20 Questions To Ask Before Hiring An SEO Services Provider | INeedArticles.com

Looking For A New SEO Services Provider? Treat It Like A Job Interview!

When you are in business, you are doing something in search of revenue and profit. Why you’re looking for money might vary, and how you’re looking for it can be just as varied. What’s going to be consistent from one business to the next though is just operating a business involves certain expenses. Called overhead, these are the base expenses of just operating your business. An e-commerce site might just face Web hosting and warehousing, while a brick-and-mortar retailer has to also consider renting or leasing its space and probably more payroll, but all businesses have to make more money than they spend on overhead alone to possibly generate a net profit instead of a just gross one.

Search engine optimization matters are something that have become a standard overhead expense for most modern businesses, but they also have great potential to boost revenue quite dramatically. If you use any search engines online yourself, you know the power of having a website link on the first page of relevant results, and especially being the very first link. People turn to search engines for answers, and once they trust an engine, they trust the order of its links. So, as a business, you need to have your website on the first page and as high as possible on that page.

The higher your links are for related keywords and search phrases, the more organic traffic your website gets, and hopefully, the more traffic it gets, the more business and revenue you wind up with. Having said all this, it should be obvious how important search engine optimization, or SEO, is for any business. Much like how gas stations are most often found on the corners of the busiest intersections and how bail bondsman and emergency attorney offices are down the street from the jail, where your website lands in the search engine results pages, or SERPs, can determine just how much traffic you get through your website.

Now that you know the fundamental reason why search engine optimization is important, as well as what SEO and SERPs both stand for, you have to decide not whether or not you’re going to have such matters handled, but by who? It’s true that you can handle some SEO work internally, but is it worth it? Starting basics are simple enough that a self-employed person or small business entrepreneur could handle them on their own, but would they have enough time and energy left over to handle the things that only they can do for their business? An outside or third-party SEO services provider can do the fundamentals for your for affordable rates or basic monthly packages.

Larger businesses sometimes try to handle their own search engine optimization internally, but that can backfire sometimes. A bigger company might assume that it has the resources to assemble a full SEO team, and it likely can, but that usually means a team of at least three or four individuals. SEO is no longer just a matter of getting as many backlinks out there as possible. In fact, taking that approach can backfire on you hard. For just a minimum team, you’re easily looking at someone dedicated to content creation, someone focused on off-site optimization (including but not limited to backlinks from high-caliber sources), and another person focuses on the technical aspects of your website and on-page optimization. In many cases, you might even have someone handling social media management in conjunction with your search engine optimization.

That’s three to four full-time employees! Not only is that a lot of payroll, but it’s also the money you pay out in payroll taxes, insurance, benefits, vacation time, and the many other expenses involved with headcount. You’re also likely hiring individuals that have relevant experience, but they didn’t quite have enough to actually get picked up by an actual industry firm. On the other hand, using an outside search engine optimization services provider means you can pay for access to the same skillsets and talents necessary, but only as much as you need. Even when you’re a bigger business, outsourcing your SEO needs gives you the results you want without wasting the money involved. The return of investment SEO dollars provide far exceeds most other marketing mediums, ranging from television and radio to newspaper and roadside billboards, but there’s no sense being inefficient about it.

Deciding to go with an SEO services provider is one thing, but choosing one another is quite another. Of course, a simple Internet search will likely yield plenty of results you can sift through, much like shopping for anything else, be it car insurance or a plumbing contractor. One decision you will face here is whether or not to use someone local. Given the nature of the SEO industry and how the Internet is currently structured, you might not have to actually choose someone based in your community. You could actually partner up with someone that you interview or consult via teleconferencing or Skype, and handle everything online. If, in your shopping around, you determine that local SEO services rates and fees are higher than a national average, you might want to consider the possibility of looking outside your home city in order to save money. Just try and limit your searching to your current time zone and country though, to avoid cultural and linguistic differences or mismatching business hours.

