comment on blogs, forums, web 2.0 websites (ie. Blogger, Weebly, etc.). These happen to be the low quality links that you can build, which can lead to penalties rather quickly. If your SEO provider mentions the following tools, be sure to run in the opposite direction: Bookmarking Demon, SE Nuke, or Xrumer.
- Reporting Tools: Though reports can be created manually, it’s a lot easier to create a custom report that combines analytics, keyword rankings, and other metrics all together. The reports can be automated, which helps with efficiency, and you’ll end up knowing exactly what you’re going to get.
- Research Tools: There are several tools that can help users gather contact information, allowing you to gather prospects and conduct keyword research.
- Technical SEO Tools: Tools that help with technical SEO such as Screaming Frog allow users to crawl large sites quickly for a variety of technical issues that you can then fix. This would otherwise take a long time if done manually.
One tool that can be used either way is Scrapebox. It can be used to create things like spammy blog comments but it can also be used to conduct legitimate research and reporting activities. If your SEO provider mentions they use Scrapebox, ask them for more details on how they use it and gage their answer based on that.
What type of SEO work will you be executing?
This is an important question to ask at some point during your interview process.
The three areas you’ll want to hear about include the following: Technical SEO, On-Page SEO, and Off-Page SEO.
- Technical SEO: This aspect of SEO is focused on how well search engine spiders can crawl and index your website content.
- On-Page SEO: This aspect of SEO is concerned primarily with the content on the site and how well it is optimized for relevant keywords, and how it provides a good “user-experience” for visitors.
- Off-Page SEO: This aspect of SEO is concerned primarily with inbound links from other websites to your site. Natural links from authoritative and relevant websites act as an independent “vote of confidence,” which helps search engines trust your website more.
If your SEO provider doesn’t mention anything regarding doing a technical audit of your website at any point, chances are they aren’t very good SEO providers.
How do you build links and what kinds of links are built?
There are several types of links that can be built. Listen or look for keyphrases such as the following:
- Natural Editorial Links
- Manual “Outreach” Link Building
- Self-Created, Non-Editorial
What you want to try to listen for or look for samples for are spammy links on sites that are not relevant to your industry at all. Anything built with an automated SEO tool is also a big red flag.
How often will you report your work and what will it look like?
We mentioned that your SEO provider should be providing you with a change log of any website changes made. That being said, they should also provide a report on their activity and results. A monthly report is generally pretty standard. If you prefer more frequent reports, you should make this clear and in most cases, SEO providers will be accommodating.
A report should have the following information:
- Summary of Activities: This should include information such as details surrounding any email campaigns, any content that was created, new links coming to the site, and a change log of any website edits.
- Search Traffic: An important metric that helps determine progress – an increase in traffic correlates to good SEO efforts. A report should show your search traffic for the month along with percentage change from month to month.
- Search Rankings: An update on where you stand when it comes to keywords you’re trying to rank for.
- Number of Conversions: One of the most important metrics to consider – how many of your search visitors are converting into users taking action on your site.
This won’t necessarily help you distinguish between a good SEO provider and a bad one but it will help you set clear expectations and will keep frustrations from either side to a minimum.
On average, when do your clients begin to see results?
The reason you want to ask this question is to weed out any spammy or illegitimate SEO providers who will tend to promise results fast. You should always pay attention to how they describe getting you to the point where you see results – those who promise results fast will make things sound easy and simple.
The ideal scenario would be to hear some short term strategies that would result from technical SEO and on-page SEO and long term strategies which would be a result of off-page SEO.
Short term results on average should be shown in 2-3 months with long term results kicking in month 3-4 and onward.
Can you guarantee that our site will rank in position #1 for a major keyword?
This is usually the easiest and quickest way to weed out someone who does shady SEO from someone who is legitimate.
