Questions to ask an SEO Company

    As promised, here are the questions you should be asking your potential SEO Company or SEO consultant. Some of these queries not only help you gather more information about the company, but will also help you determine if they will be employing any SEO techniques that are generally not beneficial to your company or to your site.

    Keep in mind that some websites can get penalized because of certain techniques that SEO Company’s use. To save yourself from this trouble, don’t be afraid to grill your SEO Company with these inquiries.

1. How long have you been operating as an SEO company?

    Included in this question should be about their references, companies they have done SEO for, and reviews or ratings by experts and critics. Normally, a long term SEO company already has mastered the ropes and will stand by their good reputation.

    Again, don’t be hesitant to do your own digging about additional info on your SEO company. Google their company name, or even ask them about they keywords they themselves use to optimize their website. You can also request for verifiable documents or websites that vouch for the quality of their services.

    If possible, ask for a list of clients that can vouch for their excellent services, and determine if your potential SEO consultant or SEO company with help you and your website fare better against your competitors.

2. What techniques do you use for optimizing websites or web pages?

    As discussed in previous chapters, there are several means by which SEO can be done on a website. It pays to find out how well your SEO Company will be using these said techniques and tools. Will they be integrating RSS into your site? Are they going to work on more than one page? These are questions you should ask.

    Will they also be providing additional content creation for your site? Aside from the text that you have provided about your products and services, will they be making relevant content and key-word rich text for your web pages? This will be a big help to you, especially if you have your hands full with other business matters.

    It is essentially important to know if your SEO Company adheres to a strict no-spam policy. Remember that there is more than one way to make a site optimized for search engines, and some of those ways are unconventional and can get your site penalized by your web host or the search engine.

3. How do you perform keyword research?
Keywords are fuels that drive how well a website can perform against its competitors within the same business industry or internet niche. The right keyword research should be done in a timely and efficient manner.

    Know that there are a lot of internet tools that are paid for or free, which many SEO companies can use to determine the strengths or weaknesses of keywords. One example is Google Adwords, as mentioned in previous chapters already.

    Since you, as the client, cannot easily determine what the best keywords to be used for your sites are, you need to rely on the research done by your SEO Company. You have to ask them on what stats and data will they be basing their choices for the strongest keywords you can use to optimize your site. Also note that keyword strength can change from time to time, so find out if your SEO company will be making due adjustments as well.

4. Aside from working on my website, what other services can I expect from you?

    Your SEO Company should constantly be providing you with updates on the status or rank of your website. You should be getting reports on how well your site is doing when it comes to search engine results and the number of visitors to your site. Find out how often you will be receiving these traffic reports or ranking updates, and how reliable their stats will be.

    Plus, they may also perform additional research on competitors of your company or your site, to find out how they optimize their sites for search engines.

    If ever you ask you SEO Company whether they will be working with your competitors, and they say yes, don’t be surprised. It can be a tough task for you to exclusively have the services of that SEO Company. It is to your discretion as to how well you and your SEO Company can delineate between your preferences and that of your competitors.

5. Will you be making changes to the content or design of my current website?

    In order for a website to be a best candidate for high search engine rankings and SEO, there may need to be changes that your SEO firm or SEO consultant of choice needs to do. This can be in the form of rephrasing some of your text to integrate keywords, adjusting image sizes for faster loading, or even the page names or file names that you use in your website.

    As mentioned in earlier chapters, certain elements of a website can spell the difference between a good enough number of visitors, and a huge number of visitors.

    Whatever changes need to be done, it is always ideal that you and your SEO Company talk things out so that both your expectations are achieved, and that your goals are similarly accomplished.

6. Have you gotten a site penalized recently?

    The best answer that you should hope to receive from your SEO company is “no.” Getting a website penalized means that your SEO consultant may be resulting to non-recommended strategies for SEO, such practices that are against the webmaster guidelines imposed by major search engines like MSN, Yahoo, or Google.

    What does it mean when your site is penalized? Simply put, your website and the web pages along with it will not be indexed by the search engines, and are unlikely to be listed among search results.

    Note that some of the ways that can get your site penalized is when your SEO firm is using hidden text, hidden links, and other methods that lead to spam. Be sure you know how to gauge and compare an SEO firm that had a site penalized 3 years ago, compared to an SEO consultant that had a site penalized one month ago.

7. Do you use hidden text or hidden links?

    With this question, be sure that the answer that your SEO company or SEO consultant will give you is no. There are adverse consequences to using hidden text or hidden links.

    It will be wise to avoid SEO companies that make inclusions in your site that will be harmful in the long run. There are SEO companies that use unconventional methods of placing items in a site that are not meant for a visitor to see. Unfortunately, search engines can detect these anomalies, such as hidden text or hidden pages, and may even qualify your site for spam and penalize you.

    Hidden text or hidden links are sometimes colored in the same manner as your background, so a visitor can’t see the repetitive terms, but the search engine can grab the keywords. In some cases, according to sources, SEO companies hide these links or text behind pictures or other graphics. Keep in mind that search engines are becoming more efficient in detecting these unconventional SEO tricks, so be sure your SEO company only uses legitimate methods and will not get you in trouble.

8. How much traffic will I expect on my site?

    SEO consultants may have to give you ballpark estimates on website traffic as part of their sales pitch. But the truth is, there can be no guarantees as to how much traffic you can expect to come into your site for a month or a year.

    It will be better if your SEO consultant or SEO Company honestly explains to you about how they can work on achieving your expectations for your site, instead of telling you a figure such as, “In two weeks, expect 20,000 to 60,000 hits on your website.”

    If possible, ask them if they can provide you statistics or trends on traffic as seen on the websites of other clients they have worked on. This will be a more realistic presentation as compared to giving you promises that may not be very possible at all.

9. What kind of ranking would you guarantee my website?

    Similar to what was asked in number 8, your selected SEO Company should not be able to easily answer this query. For sure, you can not be guaranteed a number one rank, especially on major search engines like Yahoo or Google.

    Even Google has made a statement that they offer no special treatment to websites that are handled by specific SEO companies or SEO consultants. There have been reports that some of these companies claim to have special ties with Google, and that they are more guaranteed of higher search engine ranks as compared to their competitors.

    Again, do not believe outrageous promises. Your SEO consultant should at least give you methods or indications on how they can assure you that you will have satisfactory search engine rankings.

10. What is expected of me?

    If you want to have a good relationship with your SEO Company, you should not be the only one telling them your expectations. Of course, your participation on the endeavor will be very much needed, and you are not just a source of funding.

    SEO consultants may ask you to provide them with the site content, such as your company profile, certain articles you want to come out, testimonials from previous clients, and the like. If your site is an e-commerce site, you should provide your SEO consultant with product pictures and descriptions.

    Keep in mind that you may have to spend additional if you will be hiring content writers or even SEO copywriters as mentioned in the previous chapters. Your SEO goals will be more effectively met if you do your best as the client and help out your SEO company in any way you can.

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