While doing your initial list-building of possibilities, other than prices, there are two factors that should either move someone up or down your list of potential candidates. For starters, if an SEO business is unwilling to arrange a meeting or do a free consultation in person (or face to face online), then you should probably avoid wasting your time looking too hard at them. A serious SEO services provider is not just looking for clients but long-term business relationships. While there are some SEO campaigns that can generate positive results in just weeks or months, true search engine optimizations success comes from repeated fundamentals over many months and even years. An SEO services provider is like many other businesses in that they love having repeat business from consistent clients. In many other sectors, many businesses generate 80 percent of their revenue from just 20 percent of their clients, and SEO is no exception. They know the big money comes from keeping the big clients happy, because most everyone else is just passing by or coming in intermittently.

You’ll come across SEO businesses not looking for that though. They want your money now, but they also promise you things like number one rankings on the first page within a month or 90 days. The things they do just don’t work that fast, if they work at all. Any results they generate simply won’t last, and neither will your business with them, so why ever go there in the first place?

A second thing to watch out for on your list is how high any individual SEO services provider ranks in the SERPs when you look online for them. One interesting aspect to this industry is that while they offer clients and customers search engine optimization services, they also do SEO campaigns for their own business about SEO! That means that they’re in direct competition with one another in the local industry. So, if you’re in the bustling metropolis of Podunk, search Google, Yahoo, and Bing for “SEO services Podunk” as well as “search engine optimization services Podunk” and see who the top five businesses or agencies are. Call them first! They obviously know what they’re doing.

After your initial list is generated, you need to come up with a shorter list of those you want to interview. Some might call such a meeting their ‘free consultation’ for first-time clients, but it’s still the same purpose. They want to sit down with you and see if they are a good fit for you. However, they might also want to see if you are a good fit for them. It’s okay to start with a purely telephone call, but the good businesses in any industry, including SEO, are willing to take it a step further and actually meet face to face. The real winners understand that it’s not just about having a business meeting, but an actual interview of sorts. In fact, it’s almost like a first date where two people get to know each other a little to see if there’s any chemistry.

Scheduling a meeting is easy enough, and after brief introductions, they’ll likely have a short sales pitch to go through. You should let them do so, since it should answer many questions. However, once they ask if you have questions, the following list will spare you from having to figure out what to ask, particularly if you’re not familiar with the SEO industry yourself. That’s a safe assumption, though, because if you were an expert at SEO, you wouldn’t need someone to handle it for you. This whole article and list are for anyone in any industry other than SEO!

This list is rather useless if they just do their sales pitch and then make their call to action and try to ‘close’ you immediately. Those are giveaways of SEO firms that might have slipped through list-building and vetting. A real potential partner wants the chance to answer questions so they can convince you they’re a good fit, but also so they can get to know your business in return. If you’re not sure what questions to ask, here’s 20 possibilities to sprinkle into the conversation where you’re practically interviewing for your external SEO ’employee’ of sorts:

1) How do you generate backlinks for current clients? There was a time that networks of small blogs or article spamming thousands of copies of the same spun piece could generate many, many links pointing to your site, and he who had the most links won. Those days are gone, although some SEO services provider still go through such motions. Google these days instead doesn’t just look at the number of backlinks you have, which still matter, but where they are. Is the backlinking site relevant to the keywords in question? Is its content similar to yours in subject and niche? How reputable and respected is that site? High-caliber sites mean high-quality links, making your site look authoritative. Remember, Google itself is a business, and it profits from giving its users not just relevant content, but the best possible content at the top of the list. If you want quality results from Google, then your SEO services provider must give you backlinks from quality sites and content for your site and social media that has obvious quality to followers, readers, and visitors if you want them to become customers.

2) How soon are you able to detect algorithm changes? Search engine algorithm updates can happen any day. Some are barely tremors, and some are earthquakes that get named after zoo animals (Panda, Penguin, etc.), but not all are announced publically. The SEO industry is on its own in detecting such changes in many cases and always alone in trying to figure out what changes were entailed. You need an SEO partner that stays up to date with the industry.