Most people who are trying to close a deal and make the sale when it comes to SEO services will mention and offer that they can get you to a #1 ranking for your desired keywords. The key thing here is that no one can guarantee #1 rankings every single time. Furthermore, they definitely cannot do it over any specific given period of time. Let’s look at some of the reasons why:
- Exact details of Google’s algorithm remain a mystery. Google earned 78% of $36.7B US search ad revenues in 2017. You sure as hell bet that the search engine and its algorithm are being protected very closely. If anyone claims they know the algorithm or how to game it, they are definitely lying because they could likely make way more money than an average SEO consultant in that scenario.
- It’s hard to predict exactly how Google’s algorithm will change. Google is constantly tweaking their algorithm everyday. Unless you work at Google, you won’t know the exact details.
- Penalties can surface at any time. There are a variety of penalties including those that are based on algorithms and those that are manual. Unfortunately, not much information is released in terms of when algorithms will be run. The next big algorithm could be run at any time, which is on top of manual reviews and penalties as well.
To sum everything up for this – SEO providers can help to increase your search traffic and increase your visibility over time but they cannot guarantee specific keyword rankings.
There is only ONE exception in this scenario. If you suggest a keyword or they find a keyword that is relevant to your business and the keyword competition is Low than they may be able to offer a guarantee. It should be noted that offering a guarantee is acceptable but there is a difference between offering a guarantee and offering a guarantee of ranking #1 for a keyword. In this scenario, they might offer you a refund of some sort if they can’t guarantee you a certain keyword ranking. Although this type of guarantee might be okay you still need to be careful as they might lead to aggressive tactics or tactics that otherwise enter a grey/black area, either of which could be risky.
Are you up-to-date with the various Google algorithms that have been released in the past?
As mentioned previously, Google releases algorithm updates all the time, many of which are minor, however, there are certain updates that were significant enough to be given a name. These significant SEO updates are ones that all SEOs should be familiar with.
You can see a list of updated algorithms in two places:
Ask your potential SEO provider to describe a few of the updates and try to confirm their answers by reviewing the aforementioned links. You’ll want to try to quiz them in person or over the phone so they don’t have a chance to just google the answer and type up a nice response via email for example.
In addition to being up-to-date with Google’s algorithms, you’ll also want them to stay up to date on SEO news in general so look for any information that may indicate that they frequent SEO forums and communities.
Have you worked with sites that have been hit with a penalty? If so, how do you help them?
Sites using spammy SEO tactics started to be hit with penalties once Google deployed the Penguin update. Previously Google used to devalue low quality backlinks but after Google figured out how to differentiate between sites using legitimate SEO tactics versus spammy SEO tactics, it started penalizing sites that were trying to game the system.
Once a site has been hit with a penalty, it’s not easy to recover. That being said a good SEO provider should be able to hold your hand and help you through the unfortunate event if you were negatively affected.
Find out how successful your SEO provider has been in terms of getting previous clients out of a penalty pinch. Also ask about what measures they will take to prevent your site from being hit with a penalty if given the opportunity to work on your SEO.
How do you determine the success of your SEO campaign?
You and your SEO provider need to set the expectations early on and make sure your visions align. The clearer you are with one another, the less frustrated you both will be. This question is specifically designed to help you discover how your SEO provider determines the success of their SEO campaign. Here are some answers you might here:
- “We plan to increase traffic by X% in Y months.”
- “We want to see an X% increase in Y metric.”
- “We will be successful once we get X keyword(s) to the first page.”
- “We will be successful if your business gets listed in the Local 3-Pack.”
Determine whether success on their end justifies the investment you’re about to pour into the effort.
If you haven’t already, as mentioned before with the reporting, ask about which metrics are tracked. It’s an easy way to differentiate between experienced and inexperienced SEO providers. A typical response in this case will likely include the following phrases: keyword rankings, search traffic, or a variety of on-page metrics (bounce rate, session duration, etc). Only the most qualified SEO providers will mention return on investment (ROI) or conversions – the best case scenario would be if they mentioned both.
