Choosing the Right SEO Professionals: 5 Questions to Ask

As small business owners or entrepreneurs, one of the most important aspects doing business online is marketing. After all, without marketing no one would find our websites to purchase our products & services. But the sad truth of online marketing is that most entrepreneurs don't know or understand the fundamental concept of getting their websites found - search engine optimization (or SEO). Whether because they're too business with business to take the time to learn about SEO, or because they don't have the necessary tools & experience, most small business owners & entrepreneurs opt to hire a "professional" SEO firm or specialist. But more often than not, uneducated and unsuspecting entrepreneurs get roped into services that either give them nothing for their money or cause them to suffer worse consequences such as bans or blacklistings from the major search engines. So how do you avoid the traps set by less-than-honest SEO specialists and ensure that you're getting your money's worth? Always do your research, and be sure to ask each potential these 5 questions to safeguard your website & reputation!

• Do you prefer to start with paid search or natural search?Most firms would argue that starting with paid search makes more sense because there is opportunity to determine & test profitable keywords and key phrases before applying them to organic or natural search efforts. They will also argue that starting with organic search first is more profitable (but less effective) from the perspective of the SEO specialist, and therefore not in the best interest of you, the client. In theory, starting with paid search is not a bad idea. The problem is that not all entrepreneurs or small business owners have the budget to invest in initially or maintain a successful paid search campaign. Not to mention, extensive keyword research can be done without investing in paid search. In my opinion, good SEO firms & specialist should always be more focused on helping you rank high in organic or natural search results, not paid search listings. The reason is because over time, organic search results will yield the more consistent and more targeted results for less cost to you. Paid search will continiue to cost you in order to maintain top positions, and costs may even increase over time.

• How extensively do you perform keyword research and what do you consider the most important factors in that research? Good SEO firms & specialists should go so far as to research your target audience & direct competitors for good keyword candidates. Once that's done, it's important to look at average search volume, competition, average search trends for the past year and of course, relevancy. The average search volute & trends can show you how often your chosen keywords or key phrases have been searched for within the past month and how searches have varied in the past year. This can help you determine patterns to schedule your marketing campaigns around, as well as at which points in the year to focus more on other keywords or key phrases. Looking at competition for your chosen keywords can help you to find niches - keywords or key phrases which have high average search volume with little to no competition. Of course, no professional should suggest using keywords that aren't as relevant as possible just to outperform competition. The key thing to remember is that your most important keywords (the most important 2 or 3, that is) should be present in your meta tags and prominent in your content. This is partly how search engines like Google & Yahoo rate how relevant a site is. It's also helpful to have at least one of your main keywords in your domain. If a potential SEO firm or specialist isn't offering details on this process, steer clear!

• How do you test & measure results? Your potential SEO firms or specialists should have a detailed format for this process, and be able to easily explain and/or demonstrate this process to you. Many of the good firms I've seen offer live, online demos conducted by one of their specialists. Others offer white papers for download so that you can do research ad your leisure. While most paid search or PPC (pay per click) providers offer detailed reporting in the form of charts & percentages, it's a bit harder to test with organic search results. For efforts dealing with organic search, I suggest attaching some type of ad-tracker link so that you know which organic search results (using which keywords/key phrases or in the case of sites meant solely for direct sales, which sales come from where) brought what traffic.

• How do you submit your clients' websites to the search engines? Hint: hand submissions and automatic submissions are not the best (or favored) way submit your website to search engines like Yahoo & Google. Most search engines prefer to get a "vote of confidence" for your site from another site that is already indexed and ranking well. This will yield the best and fastest results when it comes to search engine inclusion. Note whether your potential SEO firms & specialists offer the above services or offer alternatives to help you build links from quality sites that are already indexed. Remember that the search engines prefer to see a link to your site from currently high-ranking sites. So if link-building alternatives are offered, be sure that the sites that will be linking to your site are currently indexed (simply perform a search to find out), relevant to your topic and have a decent rank (a Google PageRank of at least 5 or higher, or placement in at least the top 10-15 search results for common keywords).

• Have you ever engaged in the purchase or renting of links? This is a very important question. While purchasing links to your site was acceptable just a few years ago, Google specifically is now cracking down severely on paid links into your site. The reason is because search engines prefer to provide search results that are relevant and naturally "voted for" by other quality sites. Anyone can purchase links, but that doesn't make their site any more relevant or high-quality in terms of search results. Steer clear of SEO firms or specialists who encourage you to purchase or rent links. This practice could result in getting your site banned or blacklisted, either for a period of time or indefinitely, and you DON'T want that!

There are many more questions you should ask, but these will get you off to a good start in your search. The best advice I can give of course is to learn the tricks of the trade yourself. Not only is search engine optimization a useful skill that can benefit you in many more areas than just developing a website, learning to do it yourself can also save you hundreds (maybe even thousands) of dollars that would otherwise be paid to a professional. Remember that for any SEO campaign to be successful, you need to know and truly understand your target audience. Once you've got that down, remember that the most important element of your campaign will be your keyword research. Knowing how to choose keywords properly and then knowing how and where to apply those keywords effectively isn't a hard skill to learn, but it takes some time, effort and trial & error. There are tons of courses & free tools out there to help you along with this process. Just remember to do ample research before spending your hard-earned money, and whenever there is an opportunity to learn how to improve your business yourself, take it! It will save you time & money, and broaden your skillset for the future!