Chuck Aikens

Hiring a company to do SEO is always a good idea when you want to maximize the exposure of your website. However, like other businesses, there are good ones and bad ones. Hiring a bad one can have a devastating effect on the reputation of your website if they employ black hat SEO tactics to get your site noticed. However, hiring a white hat SEO can have the exact opposite effect. Below are some tips for hiring a good SEO.

1. Ask to see previous work and speak to previous and existing customers. This will give you some idea of what kind of track record the company has and the quality of work they turn in. If the company is hesitant to show you past work or allow you to speak with customers then beware.

2. Ask them how much experience they have in your particular industry. You want an SEO that has some idea about what drives traffic in your particular market.

3. Ask if they already represent a competitor in the same industry. This doesn’t mean that there will be a problem or conflict. Just make sure that the company has guidelines and principals in place to prevent the inadvertent exposure of your strategy to another competitor.

4. If you plan to market your site internationally make sure they have some experience with the culture(s) and language(s) that you plan on marketing your site to. You want to be able to maximize your exposure without offending your prospective users. You also want your keywords to be specific to your target audience so that your site shows up in their search results.

5. The level and method of communication about your campaign is also very important. Ask when and how you will be informed of changes to your account and as to the progress and effectiveness of the campaign.

6. Develop a clear understanding of how you will be able to measure the success of your marketing campaign. You need to determine how you will know that the SEO campaign is actually performing for you.

7. You will also need to know in what timeframe you can expect to see results. Depending on your situation, it might be better to go with a company that expects results in 6 months rather than a company that projects results in 2 years.

8. Beware of SEO or marketing companies that send you unsolicited email or other marketing materials. If you receive advertisements out of the blue make sure you research the company very thoroughly.

9. SEO companies cannot guarantee a number 1 ranking on a search engine. These rankings fluctuate depending on many factors, so beware of companies making grandiose guarantees.

10. Be wary of SEOs that will list your links on thousands of search engines or that use terms like “link popularity”, “free links”, or “link spamming”. Most of the time these types of campaigns don’t increase your page ranking.

There are many ways to determine if an SEO company is the right one for you. Mostly, it’s just a matter of personal taste, how the SEO lines up with your specific goals, and good old common sense. If an SEO is making promises that are too good to be true then most of the time they are. Just keep your eyes open and do your homework.