Think about it – though having good keyword rankings and an increase in traffic will help, they don’t really mean anything unless it actually builds your business. The metrics are great but that’s why ROI and conversions is what really matters.
How many active clients do you work with right now? And how many employees do you have tackling the work?
You want to ask this question to gage whether the SEO provider will give your business the time of day that is necessary to help you with your rankings, online visibility, and conversions.
Once you have an understanding of how many clients they have and how many employees are working on the project, you’ll be able to gage if they are stretched thin or in a position where they must have to outsource their work. You can make your decision of working with them or not accordingly.
Would any of our clients be considered a competitor of mine?
Most people tend to forget to ask this but it’s definitely an important question to ask as some SEO providers may not be entirely ethical and work with competing businesses in the same region. If one of your direct competitors is hiring the same company and has a higher budget than you do, you may be in trouble.
There is always a thin-line you have to consider too. If your SEO provider works with others in the same industry, they might have additional insight and knowledge to help your business. You’ll have to gage this based on their answer.
How do we stay in touch?
Search engine optimization tends to be a bit more different than other services as in you don’t need to contact your SEO company more than a few times a month. With that being said, should something go wrong, you want to be able to get in touch with your SEO provider as soon as possible.
In this scenario you just need to find out which methods of communication your potential SEO provider prefers. Be sure to tell them your preferred methods as well and make sure some of those align with those of your providers. Clarify how to contact them in case of an emergency as well such as if your site went down or if search traffic declined very dramatically.
What will you need from my end and how much time should I expect to be putting in?
For obvious reasons you’ll want to clarify what you’re responsible for and try to organize a plan of action on your side to make sure everything is accounted for. You’ll also want to make sure that you can provide the appropriate information and aid in any work that’s on your plate to ensure the success of your combined efforts.
What is your billing policy?
Different SEO providers bill in different ways. It’s important to know how much to pay and when exactly you’ll need to pay so you can factor everything into your budget.
Many SEO providers either bill on a retainer or bill on a per-project based. Retainers can range anywhere from $1,000 to $8,000 per month for a slew of SEO help while the typical pricing for per-project based work ranges based on what you’re looking to get done.
Another option you have is to pay by the hour, which is popular among SEO freelancers. You can expect to anywhere between $75 to $300 per hour for a good SEO freelancer or agency to help you on an hourly basis.
Last but not least, make sure to ask about when you’ll have to make your payments. Most people like to be paid as soon as possible but you can inquire about net 30, 60, or 90. Definitely make sure to ask about any late fee for late payments as well.
What happens in the event that we want to terminate the contract?
It’s very important to know what you’re getting into before you dive deep – this is for your own protection.
For obvious reasons, most SEO providers want you to sign on for a minimum length of time (usually for a few months at the very least). It takes time for SEO providers to make changes and it takes even longer than that for the results to come to fruition. With this being said, should your company have any emergency crisis and suddenly you find yourself unable to pay for your SEO services, you need to know what your options might be.
There might be some other reasons you may want to break your contract too. For example, you might be disappointed with the results that the SEO provider has produced or your marketing department may want to focus their resources and budget elsewhere.
Regardless of what the situation is, be sure to find out what your options are. Usually there will be fees written into the contract for early termination. You can try to have this changed and/or amended to something more favorable and fair for everyone.
Why should we hire you as an SEO provider instead of someone else?
This question has no correct answer and is more based on your gut instinct. What you can look out for are a few red flag answers. If someone says the following, run in the opposite direction:
- We’re cheaper than the competition
- We build you more backlinks than others can
- We can get you results faster than the competition
- (Any answer that sounds desperate)
Here’s what to keep in mind: good SEO doesn’t come cheap. Search engine optimization can add quite a bit of revenue to your business. It’s also an investment that takes at least a few months to see significant results.
In an ideal situation, they will respond by pointing to their track record which should include their past successes & current and past clients that are happy. A bonus would be if they have a reputation in the industry or show exemplary customer service as well.
