SEO Service: 7 Important Questions to Ask Before Hiring an SEO Company
Getting your website online is only the first step. Now you need to bring people to it.
SEO is one of the best ways to do that.
93% of all online experiences start with a search engine. You need to get in front of the people looking for your services.
Coming up with an SEO plan takes a lot of work. That’s why it’s important to find an SEO service that is up for the job.
But there are a lot of companies out there. Not all of them will be good, so you need to do your research to find the right one.
Ask the seven questions below when you are picking a new SEO service.
1. What’s Your Process for Improving SEO Rankings?
There are good ways to improve your off-site SEO, and then there are bad ways. You don’t want to hire a company that uses shady tactics to get your site ranking in Google.
In the past, webmasters used to be able to rank their websites by posting a lot of spam links to their websites. Google wasn’t as sophisticated back then, so it was easy to game the system to make your site look like an authority.
But things have changed. Linking to your site like that today can get your site penalized and hurt your rankings.
Make sure you understand this when a company explains their SEO strategy to you. You want to be above the board on all your SEO strategies.
2. What Types of SEO Will You Do?
There are several types of SEO you can do to improve your rankings. The two methods below are the most common ones you will see used.
On-Site SEO
On-site SEO is the process of modifying the pages on your website to be more friendly with the search engines. Much of this involves optimizing each page for a keyword.
There are tools, like the Google Keyword Planner, which will show you the search volumes of keywords people use to search Google. Your pages should be optimized to reach as many of these terms as possible.
An SEO will do this by changing your text to include that keyword and it’s variants, optimize your page title, and optimize your page description.
Off-Site SEO
Google isn’t smart enough yet to rank sites based purely on content. It still uses backlinks as a factor.
If an SEO service engages in off-site SEO, they will work to build links back to your website. These links can be in the form of resource links, guest posts, or any other method available to them.
3. Do You Guarantee the #1 Spot?
If you want to weed out the low-quality SEO services, ask the question above. Nobody can guarantee that you will get the number one spot on Google.
The only thing you can do is optimize your chance that Google sees your website as the best result.
Even if you do manage to get the first spot, there isn’t a guarantee that you’ll stay there. The Google algorithm changes all the time. What works today to rank you at number one won’t necessarily work tomorrow.
Find a company that will be honest and realistic with you.
4. What’s Your Reporting Process?
You shouldn’t take search engine optimization services at their word. They should provide you regular reports about what they’re doing.
Your SEO company should be able to provide you several reports detailing their progress. If you want a simple overview, an activities report should be enough. It will tell you all the work a company accomplished during the month.
If you want to track things on a deeper level, you’ll need to ask for ranking and traffic reports. These reports will show you how the work being done is impacting your website.
Yes, you may not see results for a while. But if you don’t see any results after a long time, it may be time to switch to another provider.
5. Is There a Content Strategy?
Doing on-page SEO can make a big difference, but putting together a content strategy can set you apart from your competitors.
You can only say so much about your keywords on your product and service pages. A blog will allow you to target your audience with information posts.
Doing this will give you more visibility on Google, so check to see if your SEO company provides this service.
6. What Changes Will Be Made on the Website
There are a few simple on-site SEO techniques you can make to improve your website for search engines.
But you don’t have to limit changes to the basics.
Ask your SEO company if there will be any significant changes to your website that you need to know about. These changes can be anything from web design to website programming.
If they do handle major changes, check to see if they do things in-house or outsource them. If you want to work with someone local to your area, you may not want to have your work outsourced.
7. Do You Have Case Studies?
While you can’t guarantee results with SEO, you can measure the results. Because of this, SEO companies should be able to provide you case studies from work they have done in the past.
You can also ask to talk with the people who are part of the case studies. This will give you a chance to speak with people about what it’s like to work with a company.
A company can get results but still not be a great fit for your business. You’ll learn both the pros and cons of working with an SEO company.
Pick Your SEO Service Carefully
Doing SEO takes a lot of time. Be careful of anyone that guarantees results and do your research before hiring an SEO service to work for you.
Getting traffic is half the battle. You need to convert your visitors into sales after that. Head over to our marketing section to learn how you can optimize your website to bring in sales.