Many local business owners commonly outsource their SEO services to experts. This is all well and good, until you find out that the person you hired isn’t an expert at all. You should know that there are, unfortunately, many internet marketing companies masquerading as SEO experts. Here’s some advice that could save you the time, money and grief that come with falling for inexperienced marketers.
- Talk to the expert – It may sound obvious, but businesses commonly make too many assumptions about the company they’re doing business with. Get the person who will actually be performing the service on the phone rather than buying “ready made packages” online that often won’t meet your business goals. Once you have the person on the phone, you’ll be able to tell pretty quickly if they’re using big words or long acronyms in order to confuse you. A good SEO service professional will be able to thoroughly explain his job with language you can understand. This will make it much easier for you to monitor the quality. If the company refuses this request, it’s probably not the one for you.
- Look out for guarantees – A fake will almost always make big guarantees about what their SEO services can do for you and tell you what you want to hear. However, this isn’t how search marketing works. Find someone who is willing to take the time and energy to talk through your business goals, your competition and set a realistic strategy that will produce the best results possible. Keep in mind that SEO is not a one size fits all product.
- Focus on Content over Back-links –“Black Hat” SEO will use practices that don’t follow the rules. Tricks that are aimed at manipulating search engine rankings will most likely not work, and can get your website url in trouble. Even if they do work, you’ll be lucky to see any short term gains and forfeit long term ROI where the value of SEO ultimately lies. Make sure they focus on quality content, that incorporates popular keywords and enhancing customer experience – these are things that will get you legitimate rankings that last.
When SEO first started many marketers used black hat techniques and keyword stuffing to get your website higher up in the search results of Google. But as Google got smarter, a lot of low-quality SEO service companies didn’t bother to keep up. Follow these tips and don’t get stuck with a useless SEO ‘expert’ that thinks you won’t know the difference. Every Google update places more emphasis on creating quality content with smart use of keywords and engagement, so find yourself an SEO expert who understands your business goals and what good content is all about.
