What is SEO?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is an umbrella term for the process of helping people find and discover content on the web.
Search engines use algorithms to determine what is relevant, useful and interesting to their users, and how to present it to them. These algorithms are often used to create and display the best possible search results and serve up information people want to see.
Google and the other search engines, as well as other online marketing tools, are built to work together to help people discover, learn and find information, and to deliver the best possible search results to them.
Hiring A Company To Handle Your SEO
The digital marketing landscape has expanded a lot over the years but the fact is that search engines still remain the driving force behind online success.
While social media and email marketing have the potential to bring a lot of traffic, no business can survive by ignoring their presence on the search engine. A strong first-page presence on the search engine result pages is essential to get highly targeted traffic actively looking for the products or services you are selling.
Limited space on the first page of search results means extremely high competition and you need to hire the services of a professional and experienced SEO company to get your website ranked only on the first page of search results for terms related to your business.
However, not all the SEO companies are the same and here is a list of some of the important questions you need to ask before hiring them to get the best value for your money.
Techniques They Use
The first question you should ask them should be about the techniques they use to achieve rankings for their clients. As a business owner, it is important for you to understand that search engine optimization is a double-edged sword. It can do a lot of good for your business by achieving high rankings for your website but partnering with the wrong company can do a lot more harm.
There are all kinds of SEO techniques. Some companies use outdated techniques that provide a ranking boost in the short-term but does a lot more harm in the long term. If search engines discover these techniques being used on your website, your website will be punished in the rankings.
There have been cases where websites have been completely removed from the index by search engines. Therefore, you need to make sure that they only use legitimate techniques that are approved by the search engines.
The industry term for approved & legitimate strategies is white hat SEO. It simply means they won’t indulge in any practices that are likely to get your website penalized. It is also important to realize that white hat SEO takes time to deliver results.
In-house Work or Outsourced
Some SEO companies outsource various aspects of their business due to lack of staff or other reasons. This is typical of web design companies that also offer search engine optimization services to their clients. Since they do not have any optimization experts in their staff, they tend to outsource everything.
You need to know whether the staff working on your website is someone who is aware of the latest techniques. Simply put, you want to know whether the person working on your website knows what they’re doing and whether they follow the best SEO practices.
Result Tracking
Professional agencies understand the importance of keeping their clients aware of the changes they have made and the results they have obtained through their efforts. They constantly communicate with the clients to keep them aware of the things they are doing to achieve higher rankings. In other words, they closely track their efforts and the results achieved through those efforts.
You should ask the prospective SEO partner about how they track results and what kind of reports they are going to share with you regularly to allow you to keep track of their work.
If a company does not want to share reports or shies away from communicating with you, stay away from such companies and start looking for another one.
Existing Clients
Ask them about some of the other clients they have. It will tell you a lot about their experience, especially when it comes to your industry.
SEO also varies by industry and industry knowledge is extremely important as things work differently in each industry. Successful SEO companies typically work with businesses across various industries which gives them the necessary experience to achieve success for clients in a completely different industry.
Simply put, you should ask them to share the results they have obtained for other clients, especially in your industry to make sure that they can deliver on their promises.
Conclusion
Overall, search engine optimization is dynamic. Things keep changing every other day. Therefore, you need to do your homework and spend some time researching various SEO companies before choosing to partner with the right one. Make use of the above-mentioned tips in order to choose the right SEO company.