While Google is seemingly trying everything in its power to completely disarm the SEO industry, it’s generally assumed that there will always be ways to combat the complex algorithms and this is why the market appears to be going from strength to strength.
Unfortunately, it also means that SEO providers are able to charge absolute fortunes for their services, with businesses desperate to jump on the online bandwagon and create another avenue for profit. Therefore, it’s crucial to ask the right questions if you are on the hunt for a SEO expert and the remainder of this article will take a look at five issues you should ponder whilst choosing your provider.
How did you find out about the provider?
While this may not appear to be an important consideration, it can give you a good indication on whether or not a SEO provider is worth their salt. There are countless companies circulating the internet that will cold-call every website on the planet until they find a client. Suffice to say, these are the ones which are struggling to attract custom in the first place and this is usually for a reason. Instead, if you happen to stumble across a company that are ranked highly for a SEO-related phrase, with Seomers being a prime example, this is a great reason to think that they can do their job properly and they are a good option.
What past results do you have to your name?
This is perhaps the most obvious question you can ask. Unfortunately, the nature of the SEO industry means that young companies can struggle to attract clients – simply because they are unable to provide examples of past results. While this may appear unfair from one regard, it is absolutely critical that you choose a provider that is able to supply you with a decent batch of results with other clients. If they aren’t able to do this, the warning signs are there and they may not have the required knowhow to gain rankings.
What type of work will you carry out?
Most established SEO firms work off the same principles and will probably be performing similar work. If they claim that they won’t have to touch your site, there’s a chance they aren’t very reputable as at least some work will always need to be performed. If they start talking about building content, altering the structure of your site and gaining more backlinks – there’s every possibility that they do know what they are talking about. Of course, they might not engage in any of these practices, but you should at least ask the question to try and gain an understanding of how they function.
Do you provide guaranteed results?
Unfortunately, this is a trick that a lot of young and naive companies will fall for, with countless SEO providers making guarantees that they simply shouldn’t be making. While it may sound alluring to go for that company that will guarantee a page one ranking, they don’t have enough control over the issue to say this and it really should act as a turn off.
How do you build links?
Links are generally the bread and butter of search engine rankings so the more inventive your provider sounds, the better they are likely to be. Alternatively, if they claim to be using one of the best tools in the business to generate thousands of backlinks, we’re probably talking about a black hat technique that should be avoided.