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5 Questions to ask a Potential SEO Firm

Posted on 03. Jul, 2009 by admin in SEO

For a busi­ness look­ing to hire a rep­utable SEO firm, it is impor­tant to ask the right ques­tions. There are hun­dreds of SEO firms that when you look behind the cur­tain you find out that they are a one man shop, work­ing out of their basement.

1. Do you guar­an­tee #1 rank­ings?
Any SEO firm that promises rank­ings or imme­di­ate results right from the begin­ning, is a major red flag. For one, it is dis­hon­est to promise some­thing that is beyond their con­trol. Basi­cally, claim­ing that your site will rank #1 or show up on the 1st page for a spe­cific key­word or set of key­words is not accu­rate. The rea­son is that nobody but the major search engines (Google , Yahoo and MSN) con­trol how web­sites rank in their organic search results. No SEO firm can guar­an­tee results because they have no con­trol over the search engines algo­rithms. It is true that a rep­utable SEO firm under­stands what fac­tors go into rank­ing web­sites and can help increase search engine vis­i­bil­ity, but no qual­ity firm will ever promise rankings.

2. What is involved in a suc­cess­ful SEO strategy?

A legit­i­mate SEO firm is able to explain what goes into a suc­cess­ful SEO strat­egy in plain Eng­lish; not some overly tech­ni­cal indus­try jar­gon that a typ­i­cal busi­ness owner wouldn’t under­stand. Every strat­egy should men­tion impor­tant on-page and off-page opti­miza­tion, track­ing results through web­site ana­lyt­ics, con­tent devel­op­ment, link build­ing, and con­tin­u­ous tweaking/testing to increase rank­ings and con­ver­sion rates.

3. When can I expect to see results?
Prob­a­bly the most impor­tant part of find­ing the right SEO firm is set­ting the proper expec­ta­tions. Any firm that says you will be fully opti­mized in 2 weeks is lying. A suc­cess­ful SEO cam­paign is ongo­ing and always improv­ing. The first thing the SEO firm should ask you is what are you goals? With­out under­stand­ing what you are try­ing to accom­plish, there is no way any­way can give proper expec­ta­tions. Once your goals are estab­lished, the fol­low­ing can be deter­mined: real­is­tic expec­ta­tions based on the cur­rent con­di­tion of your web­site, rec­og­nize your com­pe­ti­tion, and how much time/money/resources you have devoted towards your SEO efforts. A good SEO firm will not nec­es­sary be able to say that you will see results in exactly 2 months, how­ever they should be able to give you a range as to when you will start to see a not­i­ca­ble increase in traf­fic and conversions.

4. How do you mea­sure our SEO efforts?
In order to track whether your SEO efforts are suc­cess­ful or not, you need to mon­i­tor your web­site ana­lyt­ics, rank­ing report­ing, and any other type of mar­ket­ing mea­sure­ments your com­pany has read­ily avail­able. For ecom­merce sites, it may be eas­ier to track ROI because your con­ver­sions are all online. For brick and mor­tar stores or com­pa­nies that do a com­bi­na­tion of online and offline sales it can be a bit more chal­leng­ing. To truly track all con­ver­sions, the SEO firm may need your help in track­ing phone calls, store sales, etc.

5. How often do we meet to dis­cuss our progress/reports/strategy?Since SEO con­sists of an ini­tial SEO setup and then ongo­ing monthly main­te­nance, it is impor­tant that the SEO firm out­lines when and how often you will meet to dis­cuss your SEO strat­egy. As the search engine’s algo­rithms change your SEO firm will need to get cre­ative, try new strate­gies, and make adjust­ments as required. In an effort to have both mar­ket­ing and SEO strate­gies run­ning in line meet­ing reg­u­larly is rec­om­mended. It is not uncom­mon to meet on a monthly or quar­terly basis to talk about your web­site ana­lyt­ics, con­ver­sion goals, and to make rec­om­men­da­tions to improve your SEO. It is also impor­tant to see what the firm has been doing to improve traf­fic, con­ver­sions, etc. It also goes both ways. A good SEO firm knows that they will require the assis­tance of their client to get them where they need to be. It is a true part­ner­ship between client and SEO firm. Because con­tent devel­op­ment is such a big part of SEO, the com­pany should devote some resources into writ­ting arti­cles, blog­ging, and press releases. Ask the firm how you can help to increase results faster.

Related Posts:

• 7 Rea­sons Why You Need To Learn SEO
• Find Advice About Search Engine Opti­miza­tion Strategies
• The 60 Minute SEO Site Audit
• Why Good Search Engine Opti­miza­tion (SEO) Is Important?
• The Truth About SEO

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