3) How quickly can you adapt to them? Some SEO firms are set in their ways and stick to things that they claim are tested and true over time. To be honest, some things are exactly that, proven winners. However, SEO firms that want to keep moving forward know the industry changes over time and not only monitor for changes, but have ways and timetables for making adjustments to their efforts based on what algorithm changes do to the SERPs. You want an SEO firm that can correct any damage you take from an update, but also one that can capitalize on boosts or new opportunities you likewise could get!

4) Do you offer website conversion analysis and upgrades or enhancements? While your thoughts about search engine optimization might focus on getting increased traffic to your website, and specifically traffic that is already obviously interested in your content, products, or services, do remember that you need that traffic converted into something when it gets there. That depends on your industry, website, and business model how exactly that takes form. It might be direct e-commerce sales, but it could just be list subscribers or contact leads you can follow up on the next time you’re in the office. Whatever it is, measure your conversion rate and look for an SEO firm that doesn’t just boost your traffic, but how much of it you keep.

5) What are long-tail keywords? You might guess these are keywords and phrases that are longer than shorter search terms, and you would be close. If you’re looking to get into a very specific niche more so than a general industry or sector, focusing on long-tail keywords is a good way to go about it. You can focus on a specific product or service that might have an unfulfilled demand for with no competition, which is a great place for any business to be.

6) Do you optimize websites or SEO for mobile users? Over half of new Internet users are coming online with smartphones, tablets, and other small or portable electronics. By some estimates, more than half of Internet traffic is on such devices, but streaming content might account for that kind of use over laptops and desktops. However, mobile users are known for being ‘close to buying’ in many cases. A lot of mobile users are searching for restaurants, entertainment, or businesses they need for services and products they intend to spend on that very day. Many others use the mobile Internet to research products in stores right before deciding to buy them off the shelf. Product reviews, and to be honest sometimes cheaper prices online, sway their purchasing decisions. If such matters relate to your business, you need a website that is dynamic, responsive, and loads fast for mobile users. Most of that falls on the shoulders of your web designer, but your SEO team plays a role in this too.

7) What kinds of content do you come up with? Contemporary search engine optimization involves content creation, since search engines want, and even need, to provide quality results to their searching users and consumers. High-caliber content convinces search engines and Internet traffic alike that your business is reputable, helpful, knowledgeable, and authoritative within your field. It both helps draw traffic to your site and convince them you are what they need and where they should spend their time and money. Most content is still going to be just writing, but you might have other things like audio podcasts or YouTube videos.

8) How often do you create or post new content? In addition to quality content, it also needs to be fresh. One of the things that Google factors in when determining rankings is how old or new content on the site is. You don’t have to post a new article every hour, but any blogs on your site should have updates routinely.

9) Will you look at our competitors to see what they’re doing? In order for any SEO services business to get you ahead of your peers, or at least in their league if coming from behind, then they need to look at them and see how everyone’s doing and possibly even how they’re doing it. If their intention is to truly help out your business over time, then they can’t just get to know your business. In order to truly get you, they have to understand you’re entire industry or niche.

10) Can you help us identify shoulder keywords? You’ll likely have a core group of keywords that ‘head’ up the content and focus of your site, but that’s not to say you can’t have ‘shoulder’ keywords you can branch out into. For example, while a locksmith service might have a ‘head’ focus of 24/7 lock and key repair services, it might have a ‘shoulder’ emphasis regarding its showroom of wall, floor, cabinet, and gun safes for sale. That’s four shoulder keywords right there, and all are closely related to the core focus of the business.

11) Will you look at our existing backlinks before getting in too deep? Unless you’re starting a brand new business, you’ve already got a portfolio of online backlinks. It helps to know which ones are strong and worthy of emphasis, but it also helps to know if a previous SEO services provider messed things up, if your domain name has bad karma from a previous owner, or if a competitor has tried to screw you over in some way.

