How to Pick an SEO Consultant

Top 5 ways to see if the SEO consultant you are considering is right for you.

1.       References and results:  Check the results of the SEO company’s clients.

What you want to know is can your SEO consultant:

• Set up your website to be optimized correctly and
• Use all the possible SEO tools to continually push you up the ranks

Look at the websites of the SEO’s clients.  Are they well-written and easy to understand?  Do they have a blog?  Are there keyword phrases in the title?  Are there links to and from their clients’ sites to other sites?   Ask to talk to clients and see if there has been a noticeable difference (even a small one) in how high the client has gotten on rankings of search engines like Google.

2.  Ask “What are you going to do” and “How are you going to do it” questions.
Get your potential SEO consultant to answer your specific concerns.  Ask him what steps he is going to take (or usually takes) to optimize websites for search engines.  They should custom tailor a plan for you but they should be able to tell you things that they do for everybody.  Ask about the people who work with them on their team.

You want a SEO consultant who tells you he will do multiple services for you including the following

• Finding the best keywords and using them effectively
• Making the code in your website search engine friendly
• Offering continual articles for your blog
• Strategy for getting inbound links
• Competitive comparison analysis

How your potential SEO consultant answers your questions will show you if he really knows what he’s doing.

3.        How does the SEO consultant get paid?

It is important that you understand the structure fees.  There may be one for initial SEO and a monthly fee for continuing optimization, a per article fee, or the continuing optimization price may depend on the results.   Be wary of any company that wants all its fees upfront, like a year’s worth of SEO support before you’ve even started.

4.      Promises and guarantees.

No one can promise you that you will absolutely land on the top page of search engines because they cannot control the rest of the web so be wary of those who do.  SEO cannot promise exact results.   Find out if there is a money-back guarantee if you feel they have not completed the work they said they would do.  Other than that, listen to what they do promise and get that in writing.

5.      Look at how many questions they ask you.

A good SEO consultant will have many questions about your business.  They’ll need to learn about your current website, your philosophy, what you’ve done in the past, your target audience, your competition, and your business goals.
They will want to find out what you already know about SEO so they can educate you if necessary.

SEO is important because it will determine how many people see your website because many companies have a different idea of how many services are included in SEO it is important to talk to SEO consultants until you find the one who inspires your trust.