Forge Search Marketing

8 Questions to Ask a SEO Company Before You Sign a Contract

SEO is not just getting first page rankings or driving traffic, it is about measuring KPIs that are relevant to the business. Unfortunately, the most difficult part about hiring an SEO company is wading through all of the spam, jargon and sales pitches to find a company that will collaborate with you for the long-term to drive results that benefit you. Below we have compiled a list of 8 questions that will determine if the SEO company utilizes proper methods and is a good fit for your company. In addition, we also outline some of the words shady SEO companies use to attract clients.

8 Questions to Ask a SEO Company Before You Sign

1. What is the history of your company?

   Find out how long they have been in business and why they decided to go into the SEO industry. Most importantly, examine the history of the people that will be doing the actual SEO work for you to see if they have a background in SEO and marketing. People with experience have a great advantage in SEO because they know how the industry has changed and are more likely to be versed in what works and what doesn’t.

2. Who are some of your current clients?

   Gather a list of who the company is doing business with and ask for the contact information associated with those clients. Testimonials on a website are great, but speaking with an actual client will give you an insight as to how the company conducts business on a day to day basis and what results have been derived from such.

3. What KPIs do you use the gauge campaign performance?

   The correct answer is that it depends on the website and the business model. The incorrect answer is, “Google rankings and website traffic”. Have the company give examples what metrics they would use to analyze your website in comparison to one of their other current clients.

4. How do you determine “qualified traffic”?

   Driving traffic to your website is useless unless those visitors are actually interested in your product, service, or content. Generally speaking, qualified traffic tends to stay on your website longer and you can measure it partially with the average time they spend on your site and by how much bounce traffic you have. If applicable, they can also use conversions to determine what percentage of your traffic is purchasing from you, which is obviously qualified traffic.

5. Who is going to do the implementation?

   Establish whether the SEO company is going to be working on your behalf, or if they are going to simply create a strategy and have your in-house developers roll it out. Some aspects such as link building may be handled on their end, while on-page optimization may need to be fulfilled in-house. Iron out the details of “who does what” and make sure your contract clearly reflects such.

6. Does your strategy include Pay-Per-Click campaigns?

   Pay Per Click advertising can be greatly utilized in some marketing strategies, but remember that the traffic stops when the advertising stops. Make sure that the company intends to focus on building organic rankings, not paid ones.

7. What reports will I get and how often?

   Having an SEO company working on your behalf isn’t very valuable if you don’t have a consistent flow of reports to inform you of changes in sales, signups, traffic or rankings. Make sure they intend to provide ample documentation of what was done and how it affected your KPIs.

8. How will my overall Return On Investment (ROI) be measured?

   Ensure that the SEO company plans on working closely with you to determine the ROI. It is easy to create vast reports with a lot of metrics, but the bottom line is that the SEO company needs to increase your revenue to the point where they are more than paying for themselves.

Proceed with Caution if You See the Following

If you see any of the following on the company’s website or hear it during discussion, proceed with a great amount of caution – chances are they are trying to trick you or are using shady SEO methods.

1. “We can guarantee first page rankings.”

   Even Google states that no SEO can guarantee first page rankings and that is because they can’t. While it is much easier to achieve first page rankings for some random long-tail keywords, they cannot guarantee that it will happen. Moreover, make sure they are not talking about paid rankings in comparison to organic rankings.

2. “We work closely with Google.”

   Companies that spend enough money with Google are often assigned account representatives that advise on best practices and make sure you are happy with Google advertising. We have been working with a variety of representatives for years, but let it be known that these account representatives have absolutely no control over rankings, neither does anyone at Google. Google account reps cannot be leveraged to increase a campaign’s performance, so don’t be tricked into believing such.

3. “We can build thousands of inbound links to your site quickly.”

   Link building is one of the most tedious, time consuming processes of an SEO campaign. If they claim they can build thousands of inbound links quickly, they are either going to use black hat techniques such as an automated program or buying links, or they are considering legitimate methods such as creating viral content. Clarify how they are building the links before signing anything – getting de-indexed by Google is the last thing you want to happen.

4. “We have top secret methods for getting high rankings fast.”

   There are trade secrets to SEO, only proven methodologies and practices. Transparency is critical when hiring an SEO company, so ensure that they lay out all of their methods and plans in detail.

5. “We would like the copyright on our SEO work.”

   If they ask for the copyright, you should immediately discontinue communication with them. By copyrighting the SEO work they do for you, they can revoke it at any time and cause your website’s rankings to disappear, along with any traffic you once had. You should own full rights to the work completed.

We hope these questions and tips will help you find the SEO company that will work diligently on your behalf and be a wonderful business partner. If you have any comments or suggestions for other questions, please leave them in the comments!