What To Ask An SEO Consultant Before Hiring Them

If you’ve decided to outsource your SEO to improve your company’s online presence then it’s vital you hire the right person. If you don’t take your time choosing them then you could well end up with someone who doesn’t have enough expertise or just isn’t right for your business. If this happens you are essentially throwing away the money you spend on them. 

On the other hand, if you get it right then a good SEO consultant can greatly enhance your visibility and increase your customer base. 

With that in mind, here are just some of the questions you could ask a potential consultant to find out whether or not they’re what you’re looking for:

How Long Have You Been In Business?: SEO started in a rudimentary form in the 1990s when it was more of a niche specialisation. Nowadays you are likely to be able to choose from hundreds of firms. To whittle them down, therefore, it’s a good idea to find one with a good few years of experience behind them.

How Would You Improve My Company’s Online Presence?: This is a vital question to ask and the way that the SEO consultant answers it should go some way to telling you whether they are worth hiring or not. When you ask this question, rather than going into an incomprehensible spiel about their own methods and how they work, they should pay attention to what makes your company unique. They should be asking you what you want to achieve and then discussing ways they might help you achieve this which are appropriate to your own business sector and customer base. There is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ with SEO, and a good consultant should know this.

What Previous Results Have You Had?: Any consultant you talk to should be more than happy to provide you with details of previous satisfied clients so you can contact them if you wish to ask about the service they received. Conversely, it can also be a good sign if they are willing to talk about projects that did not go so well, and what they learned from this.

What Guarantees Can You Give?: This is something of a trick question, but it’s worth asking if you’re unsure. Remember that there can be no guarantees with SEO, so anyone who claims that they can get your website No.1 Google rankings or something equally unrealistic is lying to you to get your money. What they should be doing is suggesting and implementing ways to help you get the best from the Internet and showing you how to proceed in the future. 

How Do You Charge?: You need to be sure about this before you sign up to anything. Some SEOs will charge a flat fee for their services and others will charge per hour or per individual project. As long as you have agreed in writing exactly what you are paying and compared this with what other SEOs are offering you should be ok. Never go into this kind of business relationship without signing a fixed contract or you may find yourself being charged extra for ‘additional’ services.