Things To Consider Before Hiring An SEO Firm

Google offers some good advice on its webmasters/site owners help page about hiring a search engine optimization firm.

The company says that a good time to hire an SEO firm is when you are planning a site redesign. Google also says a good SEO can help improve an existing site as well.

Here are some questions to consider before paying an SEO company to improve your results:

Can you show me examples of your previous work and share some success stories?

Do you follow the Google Webmaster Guidelines?

Do you offer any online marketing services or advice to complement your organic search business?

What kind of results do you expect to see, and in what time frame? How do you measure your success?

What’s your experience in my industry?

What’s your experience in my country/city?

What’s your experience developing international sites?

What are your most important SEO techniques?

How long have you been in business?

How can I expect to communicate with you? Will you share with me all the changes you make to my site, and provide detailed information about your recommendations and the reasoning behind them?

Google warns to be careful about SEO firms that send you email unsolicited as they are likely not legitimate.

It also cautions people to not fall for claims that guarantee a #1 ranking on Google. From Google’s help page: “There is no priority submit for Google. In fact, the only way to submit a site to Google directly is through our Add URL page or by submitting a Sitemap and you can do this yourself at no cost whatsoever.”

Google offers more information here. If you don’t want to hire an SEO firm right now there are plenty of free tools to be found online. This is a good place to start.