Conclusion
First and foremost, keep in mind that SEO doesn’t happen overnight – it is a long-term investment.
One of the many reasons that shady SEO providers continue to stay in business is because they aren’t found out for many months.
If you aren’t prepared, someone might take advantage of you. Hopefully by asking the questions above, you’ll be able to weed out the shady SEO providers and find someone you can trust. We know it can be a huge pain to find a good SEO provider but it is a necessity in this day and age, especially if you are looking to grow your business.
Shay Masand
I like to call myself the 'cool guy' in the office, even though all of my work is virtual. If internet marketing is the jam of business these days, I am the nutella.
Finding the right person to work on your website’s search engine optimization (SEO) is extremely important because it can be the difference between making thousands of dollars per month or crippling your chance of garnering traffic and leads. That being said, it can also be extremely hard to do. This is why vetting your options is crucial, whether it’s an SEO consultant or SEO agency, we’re here to show you the proper steps to take to make the right decision.
Ideally, you should ask the appropriate person/people these questions prior to hiring anyone so you know exactly what to expect.
It should be noted that you don’t have to ask each and every question, though keeping them in mind and asking those you feel are relevant would be beneficial.
Prior to walking through how to vet your SEO help, we need to review the various options you’ll have when hiring SEO help:
- Hiring an individual SEO consultant. These are typically freelancers who offer their SEO knowledge and provide their services to you.
- Hiring an SEO agency/company. These are companies that typically have teams of SEOs and standardized SEO processes (generally speaking). They tend to work with medium-to-large sized businesses, who are of a decent size, and charge roughly a few thousand dollars per month for SEO services.
- Hiring an in-house SEO expert. If your business is very large or growing at an increasingly fast pace, it might make more sense to hire an in-house SEO expert or team. You can either set up the SEO plan of action yourself, have the expert assist you, or hire an SEO consultant to help create an initial strategy, than hire help to execute everything.
This post will provide you some tips of things you should do and also help you identify a series of questions and things to keep in mind for the first two of the aforementioned options: hiring an individual SEO consultant or hiring an SEO agency/company. Some of these questions will likely pertain to hiring an in-house SEO expert as well depending on your situation.
WIth the above being said, here is one fact we want to point out right away: A good SEO won’t charge you low prices. If you’re on the hunt for a bargain, chances are you’ll end up with what you pay for, an SEO who cuts corners and hurts your site in the long run.
With this being out in the open, it’s equally important to note that a high price doesn’t necessarily guarantee quality work either. Many SEOs tend to markup their prices by a large amount just because more website owners won’t know how to evaluate the SEO work, allowing the SEOs to take advantage and get away with quite a bit.
Let’s start with the tips of things you should first do if you’re in the position to hire an SEO expert:
Identify Your Criteria for Hiring SEO Help
Think about various criteria that you would like your SEO expert(s) to fall under. Doing this will make you think critically about important facets of the process such as your expectations. Things to keep in mind include the following:
- What is your allocated budget set aside for SEO?
- What is your desired contract duration?
- Are you open to working with a remote agency or do you prefer to work with someone local?
- How frequently do they provide reporting and what do they report on?
Are there any other potential deal breakers for you here?
Talk to At Least 3 Different SEO Providers
Just like when you make other big decisions as part of your professional or personal life, you want to weigh your options here. Talking to multiple providers will also give you some leverage for possible negotiations when it comes to prices, services, and even contract stipulations that may work out in your favor.
Be Prepared with a List of Questions
Similar to the process of hiring an employee, you’ll want to have a series of questions ready. Consider it an “interview” and be sure to take notes so you can compare answers and have plenty of information to make an informed decision by the end of your vetting process.
As long as you ask the right questions during your interview process and pay attention to the answers that you’re given, you’ll be able to find an SEO provider that will make a positive impact on your business. At the very least by reading this article you’ve shown that you’re taking some initiative when it comes to weeding out bad SEO providers.
Without further ado, let’s get into the questions you’ll want to consider asking:
How do you plan to improve our search engine rankings?
