WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERISTICS OF A GOOD SEO CONSULTANT?
Are you doing the right thing when it comes to hiring an SEO consultant?
Some of you are already aware that businesses have suffered tremendously after devoting a huge share of their budget to offshore SEO which achieved nothing less than spreading spammy links about their brands across the web. So what can you do to avoid SEOs like these? Read on to find out more about the things you need to consider before accepting an SEO consultant’s pitch:
An SEO consultant knows what to do about your predicament.
Can the SEO consultant explicitly explain how he or she does his or her job? Any good SEO consultant should be able to clearly explain to you how they go about their SEO methodology. Otherwise, they may just be bluffing their way into winning you as a new client.
What materials does the SEO consultant need from you to make his or her strategies work? The consultant should be able to give you an idea of how much effort and resources are needed on your part to pull off the SEO strategy. It’s understandable for some input to be requested from you, but then you shouldn’t be doing all the work. Understanding how much work is needed can help you determine whether the initiative is profitable or not.
An SEO consultant cares about quality and trust.
How does the consultant’s work/portfolio compare with spammers’? Does your consultant explain to you how the risks of doing SEO and whether the returns are long-term or not? Many SEOs try to incorporate black-hat or gray-hat techniques that could provide short-term but outstanding ROIs but may ruin your business’s online rankings in the future. You need to be aware of the consequences of such techniques before playing the game.
Will you be given access to your accounts? A good SEO consultant will provide you admin access to all accounts, profiles or pages he or she has created for you. He or she will not take over full ownership of your accounts. After all, it’s your right to have it since you’re practically paying for the consultant’s SEO services. The consultant will also assure you that the accounts are yours and will be handed back to you if the SEO service contract ends.
An SEO consultant can provide measurable results.
Can the SEO consultant provide you a ballpark figure for ROIs? An honest to God consultant will be able to come up with an ROI estimate based on specific metrics no matter what. A great SEO consultant should be able to translate “page views” or “ranking increase” to ROIs as well.
What metrics does the consultant use? One way of knowing if your consultant is legit is if they can present to you the different types of metrics they use to measure their SEO campaign’s effectiveness. These metrics can prove to you whether their strategies worked and should include items like ranking and traffic analytics, referrals, as well as figures for increased inbound communication and sales. The consultant should also provide you a weekly or monthly report of how your business is doing on the web.
We hope the details above can help you determine whether a consultant is worth hiring or not. You cannot be too careful these days, with Google implementing algorithm updates without warning. Remember that you should be able to take advantage of these algorithm updates, not the other way around.