How to Choose the Right SEO Consultant for Your Business

SEO consultants cover a wide-ranging subject area through their role, from finding coding issues in your website that are causing slow load speeds and cart abandonment to increasing the popularity of your site with search engines through link building campaigns. Because Search Engine Optimization is a relatively new industry, SEO experts come from varied backgrounds. Each consultant’s background and route into SEO will have an impact on their preferred mode of optimization method. An SEO expert’s fundamental role is to better your website rank for various keywords within Google and other search engines.

Search engine companies such as Google are extremely adept at identifying websites that have been using underhanded (otherwise known as black hat) SEO techniques with the intention of manipulating search engine rankings. Often, penalties for bad practice of this kind will result in a temporary ranking penalty until changes are made, but in the worst case, a site can be completely de-indexed from a search engine. There are good consultants and of course, there are bad ones, just as there are in any other profession. To help you to hire the right one and avoid penalties, the following pointers should be useful to you.

SEO Best Practices Checklist

Does the SEO consultant keep in line with SEO search engine guidelines and best practices? You will find that search engine companies issue guidelines relating to the way websites should be built and marketed. They also publish a clear list of practices that are not deemed acceptable and will attract penalties. Be sure that your SEO expert follows the relevant search engine guidelines and practices only ‘white hat’ SEO.

You need a SEO expert who can offer you results with a long-lasting impact. It would be awful if your ranking suddenly dropped a month or so after hiring an SEO expert or to have your rankings fluctuate erratically. This could give clients a negative perception of your business and impair your reputation, not to mention hinder your sales. Question your consultant regarding their optimization method to ensure that they adopt a methodical and tested approach to the SEO of your site.

Buyer Keywords vs Information Keywords

Are their chosen strategies going to appeal to web users? Websites should be optimized for web users prioritized rather than concentrating solely on the search engine rankings. Websites should be designed to give visitors to the site the best possible experience. Don’t forget that the purpose of your site is to satisfy the needs of your site visitors. The majority of SEO experts are happy to offer examples of websites that they have already optimized successfully, visit them and gauge the quality of your experience.

Quality or quantity? The quantity of your site visitors is not equal to the importance of the quality of visitor. 100 site visitors and ten sales are more advantageous than 1000 visitors and no purchases. It is extremely crucial to choose the right keywords for your SEO campaign. Say for instance you trade blue colored Widgets. Favorable optimization of your site for ‘Widgets’ thanks to your SEO campaign may attract large amounts of traffic to your website but if the visitors are only interested in yellow Widgets, you are not likely to benefit from an increase in sales. In optimizing your website for ‘Blue Widgets’ you are far more likely to increase sales.

Types of Services Provided by Your SEO Consultant

What kind of services are provided by the SEO? It is essential to know precisely what services the SEO is going to carry out. There are many consultants who offer clients an advisory role and having looked at and assessed your site will write a detailed report telling you exactly what you need to do to make your site rank well. That isn’t a problem if you have a development team available, but less helpful if you do not. Other consultants take care of the entire campaign from beginning to end.

What to Pay Your Consultant

What will you pay for this service? While this might be an obvious question, it is a complicated one too. When comparing quotes, ensure to compare the services that are being offered like for like. What is the customary cost to optimize a site similar to your own? If a consultant guarantees a number one position, be wary because they cannot guarantee this totally.

You get what you pay for.

Do You Get a Good Feeling from The SEO Agency?

How friendly are you and the consultant? You don’t have to be best friends, but a good working relationship will go a long way to making your SEO campaign more successful. With SEO there are occasions when a consultant will either just do enough to fulfill their contract or go all out to achieve great results. If you possess a great working relationship with your SEO consultant and are friendly with each other, it is sure to promote the best possible results.

Check out http://theboulderSEOexpert.com for a great example of a talented SEO consultant.