10 Questions to Ask Your Potential SEO Company or Consultant

For any business, it is very important to rank on the first page of the search results to get noticed by the potential buyers. If you are not on the first page then it simply means that you don’t exist for your potential customers. So it is very important for businesses to boost the search engine visibility of their website and take steps to create brand awareness.

But, what if you lack in technical expertise? What if you don’t have enough time to search new tactics and try out new things? Then it would be wise you hire a skilled and experienced SEO consultant or an agency for the job.


SEO company questions

So if you have planned to hire one, then you must ask these questions before you take the decision.

1. May I know about your past clients?

If the SEO consultant has a reputable image in the market then for sure they will be open towards offering the information about their past work. You will easily get a hand on their past clients and work which has helped them establish a name.

This will help you know and verify their past SEO campaigns. You may not get analytics data but, at least you will know whether their campaigns had a positive effect or not.

2. How can you help my business get better rankings?

If you find an SEO consultant not ready to discuss about their SEO strategies, then it would be better to steer clear of them. You should hire an agency or consultant who can tell you about their strategies and let you know the time frame to get results.

The initial step should include checking the website and looking for any issues. It must be about taking steps to know why a website is not ranking well on the search engines. The presence of any error pages or broken links should also be checked. The consultant should also have plans for on-page optimization so as to make the website ready for search engines. Some of the on-page optimization steps include developing title tags, headings, URL and alt tags.

Inquiring about their off-page optimization process is also good if you are planning to spread the word through different channels.

3. Do you follow the webmaster guidelines of search engines?



Google webmaster guidelines
You need a consultant or an agency that works in a coordination of webmaster guidelines of Google. If you find a consultant who does not abide by the rules, then chances are more that you will not get a better position on the search engine rankings. At the worst, your website may even get penalized by Google for not following the best practices.

4. Can you guarantee my website will rank on the top position on search engines?

If you hear someone say yes, then it is time you flee away. The truth is that no one can guarantee you but, some SEO consultants make use of unethical practices to get you some results.

5. Can you improve local search results efficiently?

If you are a small business trying to get some attention among the local customers, then finding an expert for the job will help you boost the local search rankings. Optimizing for the local search will help your website to appear in the results when someone in your locality will look for something.

6. Will you let me know the changes you will make?

Your SEO consultant will have to make a number of changes on the website to optimize it for the search engines. So as the website owner, it becomes necessary for you to know what changes are made and where all they are made. In case you want your SEO agency or consultant to take permission before making any changes then let them know about the same before the whole process starts.

7. How will the success of the campaigns be measured?

SEO campaigns be measurment
To measure the success of SEO campaigns, it is necessary to make use of Google Analytics and check from where the website is getting traffic. This will help you know from which websites you are getting traffic, how much improvement you have made in respect to search rankings, what kind of keywords people are using to get to your website, etc.

You should even ask them about how they are planning to use the data from the analytics to improve the performance of the website and get more traffic.

8. What will be the mode of communication?

Depending on different SEO consultants, the mode of communication can vary. So it is better for you to find the best way that fits your requirement. You can even ask for a one-to-one communication through a phone call, text message, Skype or email.

9. What are your fees and how will you charge?

Before you commit to an SEO consultant or agency, it is very important to know how you will be charged for the services. You will be either made to pay on hourly or project basis. The second option is more prevalent in the industry. The charges will be different based on the kind of service. You must also ask whether you will be made to pay any interest for late payments.

10. What happens when the contract ends?

Now, this is very important. Your contract may either get expired or you may end it before time. In both scenarios, you will have the ownership of all the web pages that were changed and optimized during the contract term. You need to make those things clear before you get into one.

“Prevention is better than cure”. By asking all these questions you make yourself clear of any doubts or queries that can create any complication in the future. Hiring an SEO consultant or an agency is not a joke when it comes to your website and its ranking.


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