You won’t see any significant results without having a defined SEO strategy. Let’s say you decide to target random keywords or to build links, you might see some sporadic results, but you won’t see any consistent increases in traffic or leads. Good SEO freelancers or agencies have a defined process.
What they should be able to tell you: “We’ll start with an on-site technical audit to identify any quick wins and straighten out your website’s ability to rank. We’ll then move on to identify keywords to target.”
What they won’t be able to tell you: “We’ll get links from the following websites: X, Y, and Z.”
Speaking of links, backlinks have been and still are a big part of search engine algorithms. All SEO providers will be building links to your website in order to attempt to improve rankings. That being said, not all links are created equal. One good backlink is worth thousands of low-quality backlinks or more in some cases. Low-quality backlinks are ones that are typically automated and often associated with “spam” websites. Think of the various Fiverr gigs where you can buy hundreds of links for $5 – $10.
Generally speaking, a single good link can cost roughly anywhere from $20-$100+ in most industries/niches. If someone is promising and commits to providing a large number of links and the pricing works out to be below $5 per link, your best bet is to run in the opposite direction.
How will you communicate website changes with me? And how often?
A good SEO provider will send you regular reports. These reports can range from weekly, to bi-monthly, to monthly with monthly being the very minimum you should keep an eye out for.
One thing to keep in mind is that you’ll need to give your SEO provider access to your website (or at least a portion of it). This can be very important specifically because you need to hire someone you can trust with this information.
To help mitigate some of the risks involved you can have all website changes made by an in-house developer instead of passing on that responsibility to your SEO provider. The consequences of making such a move mainly include just everything moving at a slower pace. You’ll also have to remember to keep an open line of communication between your developer and your SEO provider.
If for some reason your SEO provider doesn’t ask for any website changes to be made, run in the opposite direction. Off-page SEO is a large portion of work but on-page SEO and technical SEO are often even more important, especially at the very beginning.
Another note to keep in mind regarding website changes is that all changes need to be tracked. In the event that something goes wrong, you’ll want to know exactly what caused it. If your SEO provider tells you that they track changes internally, this answer should not be sufficient. If for some reason your SEO provider suddenly becomes non-responsive, you’ll be stuck with a broken site. If you end up hiring an emergency consultant or outside help to resolve the issue, they won’t even know where to begin or will take extra time to resolve the matter because they have to dig through everything to find it in the first place. A good SEO provider will give you a detailed change log for any website changes they make on your website.
Do you ever deviate from following Google’s best practices?
Following Google’s best practices, and to a lesser extent, those of Yahoo and Bing is crucial when it comes to ranking well and seeing growth in traffic.
Google releases roughly 500 updates per year and all of these updates intend to provide better results for its users. The guidelines they suggest are essentially the rules you should abide by because they are generally followed by each respective search engine. When you violate these rules, Google isn’t happy and will penalize you for trying to manipulate search results.
On-page violations were penalized by algorithms such as Google’s Panda update. Off-page violations were penalized by algorithms such as Google’s Penguin update. If you get hit by either of these algorithms, chances are your traffic will drop drastically.
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What software/tools do you use to help with your SEO efforts?
With so many SEO tools on the market, SEO providers can really work more efficiently by having the ability to processing large amounts of data rather quickly, saving both time and money.
There are different types of tools that can be useful in different situations:
- Link Building Tools: These typically allow users to create hundreds or thousands of links with a few clicks and a few proxies. Pure link-building tools are extremely bad. They are designed to comment on blogs, forums, web 2.0 websites (ie. Blogger, Weebly, etc.). These happen to be the low quality links that you can build, which can lead to penalties rather quickly. If your SEO provider mentions the following tools, be sure to run in the opposite direction: Bookmarking Demon, SE Nuke, or Xrumer.
- Reporting Tools: Though reports can be created manually, it’s a lot easier to create a custom report that combines analytics, keyword rankings, and other metrics all together. The reports can be automated, which helps with efficiency, and you’ll end up knowing exactly what you’re going to get.
