When it comes to hiring an SEO consultant you want to make sure that you are asking the right questions before you commit to making the hire. An SEO consultant isn’t a small investment, so you want to make sure that you are investing in the right consultant for your business. If you aren’t sure where to start, don’t worry, we’re here to help. Here are some important questions to ask when hiring an SEO consultant. The interview process is quite complicated, and you need to interview a company efficiently. For this, many HR managers do interview transcripts using Audext. This way, you never miss out on details and information.
How Do You Approach Mobile Optimisation
This should be the first question that you ask and for good reason. Google announced last year that they would begin ranking sites higher that were optimised for mobile sites. The answer that you want to hear shows two things, the first thing is that they are up to date with changes to the way that google rank, so they are keen to keep their knowledge up to date. Secondly, it shows that the person you are interviewing is ready to build a strategy that involves optimisation for mobile sites. Mobile sites also require a quick upload speed, so when they are talking about mobile optimisation you want to be listening for speed, this makes all the difference with audience retention.
Key words
Historically, keyword research was conducted by just typing in a few words that related to your subject matter and the software would give you options of words that relate to your topic that are widely searched for. Now, key words are far more intuitive, so want to be asking your prospective SEO consultant about your service and how they would build a SEO strategy around user intent. User intent is far more nuanced than keyword search and it requires extensive research about the niche that you occupy. When you are talking to a prospective hire, make sure you ask about user intent and see what their methodological approach is. You can specifically ask them about the link building techniques. It’s one of the core things to boost up your website ranking on the SERP. Get going with t-ranks links, it’s worthy and advanced.
Tools
You may not have a preference for SEO tools and may not be aware of all the tools that are available on the market, but you want someone who has a preference. The reason for this is that you want your hire to demonstrate that they have their own preference with tools as this shows they have used many. When they talk about a particular tool, ask about what alternatives they have used. When they talk about alternatives, it shows that they have been through various products to work out which one works for them best. You don’t want to make a hire on someone who doesn’t have a preference. If they don’t have a preference with tools, then they haven’t been working on SEO for a long enough period of time.
Ask What They Need From You
When you are hiring for an SEO expert, you want to make sure that they know what they are doing and one of the ways to gauge this will be to ask what it is they need from you. If they answer the question with not a lot or nothing, don’t call them back. A good SEO consultant will come back with an extensive list of items that they need from you in order to run a successful SEO campaign. Make sure you hear words such as target audience, market niche, industry, goals and key performance indicators. These are all integral to success as SEO is a data driven strategy that needs a solid understanding of the data.
Current and Past Clients
It can be difficult to get references for consultants, but one thing you can do is ask for a list of current and past clients. Not only does this give you a point of reference in terms of the websites that have been developed, but it also gives you multiple points of contact. It is always worth checking with a few of the past clients to make sure that A) the prospective hire has worked with them and B) they are happy with the work. Prior to contacting previous clients, you will need to ask permission to do so, if the answer is no, then you may want to consider the hire.
Wrap Up
It can be very difficult to make a good hire, especially when it comes to SEO. Prior to making the hire there are a few salient items that you need to make checks on to make sure that your hire is being honest and open. Make sure you get permission to check with past client lists that they are happy for you to contact them, otherwise this will be warning sign. You also want to make sure that the hire you are thinking about making is up to date on the latest changes, such as mobile optimisation as it means their knowledge is up to date.
