How to Choose an SEO Consultant?

ASK SCOTT FOX - My recommendations for successfully finding and hiring the best SEO consultants to improve your site's search engine ranking:

Hello Scott,

First of all, we love your book "Internet Riches". It gives some great advice. We also look forward to reading your new book, e-Riches 2.0.

Our company was started in 2007 and we have built our customized website to a professional level and we are receiving orders online, which means customers are viewing our site. Herein lies our problem.

We have been working with a search engine/optimization marketing company which we are not entirely happy with as the optimization progress is too slow. The key to our growth and success is the search engine optimization. We know we need to find the right talent to push us forward to the next level to improve our page rankings and attract more customer traffic.

Can you give us advice on what to look for in an SEO company and how to find one we can trust?

Thank you for your time.

Regards,
Jessamyn A.

Scott Fox’s Answer

Hello Jessamyn,

Congratulations on the success of your e-commerce web site to date.

You are right that improving your site’s SEO can help increase your traffic. Unfortunately, you are also correct that it can be difficult to pick a reliable SEO consultant to help increase your search engine rankings.

Here are my recommendations for finding the best SEO consultants:

1. Be Patient: Improving search engine rankings takes time. Depending on the depth of the changes your SEO consultant has implemented, it could take 3-6 months before your site’s search engine results rankings stabilize.
2. Referrals: Hiring consultants presupposes that you are looking for a skill set that you don’t already have in-house. That makes it difficult to evaluate the claims of “experts” who by definition know technical subjects that you don’t. The best way to protect yourself is to get referrals from other small business owners with needs similar to yours.
3. Consultant References: Of course you should also ask the consultant for references and detailed examples of their own work. Note: Their case studies should be recent and public. SEO techniques change too quickly to claim credit for improving high search engine rankings 3 or 6 years ago. If they can't show you multiple examples of their clients’ web sites ranking on the first page of Google results TODAY, don’t believe their pitches.
4. Use a Marketplace to Collect SEO Project Bids: I don’t know how you found the SEO consultant that you are unhappy with, but going through an online marketplace can be helpful. Services like Elance.com show rankings and reviews of the consultants that use their service. Others like BuyerZone.com will let you collect bids/quotes from a variety of different vendors so you can compare them yourself.
5. Educate Yourself: The best defense is a good offense! How much do you know about SEO yourself? The underlying principles of SEO are really not that complicated. The more you know, the better client you’ll be.  You’re also likely to save thousands of dollars by asking better questions of the SEO consultants that pitch you. (I wrote a whole report on this that is designed to teach marketing people how to “speak” and "do" SEO effectively themselves. It’s called “Free SEO in Plain English.” If you read that, you’ll know more than most SEO consultants! It’s available here.)

I hope these tips are helpful. Your attention to improving your web site’s SEO rankings is a smart move that will help your e-business make more money online.

Best regards,
Scott Fox

p.s.  Thanks for your interest in my new book, e-Riches 2.0, too.  Order it now for special fr-ee bonuses AND my latest, best advice on marketing your business online!

p.p.s.  If you'd like to save thousands of dollars in SEO consultant fees, try learning the easy tactics that the professionals use.  My best-selling Special Report"Free SEO in Plain English" is available for instant download in the Scott Fox Shop right now.

Comments

[Jessamyn Anderson]

Thank you Scott for your helpful information and hints.

We are interviewing some SEO companies right now and the information you gave me is going to help tremendously.

I will keep you posted on how we are doing.

Thanks again!
Jessamyn

[Scott Fox]

Great!
Always happy to help.
Please do keep us posted on your SEO progress.
Best,
Scott Fox

[Greg]

Need E-riches in audiobook format? Is it available?

Greg

[Stefanie Hartman]

Great post. In this digital age more and more companies are making online marketing ap art of their game plan. Nice to have an article to help pick an SEO consultant.