How to Hire an SEO Firm

An SEO firm is a company that has the experience and knowledge necessary to create webpages that rank well with the major search engines. A good SEO firm is well worth the money and effort it takes to hire one because the end result will be an effective website with a good conversion rate.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Ask the firm for examples of websites they have optimized. The company should have several examples of websites that they have performed SEO services for. If they do not provide you with examples, chances are that they are either too new to really demonstrate the company’s effectiveness or they have a bad track record and no well-optimized pages to show.

2. Look up the sites that the firm provides as samples. You should be able to search the site for obvious keywords and find the site well-placed in the rankings. For more in-depth study, ask the firm which keywords the site was optimized for. Performing a search for extremely common keywords may not show you the work that was done on mid-competition words.

3. Make sure you know what services the firm will provide. If the firm provides no tags or SEO-friendly web design, you may be better off hiring an independent SEO writer rather than a firm. If the company offers design, meta tags and copywriting, they have a much better chance at giving your website a better ranking.

4. Watch out for a company that offers you a guaranteed ranking. If the firm promises you a first, or even 20th, ranking for a specific term, then the firm does not truly understand how search engines work. No company can guarantee a specific place in search engine results because search engine ranking logistics have not been made public.