9 Questions to Ask Before Hiring an SEO Company

If you are trying to learn more about search engine optimization (SEO) and hiring an SEO company for your business, then you have arrived at the right website.

Or you might still be thinking why do I need an SEO company?

After working at an SEO company and doing SEO since 2010 I have seen many bad and good SEO practices. In this article I will review the most important questions to ask your next SEO company.

As of today, 97% of people search online for a business. 75% of searches never go past page 1.

This means if your company is not even close to page 3 you are already losing thousands of dollars every year or more. Those sales are going to your competition on page 1 and 2.

All SEO companies are not created equal.

So how do you choose a SEO company?

Here are nine secrets you should ask or know about SEO companies before choosing one.

1. Leads should be your primary goal – If you are not getting leads from your website then this is the first thing you should be focused on. Many SEO companies like to focus on keyword rankings, and while those are very important, you want to make sure you are targeting the right keywords and messages that will help increase new lead generation. Many SEO companies will not offer you a strategy on how to scale up and grow into new territory because they are not focused on that. To make it worse, most don’t even care about if the marketing messages and images on your website are terrible. But here at Tampa Bay Marketing we are always looking for new ideas to help our customers expand, and if we see something that we think can be improved we will.
2. Will you focus on keyword research? – If you are ranking on page 1 of Google for a keyword that only has 10 searches a month, then you might want to focus on something that is more popular such as 500 searches a month, 9,000 searches, or more. You also don’t want to focus on ranking your website for generic terms like ‘plumber’ if you are a plumber company. You could, but this would be more of a long-term goal. You will have a better chance at ranking for long tail keywords, which are keywords that are more specific to your company. An example of this would be ‘Tampa Plumber’.
3. Will i get Keyword rankings and reports? – The next most important item on the list, is your SEO company working on keyword rankings? Most are today and is a common practice, but the trick is to also get new leads every month with the new keyword positions. So getting new leads and increasing your website rankings work together; like oil in a machine.
4. Original Content – Who is writing your website content? The content they write for you should be 100% original and pass Copy Scape scanning. If you ask for copy scape report and your SEO company does send it, be very weary. A Legitimate SEO company will always provide you with original content that passes copy scape standards. If your SEO company is not creating any content for you, then I would quickly be questioning what are they doing? This means creating blog articles, videos, images, and more. These are the things that make website content.
5. Focus on Content – Who is focusing on your content marketing strategy? and what is it? do you have a slogan? or some other technique to grab attention? If you are not thinking about the content that your customers want to see on your website then you are doing it wrong. You should be trying to do your best to answer questions they might have about your products and services. or at least the white hat SEO company you are looking to hire. The more resources and information your website has the more of a chancre your customers will stay on the website and contact you.
6. Monthly Reports – How often will you get updates? You should always get monthly reports of your status and keyword rankings. This is how you can see that the SEO company is giving you results, along with new leads and customers every month.
7. What is your long term marketing solution? PPC is not a good long term solution. Many SEO companies like to push PPC (pay per click) because it is a fast way they can make instant money with little effort. They simply set up your campaign with some keywords and manage it for you taking a 10-20% cut of the total bill every month. PPC can be good, but make sure it is not your long term solution, or your only solution. Make sure PPC is more of a short term solution for your business or a one-off thing for special ads and promotions. A good SEO company will focus on growing your website with natural, organic growth.
8. Will they do email marketing for you? Emails are a very strong back end for your company marketing campaign. Sending monthly email newsletters out to customers let’s them know you are still in business, and ready for action the next time they need your product or service. This helps keep your company in the back of your customers heads for the next time they need you. Email marketing has some of the highest percentages of conversation rates too, because you are selling to customers who are already familiar with your brand and know you.
9. How much do you know about our industry? SEO work is a little different for each industry. The better your SEO company knows about your industry and the terminology, the better.