What Do you Look for when hiring someone for SEO

I get asked to do SEO for people but the thing that irks me is when someone comes to me and ask for references.

That's like going to a restaurant and asking them to prove they know how to cook food. Buy something and find out. Don't seek me out and ask If I know how to do the work.

Very annoying type of people and I always turn down their SEO projects.

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My advice is start out with a small project, example, one keyword/webpage/URL, this way you can test the quality of work.

SEO is a slow process so don't base it on speed of SERP results.

You're going to get a wide variety on prices because there's people with different skill levels, expenses, etc...

Like always, you have to watch out for scammers which goes right back to what I said earlier, start out with a small project and see If the SEO provider is a good match.

Well, if your site has anything to do with Suboxone like your screen name, I would be very careful in who you hire and make sure they fully understand the industry or at least can comply with the directives you give them. They need to be very careful about any messaging being put out there.

The FTC has been majorly cracking down on companies in the opiate and related niches.

For that reason alone, I would stay away from any of the foreign SEO companies. Most of them throw a lot of junk out there, and if the FTC comes knocking, ultimately you are responsible.

Check the forum questions here. If they are from an seo you want to hire, forget 'em.

Any seo person who comes here and says, "So I have a client....and I need...." should be avoided.

Paul

Personally I don't mind outsourcing SEO overseas. It saves me money if I hire someone from the Philippines, for instance. I always choose my prospects very carefully, domestic or no.

For red flags, always stay from folks who say they can provide instant results and/or bring you straight to the front page results. SEO will always take time.

And yukon's right--start small and see if you their output's any good before you do anything else.

When hiring someone not in SEO in other field also you must check his/her skills on that profile and responding to your questions.

Like in any other field where there's a big discrepancy between the level of knowledge of the expert and the level of knowledge of the client, I would start with how well you understand the analysis or the quote of the expert.

Let's use an example of a financial planner. If he or she isn't able to explain me to a level where I understand why I should implement this or another solution, then I won't hire him or her.

After that, listen to your gut feeling. I know it might sound crazy but with the information that the professional gives you, your subconscious will be able to give you a feeling about the expert.

For the price, I think that pricing is inversely in proportion to the amount of education and research and development invested by the expert or the agency to follow Google's and other search engines evolution. They might outsource things (to reduce the price) but they are accountable for the results so they give specific instructions to their outsourcers.

The important is to have good results and a good R.O.I.!

Mostly referrals. I have some good old friends from forums. They are people who have tried various things as webmaster. It is always good to have a good reference than anything when you are selecting a service.

Always look for people with experience as they require little instructions and training. Or if you have the time, you can find someone with zero experience and train them. People who know little are the easiest to train. When you hire someone from Asian countries you can have someone work for you for at least 3 dollars an hour. When you find someone who promises instant results, walk away from that.

SEO isn't content, so I don't think it matter. If it includes content, make sure you have a writer with good understanding of the English language and your niche or you my struggle to get quality content that will rank now and in the future.

Many of the ultra expensive choices are outsourcing, so they are a middleman. However, they already have found the strategy and the workers to do the tasks, so you are paying them for the team they have built. It's not a get what you pay for type of thing, but there are benefits to paying a premium, in some cases.

Biggest red flag is Page one or spot one guarantees. They may get you there, but it won't last and it won't be done with white hat methods.

I also think those trying to build a ton of backlinks fast would be a red flag.

From a content writer's point of view, those only using shorter blog posts and content is a red flag for me. Longer content tends to rank better and Google is only going to get stricter about the minimum content length.

Warrior Forum, Fiverr, SEOClerks

This is a hard question to answer because you can find good SEO for pennies and good SEO for dollars. It really depends on what you're getting done for you and how much they are taking care of for the cost.

Test, test and test some more. Don't commit to anything more than a month until you see what they did and the results.

Benjamin Ehinger

Checking referrals and testimonials is a good way to go. Checking how long they've been in business is also important. But in the end, sometimes, hyou just have to take a chance with a small project and see if they deliver.

Make sure to hace a clear contract in place if you're spending large money - with clearly find deliverables and a scope of work laid out from the start. Ask them to talk you through exactly what SEO work they are going to do for you and how they expect it to bring your website any benefit. Then measure they're success based on that.

I don't hire for SEO, because SEO is a result, not a cause.

The cause of getting optimal search engine placement is simple - creating content that answers the questions your market is asking, and answering them better or more completely than anyone else.

So if you're going to hire anyone, hire a good researcher and writer. Know your market intimately and make sure you can provide the best answers to their questions.

The rest is noise, IMHO.

First of all
good knowledge of off page and on page optimization
and good experience in SEO field
He/she must know how to boost up the website ranking and get traffic in the website

The main aim of the current article is to convey a simple message: "SEO requires implementation of technical adjustments if the website". We are sure that the whole market will benefit from clients' awareness of this simple though. That is why we want to address to the agencies.

I'd say the bottom line is whatever they charge you, you need to be convinced that they can deliver profit to you that covers the expense with a decent margin. If they are asking for big bucks, then the onus is on them to convince you with reliable evidence.

