What questions should you ask before hiring a SEO Company?

Here are some of the questions we believe you should ask before you consider hiring an Internet marketing consultant or company before they search engine optimize your web site.

• Does the SEO have marketing experience background?
  
• Does the SEO talk about converting a web visitor to a sale - do they understand what it takes to create a conversion?
  
• Will they perform an analysis of your competition to understand why the other sites rank highly?
  
• If they are offering high ranking guarantees how is that possible if they don't control or influence the search sites?
  
• What methods will they use to increase traffic? Will they make changes to your existing web pages, add new pages, possibly redesign your navigation for usability and search engine friendliness? How much of their strategy relies on pay-per-click advertising and how much will that cost? Remember, pay-per-click is like leasing vs. buying a car. When you stop paying, the traffic discontinues. We recommend pay-per-click advertising for specific marketing strategies, but not for ongoing search engine visibility. Pay-per-click is not a long-term solution unless you have deep pockets.
  
• How important or the amount of time will the SEO perform keyword research? The short answer is it should be a lot.
  
• What will the SEO base their keyword recommendations on?
  
• Ask about the SEO's best practices for avoiding your web site from being penalized, possibly indefinitely, by the search engines?
  
• How will your web site traffic be monitored and measured?
  
• How will your overall Return On Investment (ROI) be measured?
  
• Will you get a detailed proposal?
  
• Can you speak with their references?

Please contact us and we are happy to answer all of these questions. "An educated consumer is our best client."

Read our other Frequently Asked Questions about Search Engine Optimization