Five main points to consider before hiring an SEO agency

Hiring an SEO company or agency to improve your search engine rankings is not a decision to be taken lightly. You should do extensive research and get proposals from a few different agencies before making a decision. You also need to ask a few questions about what strategies they will be working on and if there is something that doesn’t sound right to you, it is good to look for another agency.

Here are five main points to consider before hiring an SEO agency:

1. Request a list of your past and current clients: A reputable SEO company should be open to sharing a list of their former clients. These references can help you gauge how effective they are and you’ll know that the person did the specific job on the SEO campaigns. Also, your clients may not give you specific analysis, but they should be able to tell you if they saw a positive impact on your rankings and gain audience.
2. How will my search engine rankings improve? Stay away from SEO agencies that don’t discuss their methods in detail. They should explain all the strategies they are going to employ to increase your website’s ranking, as well as estimate how long it might actually take to achieve the SEO goals you agreed upon.
3. Do you adhere to the web master guidelines of the search engines? Do you want a consultant who strictly adheres to Google’s webmaster practices? If a candidate doesn’t follow those guidelines, her website could be exiled to very low search engine rankings or, worse yet, Google may ban her from search results altogether.
4. Are they guaranteeing good results? Any SEO agency cannot guarantee a no. 1 position or any position in the search engine results in a few weeks. SEO algorithms and strategies change frequently and the SEO company has to keep up with all those changes. While they give you an example of what they’ve accomplished for their other client, it’s not a certainty that you’ll get the same position. If any agency is guaranteeing you results, look for another company.
5. How is the SEO campaign measured? To measure the success of your SEO efforts, you need to track how much traffic is being sent to your website and where it is coming from. Consultants must be able to use Google Analytics to track website improvement.

Be sure to ask how often they will provide you with these analytics and how they use this data to continually improve your rankings and traffic, both. So, if you are looking to hire an SEO company as well, make sure you follow all the points mentioned above to find the right one.