I actually work as a Search Engine Strategist (so, SEO & PPC) and it's no easy task finding an agency that you can trust. Identifying an SEO company to contract your SEO work can be difficult.

• The first thing you should listen to is whether or not the agency or person is promising you #1. No one can promise that. If you hear someone say that, they're probably going to use some black hat method that will end up getting your website penalized.


• Next, listen to how they explain everything. If you start getting lost in the conversation you ask for just confuses you more - chances are they are just using buzzwords to get you to stop asking questions and start believing that they actually know what they are doing.


• Ask if they will give you a log of what has been completed. The last thing you want is to pay someone a boatload of money and not know what they've been doing. A good agency will give you a log of what they did and what they intend to do in the following weeks.


• If they can't provide any samples of work or just tell you what they think will work for your website - chances are they have little to no experience.


• & most importantly, how do they intend to show you results? Will they be providing a daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly report? What will that report details?

I know it's a bit of a read, but I hope this helps!

You should know good thread for SEO. You need good experiences when hiring someone for SEO.

I would like to hire someone acknowledges Google and does not shoot the breeze. Someone who is ethical in doing business.

The first thing I look for is the ability to write well since you usually need a fairly decent content piece in order to get good links. Then, of course, I want to know how they are going to go about acquiring links and their overall knowledge of on-page SEO. If their link acquisition consists of places they can place links, themselves, without any editorial review by another website, I know they will be worthless.

Someone I know really well and can vet personally, and someone my friends know really well and can vet personally. My web guy is my web guy because he satisfied both qualifications.

SEO specialist job is to do SEO inorganic way so if you are going to hire SEO specialist you can expect the traditional things that he or she will do on regular basis as per my experience. If you are going to select professional for your company or a website SEO then you need to test their technical skills on page optimization, off page Optimization. They should have some article writing skills, they should have some creative content building techniques. So if you test their creative skills then you will get some idea on how they are thinking and how they are suggesting solutions to bring rank to your website. If they are unable to explain in a professional way on how much time does it takes, how to go ahead and promoting your website online and it is shows that lacking of their knowledge. If you are a small business owner then learn from online or do it yourself. It saves your money, it saves your time and you will learn more about SEO. If you are an organisation then better to take an experienced person and under him that should be 2 juniors that way it works fine and always keep it in mind that we should have 1 core competitive titles that's called search terms popular search terms will give it to your SEO person.

10 Questions to Ask
1. May I have a list of current and past clients?
2. How will you improve my search engine rankings?
3. Do you adhere to search engines' webmaster guidelines?
4. Can you guarantee my website will achieve a number-one ranking on Google, Bing and Yahoo?
5. Are you experienced at improving local search results?
6. Will you share with me all changes you make to my site?
7. How do you measure the success of your SEO campaigns?
8. How will we communicate and how often?
9. What are your fees and payment terms?
10. What happens when we part ways?

wow to some of the answers in this thread. You can certainly see why its hard to hire a SEO.

OP I can only go by those I know from experience know at least some SEO so if you are wondering whose advice to take its

MikeF, Yukon and Dave (and in that order).


and for the record Yukon was being very sarcastic with agreeing with "if you build it they will come". Thats fairy tale SEO.

Yours is a tough one and I am going to bet 90% of those who you have a resume for will have no clue how to do SEO for you. Pharma requires a different skill set as most webmasters will NOT link to you with keywords in your niche regardless if Suboxone isn't in that bad category of pharma. It just has a link spam reputation so general webmasters leave it alone.


Despite what you have heard I don't think this is a build general content for links search result niche. Its a work your rear end off doing outreach search result niche. The SEO needs to work the industry with email and other outreach to get those in the industry to link to you (they will where others won't).

Mark the low end of your list - sub $500 is likely to give you link spam or not the in-industry links you will need . Maybe starting at $500 if they are really hungry but starting should really be in $1000+ if you want a good job done because of the work done to do it right.

In my opinion, outsourcing the SEO project is the best option you can have rather than hiring the individual as there are number agencies but rely on that company or agency which delivers results. You should be very clear about results and select your own keywords related to your service through ahref tool and pick those keywords which have high searches and very less Keyword difficulty less that 30.

My two cents -

Firstly ask them one simple question - Can you rank my website within a week or a month?
If they say yes - don't ever hire them as no-one can guarantee google rankings now a days in 1 month and SEO if a continuous process.

Secondly, ask for their existing customer references.

Before even looking for candidates, make sure you have absolute clarity on what is up for the business by adding more team members. Why are you hiring? What difference is it expected to make?
Build a job description that focuses on getting candidates excited about your company, your strategy, why it matters at all what you're doing. Include specifics about what kind of responsibility the job seeker will have. You don't have to list required skills. Candidates will know if they have what it takes to fulfill the responsibility. Most importantly give a clear sense of what it's like to work on your team. How are decisions made? What if ther are conflicts? How are they handled? What are the growth and learning opportunities available?