I get junk emails like this all the time. I’m sure you do too. One of the most irresponsible things you can do as a website owner / administrator is to hire the cheapest person you can find to conduct your online marketing campaign. It’s your business, your livelihood People depend on you. Your growth can explode through long term, strategic placement online. An SEO for $6 isn’t going to do anything but get you in trouble.
Some tips for selecting an SEO:
- Ask for at least three references, but two good ones should suffice
- Ask about their past experience with your product / service
- Ask how they build quality links for your site
- Ask how long they’ve been an SEO
- Ask how they test their theories
- Ask how they keep a site’s link profile looking natural
- Ask what SEO forums they read, then check them out for yourself
- Ask how they manage link anchor text distribution to keep a link profile looking natural
- Ask what conferences they attend (hint: “I don’t go to any” is the WRONG answer)
- Ask if the person you are talking to will manage your campaign, or if you’ll get handed off to a novice-level account manager
- How was it they said they build links again?
- Ask their opinions of recent big changes in Google
- Ask what other services their company offers (you want a specialist, not SEO as an “add-on” service they offer)
- Did their company start out as an SEO firm, or something else, like design?
- Ask how long they’ve been conducting PPC campaigns
- Ask how long the actual administrator of your account has been doing things
- Ask how much of their offering is actually white-labeled, outsourced work performed on their behalf by cheap foreign labor
- Ask if they’re sure they don’t buy links
If you don’t get the answers you want, or the person you are talking to sounds shady, you aren’t on the phone with us. Give us a call, and let some real pros that handle everything in-house launch a campaign that will increase your traffic and sales.
