12 Ways to Make Sure You Hire the Right SEO Company

If you’re a small business owner trying to take charge of your own SEO but not getting the results you want, it may be time to consider hiring an SEO professional. Unfortunately, there are a lot of shady players out there and it’s not hard to get drawn in by someone who promises you the world but ends up delivering next to nothing. That’s not to say that all SEO professionals are unreliable or out to get your money, but you’d be wise to do a little homework before hiring someone. Here are 12 ways to make sure you hire the right person:

1. Unobtainable Promises. Run away from any SEO professional who guarantees to get you a #1 ranking. No one can promise you that, and anyone who does so is most likely going to use unethical techniques to make it happen.

2. Get Recommendations. Talk to family, friends, and other business owners to find out who they’ve used and whether or not they were pleased with the results.

3. Inquire in Forums. If you don’t personally know someone who can give you a reliable recommendation, try posting on a webmaster forum. Forums aren’t as reliable as face-to-face recommendations, so be sure to follow up on any recommendations you get before hiring someone.

4. Do a Search. Type the name of the person or company you are researching into a search engine. If the subject you’re searching for has a bad reputation, you’ll know right away based on the results you get. But just because you don’t see anything bad doesn’t mean that the person or company is completely reliable.

5. Look at Examples. Before you hire anyone, ask to see samples of their past work and the names of clients. If a potential SEO professional claims that he or she can’t show you any examples or give you a name of a client, consider this a bright red flag.

6. Look at their PageRank. If their own PageRank isn’t at least a 4 or 5, then you should probably look somewhere else. If they can’t optimize their own page well, why expect that they will do a good job on yours?

7. Ask them about their techniques. If they use automated submissions or any black hat SEO practices, stay away. Those kinds of practices can get your site banned from the search engines. This means that you need to familiarize yourself with what black hat SEO is and how it is done.

8. Look at their Keywords. When interviewing a potential SEO professional or company, find out which keywords their site ranks for, then check out those keywords. If they don’t rank well, stay away. Like PageRank, if they can’t do a good job with their own keywords, they probably aren’t going to do a good job with yours.

9. Check out backlinks. Backlinks are one of the keys to internet marketing success. If the SEO professional gets backlinks from link farms, stay away. You only want links from reputable sites.

10. Talk in person. This is one of the best ways to get a gut feeling for whether or not you will work well with this person and whether or not this person is reliable.

11. Don’t rely on price alone. Budget SEO is expensive in the long run, but don’t be fooled into thinking that a high price tag guarantees great results, either.

12. Inquire about follow up. Does this professional continue to work with you to maintain your high ranking or does she get you a top ranking and then leave you high and dry to maintain it yourself? Chances are, you want someone who is going to be in this for the long haul, so avoid companies that are going to get you to the top and then leave you on your own.

Hiring an SEO expert or company is never a bad choice when it comes to the success of your company, just make sure to hire the right one by following these guidelines!

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12 Ways to Make Sure You Hire the Right SEO Company

12 Ways to Make Sure You Hire the Right SEO Company