(Newswire.net — September 4, 2018) — Google matters. If you don’t rank well on Google these days, you’re probably falling behind. That’s even more important as voice search begins to pick up. But if you’re not a search engine optimization wizard yourself, you’re probably going to have to hire someone to help.
And that’s where a lot of people run into trouble.
The market is absolutely saturated with SEO firms. Some are good. Some are bad. Some are mediocre. Some are downright scams
How do you know you’ve found the right one? Can you see the signs? Here’s how to know when you’ve finally found the right one.
1) They Care About You and Your Business
The first thing you need to ascertain when you sit down with an SEO firm is this: do they care about you and your business?
A good SEO firm begins by ascertaining exactly what it is you do, what’s important to you, who your competitors are, and what your competitive advantage is. They’ll ask detailed questions about the nature of what you do, ask what your goals are, what your needs are and what you want to accomplish.
When you’re talking to your prospective SEO firm, make sure that they’re asking the right questions. If they aren’t—if you sit down and they’re pitching you without any thought to what your specific needs are—you’re going to want to go in a different direction.
If their focus is personal and customized to your business, you’ve found a company that’s working in the right direction. Bonus points if they’re willing to educate you on some of the details, too.
2) They Have Concrete Plans On How to Address Your Goals
You’ve made your goals clear to your prospective SEO consultant, right?
When you’re getting ready to hire an SEO consultant, you need to have an idea of what your goals are, and when you sit down to talk with them about specifics they should have a clearly-defined plan that addresses your needs and concerns. Depending on how ambitious you were with your goals, they may even tell you that some are unrealistic.
There should be specific components and milestones to the plan, and a realistic timetable on when they can be achieved.
3) Their References Check Out
Make sure you get references from any SEO consulting firm that you’re thinking of hiring. Use the references, too—call them. Ask for details. How did they get the job done? How communicative were they? Were there clearly-defined objectives and a road map for how to accomplish them? What were the results, and did they last?
Focus on references from companies in a similar field to the one you’re in.
According to Josh Steimle, founder of MWI, “Without being able to see the future, the best way an SEO firm can answer this question is to show you that they’ve gotten the job done for other clients just like you. If you run a self storage company, and you talk to an SEO firm that has done work with 10 other self storage companies, and they’ve all had good results, then that’s a reasonably good predictor they’ll be successful working with your company.”
If their references speak well of them, you’ll have a good idea of whether or not they can do the job you’re hiring them to do.
4) They Don’t Make Outlandish, ‘Pie-In-the-Sky’ Claims
What sort of outlandish claims are we talking about?
“Rank #1 in [generic search term] within 6 months!”
“We’ll get you to the top of the search rankings for [generic search term] guaranteed!”
“Results in 30 days or less!”
They understand that it takes anywhere between four months to a year for your optimization to really pay dividends. They understand that unless you’ve been building for a long time, it’s very hard to rank highly for a generic search term. They understand that you’ll need to focus on phrases and keywords that are specific to your business and your field.
In short, the perfect SEO consultant for your business isn’t going to sell you a load of sensational claims. They’ll give you a reasonable estimate of what they can definitely, what’s only possible and what sort of timetable you’ll be looking at.
Avoid firms that try to blind you with hyperbolic claims.
5) They Understand SEO’s Place In Your Business
Search engine optimization and search engine marketing are only one part of a successful business strategy, and good SEOs realize this. If they’re asking about what other promotions you have going and other ways to drive traffic to your website, or how to make the content that’s on your site better for human eyes, they’re a keeper.
Good SEO isn’t just good for Google. It’s good for people—the best firms realize this.
They also realize when it’s not worth it for you to plow resources into something that won’t help that much—if you’re moving up one ranking six pages deep on a very competitive search term, they’re not going to recommend you plow resources into it.
When you find a company that fulfills all five of these criteria, hold onto them. They’re conscientious. They’ve done their research. They’re competent, and they’re not selling you on hyperbole. And they understand SEO’s place in the overall mix of things your business is doing.
That’s the perfect SEO firm for your business.