As a business, you may want to think about spending some money to hire an SEO company. Doing so can help you quickly improve your website as long as you don’t hire a company that damages your reputation. Therefore you need to properly vet an SEO specialist before making any rash hiring decisions. Here are some tips that you should keep in mind while doing so. They’ll help ensure that you hire the best company for the job.
Interview different SEO companies before hiring any of them
Take some time to find a few names of companies that you think may be a good match for your business. Once you’ve done so, it’s time to host some interviews. This is when you’ll want to listen closely to ensure that the person you’re interviewing is focusing on the right things (e.g., helping improve how your business appears in the search engine results pages – a.k.a. SERPs).
While you’ll have a list of questions you’ll want to ask during the interview, the SEO company that you’re interviewing should also have some questions of their own.
These include questions like:
- What makes your products or services unique?
- Whom are you competing with? And what do they do well?
- How can search engines help with your current money-making methods?
- Can you describe your ideal customer?
- How do customers currently find your website?
- What marketing channels are you currently using?
As you interview this person, make sure they’re interested in your business from a holistic standpoint. If they don’t do this or they offer you unrealistic guarantees in regards to ranking in Google’s SERPs, you should move on with your interviews because the company you’re currently speaking with isn’t the right one for you.
Take time to check the company’s references before hiring them.
Once you have done several interviews and narrowed down your list a bit, you’ll want to ask each SEO company to provide you with a list of references for their past clients so that you can look at them yourself. While you’re checking these references, make sure that you’re asking questions that allow you to gauge how useful they found the company’s services. According to Google, one of the questions that you should ask these clients is whether the results they received were sustainable. Here you’re looking to hear how SEO has now become an integral part of their general business operations – something that they’ve incorporated into their long-term plans instead of something that they see as just a “quick fix.”
As you continue to narrow down your list of companies, make sure you conduct a technical audit
Once you have a shorter list of candidates whose references you’ve checked, you should have one or two from whom you’d like to request a technical audit. After the SEO company has had some time to do this task, they should give you a prioritized list of items. This will tell you what they want to accomplish. They’re listed in order since these are the steps that the SEO company feels needs to be completed so that your website is friendlier for the search engines while also making sure that your website provides a great viewing experience for your visitors.
Make sure you look through each of these lists. You’ll want to ensure that what’s there is based on the data that’s been collected from the audit. It’s also important to know how much time and money are required for the company to be able to achieve these results.
Now that you know what you want from your SEO company, it’s time to talk to us at the Local SEO Tampa Company in Tampa, FL, because we can fulfill all your needs. Reach out to us today.