Over 40 Questions to Ask a Search Engine Optmization Company Before You Hire Them

[bhartzer]

A lot of people don't know what questions they should ask a potential SEO firm before they hire them. So, over the years I've been practicing organic Search Engine Optimization and website marketing, I have come up with this list of questions.

These questions are not necessarily in order of importance, and they may not apply to every search engine optimization project. But in any case, here is my list of questions that you should consider asking your potential search engine optimization company.

What type of search engine optimization techniques do you use to achieve search engine rankings?

What type of risk is involved with your method of search engine optimization?

What will happen if our relationship is dissolved?

Can you show me examples of past work?

What was the client’s ROI of their search engine optimization efforts?

Can you give me references? Can I talk to one or more of your current search engine optimization clients?

What type of volume increase in traffic is reasonable to expect from search engine optimization?

How long until I start to see results?

What would you expect from OUR end to aid your work?

What were some of your top search ranking achievements?

What types of internet marketing services do you offer to supplement your SEO (search engine optimization) offerings?

Will my web site point to your web site?

How many number one search engine rankings you have achieved for your clients?

How long have you been providing search engine optimization services?

Are you an individual consultant or are you part of a search engine optimization team?

How long have you and your search engine optimization team been online?

What types of web sites will you not promote?

Do you participate and/or, are you a moderator for any of the SEO – Search Engine Optimization / SEM – Search Engine Marketing Forums? If so, what is your username and can you provide links to your most recent or notable discussions?

Can you describe and/or produce recent successful search engine optimization campaign results?

If so, can I use those clients for references?

Do you have web site design experience?

What is your technical background?

What types of programming environments are you experienced with?

What are your opinions in regards to Best Practices for the SEO – Search Engine Optimization / SEM – Search Engine Marketing industry? How does a company effectively compete online using traditional optimization strategies?

Can you assure us that the search engine optimization strategies and methods that you are utilizing fall under the criteria of Best Practices for the SEO/SEM Industry? Can we assume that this means no penalties for our website?

How many search engine optimization campaigns have you been involved with?

What was your role for those projects?

How many of those search engine optimization projects are still active?

How many of those search engine optimization projects inactive?

If inactive, why?

Do you have experience managing PPC – Pay Per Click, CPC – Cost Per Click, and other bid management campaigns?

What types of programs do you use for PPC bid management?

Are there any guarantees for top search engine positions if we decide not to use a PPC program?

The web sites we are currently linked to have no rank, which means to me that these links are useless.

What linking strategies would you use to increase link popularity for our website?

Is this service part of the proposed price? What types of websites will you target for link exchange?

Our main competitor’s Google PageRank falls between 1 and 3. How would you address improving our PageRank with Google, and other search engines that calculate the number of quality inbound links to our website? Is it possible to rank higher than our competitors?

What changes can we expect you to make to our website to improve our positioning in the search engines?

Will these search engine optimization changes be visible?

Will there be changes in the coding of our website?

What type of reporting (website log analysis) will you provide to us? How often will you provide those reports? Will you provide consultation on how to interpret the reports so that we have a basic understanding of the statistics?

Do you offer ROI analysis? Is this in addition to your contract pricing? Please explain the process of how the ROI will be determined.

[claybutler]

This is a good list. Of course, if you asked ALL of these you'd drive someone crazy no matter how ethical they were

I think this list is actually more useful to the buyer to ask themselves. Not that they will know the answers, but it will help them focus on what they really want out of their SEO campaign and what type of relationship they want to have with their SEO company.

[orangemike]

"Have you ever spammed Wikipedia and gotten your client banned from that site? Is their name blocked from recreation ("salted") because you kept trying to put up an advertisement disguised as an article? Have YOU been banned from Wikipedia or had one or more accounts blocked there?

[commodityman]

I believe this list is great and all the questions should be taken into consideration with any SEO firm. Another good question to ask is, "Will you be available to get in touch with if I have any further questions when I start the SEO campaign?" As after you pay the firm, they go do the work and so many of them do not get back into touch with you for two weeks, which in my opinion is pathetic business practices.

[rebecca-may]

A lot of good questions here. One that I think is also worth asking is what/how does the SEO company manage third party relationships. For example, will they deal directly with your developer or do you need to be the middle man passing the messages? That can be very time consuming and slow down any activity and results.

[bhartzer]

Orangemike, why would you want to pick on Wikipedia? I would ask those specific questions about being banned or removed, but focus them on whether or not a SEO company has had links removed from any site or been banned--not just Wikipedia.

commodityman, any good SEO firm should be following up with reports and at least a monthly call with their clients. I would expect that of any company that you're doing business with, though--even a lawyer or physician, for that matter.

rebecca-may, that's a good question to ask. I'm not sure if that really is a question to ask before your hire an SEO firm, but is worth asking to determine the type of relationship and how the work is going to be completed (really those are formalities). Some SEO firms will actually log into your site and make changes--but others will not, especially when a site has their own developer. So, while you need to determine your overall type of relationship, that's not necessarily an SEO-related question.

[commodityman]

commodityman, any good SEO firm should be following up with reports and at least a monthly call with their clients. I would expect that of any company that you're doing business with, though--even a lawyer or physician, for that matter.

That is what I relaying. A monthly call with a client is too little if you are doing on going SEO business. In the beginning of a campaign, there are reports, "weekly" and sometimes more often, to report to the client exactly what is going on with their site. Communication is paramount in business and sending email reports to the client, "here we have done this" should not be the case and should be followed up with a phone call to communicate with the client and the client should have ready access to those (or the person, group, company, specific work done by the person), via a phone call. This is proper business etiquette.

[deepsand]

Orangemike, why would you want to pick on Wikipedia? I would ask those specific questions about being banned or removed, but focus them on whether or not a SEO company has had links removed from any site or been banned--not just Wikipedia.

It was simply an example re. certain types of activity, not about a specific target of such.

[manmeet singh]

thanks for sharing information. But i believe most important question is backup resource they and quality of links they can offer. Links for same server are useless so hiring SEO expert plz do ask quality of backlinks he is going to provide.

cheers
Manmeet

[claybutler]

Links for same server are useless .

This is such nonsense. Most of the world's websites are on shared server environments. Multiple, high quality, high PR sites are found on the same server all the time. I know from personal experience over the last ten years, that yes, quality links from the same IP do count.