Things To Consider Before Hiring An SEO Firm
Google offers some good advice on its webmasters/site owners help page about hiring a search engine optimization firm.
The company says that a good time to hire an SEO firm is when you are planning a site redesign. Google also says a good SEO can help improve an existing site as well.
Here are some questions to consider before paying an SEO company to improve your results:
Can you show me examples of your previous work and share some success stories?
Do you follow the Google Webmaster Guidelines?
Do you offer any online marketing services or advice to complement your organic search business?
What kind of results do you expect to see, and in what timeframe? How do you measure your success?
What’s your experience in my industry?
What’s your experience in my country/city?
What’s your experience developing international sites?
What are your most important SEO techniques?
How long have you been in business?
How can I expect to communicate with you? Will you share with me all the changes you make to my site, and provide detailed information about your recommendations and the reasoning behind them?
Google warns to be careful about SEO firms that send you email unsolicited as they are likely not legitimate.
It also cautions people to not fall for claims that guarantee a #1 ranking on Google. From Google’s help page: “There is no priority submit for Google. In fact, the only way to submit a site to Google directly is through our Add URL page or by submitting a Sitemap and you can do this yourself at no cost whatsoever.”
Google offers more information here. If you don’t want to hire an SEO firm right now there are plenty of free tools to be found online. This is a good place to start.
January 19th, 2009 at 9:18 am
You have raised one important question here. There are lots of SEO firms who charges very less, but don’t show how they work. They don’t share any information or don’t give proper answers about their working styles. People should beware of these Black hat SEO companies, who guarantee fast results in very less fees.
January 20th, 2009 at 2:46 am
They are not blackhat especially, they may simply scums who don’t do any job, not even blackhat. I think SEO takes it’s start from 2003.
Btw, some companies just can have template replies to that qustions, so no big deal unfortunately:(
January 23rd, 2009 at 11:27 am
I have learn a lot from here…things that needs to be considered. I think in any forms of business or path, there are some people we need to be careful with.
January 27th, 2009 at 11:43 am
That’s a good set of questions to start with. You should also get an idea of what techniques are going to be used on your site. Are they buying links or using link farms? You should also try and speak to past customers. If they are a legitimate company, they will not mind giving you references.
February 2nd, 2009 at 6:09 pm
Thanks for your post. I think those questions are the key to decide the quality of any SEO service.
February 3rd, 2009 at 6:13 pm
I think in seo reference is the most important thing
February 7th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
I’ve read your comments about choosing a SEO with interest as we currently offer internal SEO (coding and content) to customers but do not as yet offer a backlinks service and have wondered about whether – and how – to recommend a SEO company if our customers so require.
I also noted your comment that Google itself has warned people to beware of cold-calling SEO companies – one of our customers was contacted by such a company recently and it made me feel threatened. Luckily, with this customer, our internal SEO had been sufficient to get him to the top of Google for his niche and so he took no action. I will remember your comment in case such a situation happens again.
By the way, I like the design of your Blog – simple, clean and striking.
February 10th, 2009 at 7:23 am
This is a good source of information, Really why we should pay to any such Seo’s for the things which can be done by ourselves just by following some instruction.
February 13th, 2009 at 8:47 pm
Well, I prefer to SEO my sites myself. Also the costs of most seo firms are very expensive .
But these are all good tips and I will have them in mind if some day I decide to hire a seo company hehe.-
This is a great blog by the way.
March 31st, 2009 at 6:11 pm
The world of SEO is constantly changing. It is critical to have the help of someone that understands this and is preapred to move with the change.
May 26th, 2009 at 11:50 am
thanks