- Research Tools: There are several tools that can help users gather contact information, allowing you to gather prospects and conduct keyword research.
- Technical SEO Tools: Tools that help with technical SEO such as Screaming Frog allow users to crawl large sites quickly for a variety of technical issues that you can then fix. This would otherwise take a long time if done manually.
One tool that can be used either way is Scrapebox. It can be used to create things like spammy blog comments but it can also be used to conduct legitimate research and reporting activities. If your SEO provider mentions they use Scrapebox, ask them for more details on how they use it and gage their answer based on that.
What type of SEO work will you be executing?
This is an important question to ask at some point during your interview process.
The three areas you’ll want to hear about include the following: Technical SEO, On-Page SEO, and Off-Page SEO.
- Technical SEO: This aspect of SEO is focused on how well search engine spiders can crawl and index your website content.
- On-Page SEO: This aspect of SEO is concerned primarily with the content on the site and how well it is optimized for relevant keywords, and how it provides a good “user-experience” for visitors.
- Off-Page SEO: This aspect of SEO is concerned primarily with inbound links from other websites to your site. Natural links from authoritative and relevant websites act as an independent “vote of confidence,” which helps search engines trust your website more.
If your SEO provider doesn’t mention anything regarding doing a technical audit of your website at any point, chances are they aren’t very good SEO providers.
How do you build links and what kinds of links are built?
There are several types of links that can be built. Listen or look for keyphrases such as the following:
- Natural Editorial Links
- Manual “Outreach” Link Building
- Self-Created, Non-Editorial
What you want to try to listen for or look for samples for are spammy links on sites that are not relevant to your industry at all. Anything built with an automated SEO tool is also a big red flag.
How often will you report your work and what will it look like?
We mentioned that your SEO provider should be providing you with a change log of any website changes made. That being said, they should also provide a report on their activity and results. A monthly report is generally pretty standard. If you prefer more frequent reports, you should make this clear and in most cases, SEO providers will be accommodating.
A report should have the following information:
- Summary of Activities: This should include information such as details surrounding any email campaigns, any content that was created, new links coming to the site, and a change log of any website edits.
- Search Traffic: An important metric that helps determine progress – an increase in traffic correlates to good SEO efforts. A report should show your search traffic for the month along with percentage change from month to month.
- Search Rankings: An update on where you stand when it comes to keywords you’re trying to rank for.
- Number of Conversions: One of the most important metrics to consider – how many of your search visitors are converting into users taking action on your site.
This won’t necessarily help you distinguish between a good SEO provider and a bad one but it will help you set clear expectations and will keep frustrations from either side to a minimum.
On average, when do your clients begin to see results?
The reason you want to ask this question is to weed out any spammy or illegitimate SEO providers who will tend to promise results fast. You should always pay attention to how they describe getting you to the point where you see results – those who promise results fast will make things sound easy and simple.
The ideal scenario would be to hear some short term strategies that would result from technical SEO and on-page SEO and long term strategies which would be a result of off-page SEO.
Short term results on average should be shown in 2-3 months with long term results kicking in month 3-4 and onward.
Can you guarantee that our site will rank in position #1 for a major keyword?
This is usually the easiest and quickest way to weed out someone who does shady SEO from someone who is legitimate.
Most people who are trying to close a deal and make the sale when it comes to SEO services will mention and offer that they can get you to a #1 ranking for your desired keywords. The key thing here is that no one can guarantee #1 rankings every single time. Furthermore, they definitely cannot do it over any specific given period of time. Let’s look at some of the reasons why:
- Exact details of Google’s algorithm remain a mystery. Google earned 78% of $36.7B US search ad revenues in 2017. You sure as hell bet that the search engine and its algorithm are being protected very closely. If anyone claims they know the algorithm or how to game it, they are definitely lying because they could likely make way more money than an average SEO consultant in that scenario.
