To ask the right questions of a prospective SEO company, you first need a baseline understanding of online advertising.
Unfortunately, if you’re a small, local business owner with little knowledge of online marketing strategies, then you probably don’t quite know what to ask.
That’s why Kim Lachance Shandrow’s article, “10 Questions to Ask When You’re Hiring an SEO Consultant,” is such a godsend.
In the article, Shandrow lists some of the big questions you should ask when on the hunt for a new SEO company or consultant. Even if you don’t necessarily know what these specific questions mean, exactly, she explains their significance and tells you what kind of answers are best.
Some of those questions are:
- Do you follow Google’s best practices for webmasters?
- Will you please explain your SEO strategies?
- Are you specialized in local search?
- How do you track or measure results?
And, for a real test, one trick question:
- Do you guarantee number-one rankings? (If yes, RUN!)
To see the full list of questions and the rationale behind them, check out Shandrow’s article on Entrepreneur.com!
Important caveat: The last question in Shandrow’s list has to do with content ownership. She states that the business owner/client should be given full ownership of any web content the SEO company creates on their behalf. This is certainly true when that content is on the website owned by the client. However, if the content is created from scratch on a completely separate site owned and hosted by the SEO company, then this rule does not apply. So, make sure you’re clear on who owns the website URL and content.
And, for further reading, please check out the extensive research on SEO consultants from the pros at Ignite Visibility: “Hiring an SEO Consultant? 38 Questions & 12 Things to Look For”.
Armed with all this information, you’ll hunt down the ideal SEO company for your business in no time. Good luck!