Once you’ve made the decision to go to the next level with your online business presence, here are five important questions to ask SEO company candidates:
Are you able to explain SEO in laymen’s terms? Ideally, an SEO consultant who is at the top of his/her game should be able to talk in the language of digital marketing with fluency. The hard part is finding an SEO consultantwho can translate these sometimes overwhelming and indeed, code like terms so that you and your business fully understand just what it is you are paying for and why you need them for a digital presence that stands out from the crowd. You also need an SEO consultant who has the ability to actually understand your business: it’s no good having an SEO genius at your command who doesn’t “get” what makes your business special. Take the time to find an SEO consultant who is “bilingual” and able to scaffold between the jargon of his or her specialty and the everyday language and idioms you use in your business and you will be rewarded with a match made in digital heaven.
Have you researched our company, and do you have ideas on how to take us to the next level? If you are interviewing a prospective SEO candidate and they HAVEN’T researched your business, have at least a minimal working knowledge of how it works and what it sells, AND have suggestions or even projects to put forward to improve your online presence and b2b PPC (translation: business to business pay per click) , you need to pass and move on to the next, hopefully more prepared candidate.
How can your impressive track record help me? Successful SEO consultants are only as good as their evidence-based rate of success. A great SEO consultant will not only have a consistent data trail of wins, but they’ll be eager to share their knowledge and strategies, tailoring them to your particular needs and wants.
Do you have the ability to shift your focus from minute details to the Big Picture? When an SEO consultant is overseeing the research and planning targeted strategies for your business, no detail should be too small to be scrutinized, as long as they don’t lose sight of the overarching end goals of the project. An SEO consultant who can’t see the trees for the forest is going to be a concept savant who can’t oversee practical implementation, but an SEO consultant who gets lost in the “forest” will never be able to bring your business to the forefront of the digital landscape. You need an SEO consultant who is a detail-oriented visionary. Never accept any less than that.
Are you a hands-on consultant? A Good SEO consultant can tell you what to do to make your business presence pop online. The SEO consultant YOU want to hire will roll up their sleeves and dig right in to your website, doing the work necessary to bring your numbers up.