- It’s hard to predict exactly how Google’s algorithm will change. Google is constantly tweaking their algorithm everyday. Unless you work at Google, you won’t know the exact details.
- Penalties can surface at any time. There are a variety of penalties including those that are based on algorithms and those that are manual. Unfortunately, not much information is released in terms of when algorithms will be run. The next big algorithm could be run at any time, which is on top of manual reviews and penalties as well.
To sum everything up for this – SEO providers can help to increase your search traffic and increase your visibility over time but they cannot guarantee specific keyword rankings.
There is only ONE exception in this scenario. If you suggest a keyword or they find a keyword that is relevant to your business and the keyword competition is Low than they may be able to offer a guarantee. It should be noted that offering a guarantee is acceptable but there is a difference between offering a guarantee and offering a guarantee of ranking #1 for a keyword. In this scenario, they might offer you a refund of some sort if they can’t guarantee you a certain keyword ranking. Although this type of guarantee might be okay you still need to be careful as they might lead to aggressive tactics or tactics that otherwise enter a grey/black area, either of which could be risky.
Are you up-to-date with the various Google algorithms that have been released in the past?
As mentioned previously, Google releases algorithm updates all the time, many of which are minor, however, there are certain updates that were significant enough to be given a name. These significant SEO updates are ones that all SEOs should be familiar with.
You can see a list of updated algorithms in two places:
Ask your potential SEO provider to describe a few of the updates and try to confirm their answers by reviewing the aforementioned links. You’ll want to try to quiz them in person or over the phone so they don’t have a chance to just google the answer and type up a nice response via email for example.
In addition to being up-to-date with Google’s algorithms, you’ll also want them to stay up to date on SEO news in general so look for any information that may indicate that they frequent SEO forums and communities.
Have you worked with sites that have been hit with a penalty? If so, how do you help them?
Sites using spammy SEO tactics started to be hit with penalties once Google deployed the Penguin update. Previously Google used to devalue low quality backlinks but after Google figured out how to differentiate between sites using legitimate SEO tactics versus spammy SEO tactics, it started penalizing sites that were trying to game the system.
Once a site has been hit with a penalty, it’s not easy to recover. That being said a good SEO provider should be able to hold your hand and help you through the unfortunate event if you were negatively affected.
Find out how successful your SEO provider has been in terms of getting previous clients out of a penalty pinch. Also ask about what measures they will take to prevent your site from being hit with a penalty if given the opportunity to work on your SEO.
How do you determine the success of your SEO campaign?
You and your SEO provider need to set the expectations early on and make sure your visions align. The clearer you are with one another, the less frustrated you both will be. This question is specifically designed to help you discover how your SEO provider determines the success of their SEO campaign. Here are some answers you might here:
- “We plan to increase traffic by X% in Y months.”
- “We want to see an X% increase in Y metric.”
- “We will be successful once we get X keyword(s) to the first page.”
- “We will be successful if your business gets listed in the Local 3-Pack.”
Determine whether success on their end justifies the investment you’re about to pour into the effort.
If you haven’t already, as mentioned before with the reporting, ask about which metrics are tracked. It’s an easy way to differentiate between experienced and inexperienced SEO providers. A typical response in this case will likely include the following phrases: keyword rankings, search traffic, or a variety of on-page metrics (bounce rate, session duration, etc). Only the most qualified SEO providers will mention return on investment (ROI) or conversions – the best case scenario would be if they mentioned both.
Think about it – though having good keyword rankings and an increase in traffic will help, they don’t really mean anything unless it actually builds your business. The metrics are great but that’s why ROI and conversions is what really matters.
How many active clients do you work with right now? And how many employees do you have tackling the work?
You want to ask this question to gage whether the SEO provider will give your business the time of day that is necessary to help you with your rankings, online visibility, and conversions.
Once you have an understanding of how many clients they have and how many employees are working on the project, you’ll be able to gage if they are stretched thin or in a position where they must have to outsource their work. You can make your decision of working with them or not accordingly.
