Published on May 10th, 2017 | by Guest

Questions to ask a SEO firm before you hire them

If you’re looking for a SEO company to help you market your business, think of it like hiring a contractor to work on your house. It’s about asking the right questions to gather enough information to help you to determine which one is the best fit for you. Here are some of the questions you should be asking to determine the best SEO company for your needs.

How what changes would you/will you make to my website? Will I notice the changes?

The importance of this two-part question is to determine whether the company will mention both on-page and off-page optimization, as well as your link profile. These three elements are very important in improving your site’s visibility.

May I see examples of your work?

Any SEO company worth its salt will be only too glad to show you examples of their work. It’s not as useful to ask for references, as it is extremely unlikely that a company would provide you with a bad reference, so it’s not a very balanced picture of their work. On the other hand, examples of the company’s work speak louder because you can look at them objectively and form an opinion yourself. Ask for them to show you current examples of keywords they have successfully optimized for.

What keywords or phrases would you target when optimizing my site?

To give a really accurate answer to this a company would have to do an in-depth analysis of your website, but in your initial conversation with them they should at least be able to give you some preliminary keywords for your industry and let you know what the most competitive and least competitive keywords are for your industry.

How do you plan to develop or acquire links to my website?

In this answer, look for them to talk about acquire not only a lot of links, but also high-quality links and a good balance of links that includes things like directories (both paid and free), guest blog posts on relevant websites, and other high-profile exposure opportunities.

How much traffic can I expect to receive, and over how much time should I expect to see this increase?

There are a lot of factors that go into this answer, but as a rule it’s not unreasonable to expect a good SEO company to bring you at least a fifty percent increase in targeted traffic over about a 90-day period.

How many people are working in your organization?

At first blush, you may think you are dealing with a large SEO company with lots of team members, but in reality it’s a small organization with just a few employees. Why does this matter? There’s no clear “best” when it comes to the size of an SEO company; there are benefits to working with small, medium, and large companies. However, it’s important to know what to expect. Whereas a small firm may struggle to keep up with an influx of work, they can offer their clients a more personalized approach than a large firm. A larger firm may have more resources, but they may take more a more “assembly line” approach to your SEO. Either way, there are plusses and minuses. Just know what you’re getting into.

Tags: ask, firm, hire, questions, SEO