What to Look for When Hiring an Outside SEO Professional

What to Look for When Hiring an Outside SEO Professional

Not every company can afford to have an in-house marketing team that has one member dedicated to SEO. Not every company can even afford to have a full in-house marketing team. Small businesses often have one person who is responsible for handling all the on- and offline marketing efforts to promote the brand, business and website. It can be very overwhelming and confusing, especially if that person isn't comfortable with SEO and SEM. It can be beneficial for a company to look externally and hire an outside SEO professional to handle on-site optimization, the link building strategy and other Internet marketing aspects like social media and pay-per-click advertising campaigns.

Before a company or website owner hands their Internet marketing and online brand over to a new person, there are a few things they should do:

First off, if a SEO professional or company totes "guarantees," website owners would do best by avoiding hiring them. There are no guarantees in SEO and anyone proclaiming otherwise is probably engaging in black hat SEO techniques or is trying to scam unsuspecting website owners.

It's acceptable to ask a potential hire what he/she would do to promote the website. They should have a well-developed plan that they implemented for previous clients. It should include things like on-site optimization, link building, article marketing and online PR. They should be able to provide an overview of where the site it right now (in terms of SEO) and what it should be doing. Just don't expect any major insights, a good SEO professional is going on to hold on to those until after they are hired.

Just like when hiring any other employee, website owners should always ask for previous client references. It's important to make sure that this particular professional or company has developed successful SEO plans in the past and practices white hat SEO. If their references just include spammy looking sites, it's probably best to steer clear. Truly excellent SEO professionals and companies will have the same clients for a few years, because the people they work for have been impressed enough to continue the relationship. But it is not unusual for an SEO consultant to have several clients that they did small, 3-6 month projects for.

A best practice tip is to hire a US-based company. The simple truth is that a lot of SEO relies on language. A SEO company from India isn't going to have the language skills or comfort with how American search engines operate to implement a successful SEO plan.

If an SEO professional or company's fee for service looks too good to be true, it probably is. A well-developed, white hat SEO campaign can involve hundreds of man hours. If a company is promising 500 links a month for only $50.00, they are most likely using black hat SEO techniques. SEO services can range from a few hundred dollars a month to a few thousand depending on the intricacy of the plan, but most websites should be able to find an affordable SEO professional that can handle their needs.

The bottom line is that a website owner needs to trust the SEO professional or company they are about to work with. Giving a brand and online reputation over to a third party is no small matter. If the SEO campaign ends up hurting the company, they are the ones left to do damage control.

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