Would any of our clients be considered a competitor of mine?
Most people tend to forget to ask this but it’s definitely an important question to ask as some SEO providers may not be entirely ethical and work with competing businesses in the same region. If one of your direct competitors is hiring the same company and has a higher budget than you do, you may be in trouble.
There is always a thin-line you have to consider too. If your SEO provider works with others in the same industry, they might have additional insight and knowledge to help your business. You’ll have to gage this based on their answer.
How do we stay in touch?
Search engine optimization tends to be a bit more different than other services as in you don’t need to contact your SEO company more than a few times a month. With that being said, should something go wrong, you want to be able to get in touch with your SEO provider as soon as possible.
In this scenario you just need to find out which methods of communication your potential SEO provider prefers. Be sure to tell them your preferred methods as well and make sure some of those align with those of your providers. Clarify how to contact them in case of an emergency as well such as if your site went down or if search traffic declined very dramatically.
What will you need from my end and how much time should I expect to be putting in?
For obvious reasons you’ll want to clarify what you’re responsible for and try to organize a plan of action on your side to make sure everything is accounted for. You’ll also want to make sure that you can provide the appropriate information and aid in any work that’s on your plate to ensure the success of your combined efforts.
What is your billing policy?
Different SEO providers bill in different ways. It’s important to know how much to pay and when exactly you’ll need to pay so you can factor everything into your budget.
Many SEO providers either bill on a retainer or bill on a per-project based. Retainers can range anywhere from $1,000 to $8,000 per month for a slew of SEO help while the typical pricing for per-project based work ranges based on what you’re looking to get done.
Another option you have is to pay by the hour, which is popular among SEO freelancers. You can expect to anywhere between $75 to $300 per hour for a good SEO freelancer or agency to help you on an hourly basis.
Last but not least, make sure to ask about when you’ll have to make your payments. Most people like to be paid as soon as possible but you can inquire about net 30, 60, or 90. Definitely make sure to ask about any late fee for late payments as well.
What happens in the event that we want to terminate the contract?
It’s very important to know what you’re getting into before you dive deep – this is for your own protection.
For obvious reasons, most SEO providers want you to sign on for a minimum length of time (usually for a few months at the very least). It takes time for SEO providers to make changes and it takes even longer than that for the results to come to fruition. With this being said, should your company have any emergency crisis and suddenly you find yourself unable to pay for your SEO services, you need to know what your options might be.
There might be some other reasons you may want to break your contract too. For example, you might be disappointed with the results that the SEO provider has produced or your marketing department may want to focus their resources and budget elsewhere.
Regardless of what the situation is, be sure to find out what your options are. Usually there will be fees written into the contract for early termination. You can try to have this changed and/or amended to something more favorable and fair for everyone.
Why should we hire you as an SEO provider instead of someone else?
This question has no correct answer and is more based on your gut instinct. What you can look out for are a few red flag answers. If someone says the following, run in the opposite direction:
- We’re cheaper than the competition
- We build you more backlinks than others can
- We can get you results faster than the competition
- (Any answer that sounds desperate)
Here’s what to keep in mind: good SEO doesn’t come cheap. Search engine optimization can add quite a bit of revenue to your business. It’s also an investment that takes at least a few months to see significant results.
In an ideal situation, they will respond by pointing to their track record which should include their past successes & current and past clients that are happy. A bonus would be if they have a reputation in the industry or show exemplary customer service as well.
Conclusion
First and foremost, keep in mind that SEO doesn’t happen overnight – it is a long-term investment.
One of the many reasons that shady SEO providers continue to stay in business is because they aren’t found out for many months.
If you aren’t prepared, someone might take advantage of you. Hopefully by asking the questions above, you’ll be able to weed out the shady SEO providers and find someone you can trust. We know it can be a huge pain to find a good SEO provider but it is a necessity in this day and age, especially if you are looking to grow your business.