12) Can you clean up our black hat penalties? It used to take months or even years to get a site back into Google’s good graces, and many webmasters simply abandoned properties instead. Now, algorithms are more live-time and can update themselves automatically. An SEO services provider that can realign things correctly or use things like disavow lists to get back on Google’s good side might mean you start showing up in SERPs again the following day, since penalties can be lifted as soon as your site is crawled or indexed again.

13) Do you offer flexible contracts or pricing? You know that SEO is a constantly changing industry, but your own business is likely in a state of flux over time. You always need SEO, but the amount and kind might change. It’s useful to do business with a place that has a range of options and financial commitment so you can maintain a productive working relationship where you have the freedom to set your monthly or quarterly plan at a level that meets your current needs and budget reality.

14) How do you use Facebook and other social media platforms? Not all businesses turn their social media management over to their SEO services provider, since social media is direct marketing and branding in the eyes of many companies. Having said that, they are closely intertwined, as viral content can generate brand recognition and backlinks search engines see, not to mention updated and timely content. Given that an estimated one-quarter of all Internet traffic goes to websites from Facebook links alone, the power of social media cannot be ignored if you’re trying to draw traffic to your site.

15) Do you emphasize local SEO? If you are a physical business or a professional that only services a certain area, there’s no point optimizing for SEO across your whole country, state, or region. Instead, plan on just going for the keywords or search phrases that have your community, neighborhood, or city name in them. This is where search engines have been growing the most the last few years, particularly with map features and customer reviews. Google, in particular, has been tweaking and upgrading its algorithm with an emphasis on local affairs for some time now, and it’s good to have an SEO partner that can help you optimize for such things.

16) Can we use local SEO even if we’re not a local business? Even if you provide a regional or national product or service available across many states, it’s still sometimes a good idea to optimize at the local level for communities you’re interested in drumming up more business in. Local SEO is done by national businesses ranging from car insurance providers to soft drink giants, so you’re not doing anything new or unethical here.

17) What search engines do you optimize for? Pretty much every SEO industry player should list Google first and foremost, considering that on average it handles anywhere from more than half to roughly two-thirds or more of all Internet search traffic. That might be enough for you, but there is enough traffic for Yahoo and Bing to justify some optimization for them, which is simple since Yahoo had been using the Bing engine for several years anyway.

18) Can you help us power-sink our competitors? Some SEO establishments will happily help you conduct black-hat SEO that looks like it should favor your competitor, knowing full well that it will trigger Google penalties on your competition. Those are not the kind of SEO services providers that can truly help you build your own business, and you never know when Google will actually see through such shenanigans anyway. Disavow lists are among the many tools your competition might use to fight off such tactics anyway, so it can prove a waste of time on top of just being a shady way of doing business.

19) Will you do a technical analysis of our website? Unless you’ve already decided to do a total overhaul of your website, you need to let your SEO services provider go over every word, tag, title, and line of code to make sure it’s as optimized as possible for at least Google. Even if you’re doing a totally new website, they need to be involved in every step of the redesign, and you might even consider letting them handle it for you.

20) We can be #1 on the first page in less than a month, right? While following the order of this list isn’t necessary, or often even possible, this is a great closing question. If they’ve been honest with you, then by this point you not only know that such things can’t be guaranteed, but a truly professional SEO services provider simply isn’t going to promise it. If they still do at this point in the interview, something is certainly wrong. Hopefully, everyone in the room will burst out laughing and you know you’re among newfound friends.

You don’t need to ask all 20 of these questions in order to have a successful interview with a possible SEO services provider for your company or business. They’re just there to get the conversation flowing or guided to the right points of focus. It should honestly only take their answers to less than a dozen of these questions to help you know if they’re the right fit or not. Remember to leave room in the conversation for their own questions! The seo services provider is going to get to know you, your business, your industry, and your goals and objectives in order to figure out how to not just serve your current SEO ambitions but your long-term success. When you find that SEO services provider, you’ve found a potential partner for longer and larger success than you might have ever dreamed possible.

Did you like this article? Well here’s another one we’re sure you’ll love: 10 Tips For Choosing The Right SEO Company

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