Search engine optimization is an important part of online marketing that enhances the way your website is seen by search engines such as Google and Yahoo. Without SEO, your website would never show up when relevant keywords are typed on search engines.
While SEO can be a DIY project, it can be complex and tedious. This is because SEO involves a lot of moving parts working together to ensure your site is not only appearing on top pages, but is also user friendly. A good and effective way to go about SEO is to hire a specialist.
Website and SEO packages can be offered by agencies, freelancers or in-house specialists. Agencies are made up of people that specialize in various fields of online marketing and offer their services to a larger group of clients. Freelancers are individuals who offer their services without necessarily having to be part of a company or SEO agency. In-house SEO specialists are hired by companies to work in their IT department and handle all their marketing campaigns. The one to choose usually depends on budget and individual preference.
Questions to Ask Before Hiring SEO services
SEO services will make or break a website. A reliable service can help improve your website’s ranking on search engines in just a few weeks while a bad service can lower your ranking or even get you penalized and banned by search engines. To help you make an informed decision, here are some questions to ask before settling for any website and SEO packages.
What’s your Experience and can you Provide References?
It is important that you find a service provider that has been around for a while and one that is willing to provide references you can contact to learn more about the services they received. Go for services with at least three years of experience and do some digging on two or three of the references they provide you with.
How do you Intend to Improve my Ranking?
It is important that you have a clear understanding on the processes that will be used to optimize your site. Most reliable services will start by analyzing your website for existing issues that could be holding it back from achieving a high ranking. After this, the specialist will advise on the best actions to take to help rank your site higher on search engine result pages.
Do you Always Adhere to Google’s Best Practices?
Finally, Google introduces up to 500 algorithm changes each year. In order to improve and maintain a good ranking, you’d have to not only keep up with all the changes but also adhere to the rules set up by Google. Find someone that is well updated and one that strictly uses white hat processes when optimizing your website.
