Outsourcing SEO
-
I have decided to give my website a boost by outsourcing some of my SEO.
Especially looking for building quality backlinks and help with Google Places. Any good recommendations?
-
I'd also say read the Beginner's Guide to SEO (from SEOmoz). This will help you be able to judge if the people you are looking to hire know what they are talking about or are just telling you whatever they think you want to hear.
-
Look for a local SEO if possible...at least to get started with. Later, when you know more about working without outside SEOs, it might be easier to go with someone remote. Also, I'd probably question hiring an SEO that just says, "Yeah," "We can totally do that," etc, etc, etc to everything and never pushes back on what's realistic, the benefits and drawbacks of certains approaches, and so on. If I'm working with an outside SEO, I want someone that will educate me a bit, be as open as possible, and help me understand when I'm being too conservative (avoiding all risks) or too daring/questionable/etc.
It sounds to me like you might be looking for 2 SEOs as well...depending on how much your budget is. Some people only specialize in local, while others only specialize in LB. Certainly, you can find someone to do both though. It just depends on how much of each, and how much specialty, you want.
-
Wait, there are sooo many SEO experts out there, it should be easy! OK, just kidding about one of my pet peeves.
I would first take a step back and ask some questions of myself, just like I would do if I were going to hire someone into my company: What do I want to accomplish by this hire? How will I know when it is accomplished (what metrics will be used)? What measures will I use to know this is the right hire? What are things I cannot accept in this position? Etc.
Anyone who has been in business even a short amount of time has made a poor hiring decision. Do all the things you would do to avoid making a poor hiring decision. Then, begin looking for companies/people who fit the initial picture of what you want: quality backlink strategist and Google Places expertise.
If they are a quality link strategist, they will be able to point to sites they have handled and explain how they got the links that are there now. If they are knowledgeable in Places, they will be able to show you that knowledge in sites that are clients. I would not tell anyone what your site is until you interview them if there is a way to avoid it. (Maybe you just keep it general and say you are looking for a marketing company, not sure what you need, etc and don't stress SEO). The reason is I don't want them to go get the knowledge from someone/somewhere else and come back to me with it. I want experience.
I would set up to interview a minimum of 3 companies. I would pick those three from at least ten or twelve. I do not necessarily agree that those who are ranking high in SEO are the best providers of SEO services, but I do not think they are excluded from being the best either.
I would then have a specific set of questions around, How would you......? Get backlinks onto my site? Improve my ranking? (This would be loaded in that if they say we would..... before they say which pages, what key words or phrases...then, oops)
I would give them 15 minutes alone with the site a piece of paper and a pen and ask them to come up with a plan that would improve the site/rankings, etc. Then, I would ask them when that would be accomplished. At what cost?
Lastly, I would ask for a slew of references of clients. The real issue is if they are truly experts at SEO, there will be a string of clients ready to recommend them even if 75% of their clients require confidentiality. I would then CHECK the references with specific questions about what they did for you, how they did it, how long it took, what they did not like, etc. Just like a job hire.
Now, I realize the answer is long and the task list is longer. But, I have hired large marketing firms and 6 months and a lot of dollars later had to kick myself for not asking more questions and interviewing more companies and checking more references. So, fool me twice, shame on me.
Good Luck,
Oh, yeah, If they make more statements about how good they are than they ask questions about you, your company, your needs, and what you are doing now, they are probably not a good fit.
-
If their site looks dodgy, they probably are! And reject anyone that claims 'guaranteed' rankings. Speak to a couple of agencies and make a decision on how well they explain what processes they would use to improve your site, not just generic examples. As Ryan says, somebody with experience working with clients in your industry would be a good start.
-
I'm guessing you'll get some good responses from this forum. If not, try doing a search for SEO and your city, or SEO and your industry (ex "SEO retail"). Those at the top of the results have already proven they can rank for their target keywords, so they should probably be able to help you as well.
Good luck!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Does Autoplay video effect SEO?
I'm trying to find out if autoplay videos (muted) on the homepage effect seo in anyway? Currently our site ranks around position four on the first page, but we have noticed one competitor we monitor have long auto playing videos on their sites and were wondering if they are a good or bad factor? Any info you would like to share would be great. Thanks
Image & Video Optimization | | 5TW0 -
Youtube SEO Resources
Does anyone have any recommendations for Youtube SEO Resources in 2016? I've done a lot of work with Local SEO on video but having to move up a notch to national SEO in a competitive field
Image & Video Optimization | | abisti20 -
For Local SEO on a business with many locations, should the city be included in the business name?
For a franchised business with ~50 locations spread across the US, should the city be included in the business name when building citations? Fictional example: We have a staffing franchise called 'Hamilton Staffing'. They have 50 locations in the US. They are all called 'Hamilton Staffing'. We need to finalize the correct NAP information so we are consistent in building citations. For the name, should we just use 'Hamilton Staffing' for all of them? Or should we use 'Hamilton Staffing - Chicago' and the like for other locations? It looks like InfoUSA and Axciom are just using 'Hamilton Staffing', whereas Google is using 'Hamilton Staffing Chicago' and the like. Thoughts on this?
Image & Video Optimization | | brianspatterson0 -
WordPress image file names SEO question
I’m using a plugin to upload images directly from Adobe Lightroom to WordPress and while the process is very convenient it adds “wpid-“ to the beginning of every image file name, so my “seo-friendly-image-title.jpg” becomes “wpid-seo-friendly-image-title.jpg”. The plugin author claims that it’s a WordPress thing and there isn’t anything he can do about it, yet it doesn’t happen when using the same plugin to upload to the NextGen Gallery Plugin instead of the built in WordPress media manager. I’m not really a fan of NextGen though so I’d rather use the built in WordPress media management. This is obviously an SEO forum not a WordPress troubleshooting forum, but I wanted to give a bit of background. My question is whether that “wpid-” at the beginning of all my image file names is going to cause any sort of SEO issue. If not, I won’t worry about it, but if it does I’ll have to either find another plugin or just go back to exporting from Lightroom to the desktop and then uploading through WordPress. Thanks in advance for any input.
Image & Video Optimization | | StephenWeigel0 -
New to SEO
Hi, I'm new to SEO and was wondering if I could get some pointers on how to earn back links for a relatively new site. Any suggestions will be appreciated.
Image & Video Optimization | | greenfoxone0 -
Does YouTube read a transcript for SEO
Hi, Just wondering if anyone knows if YouTube uses transcripts uploaded to videos as search signals? ie will the video rank better in the SERPs with a transcript? Thanks
Image & Video Optimization | | Digirank0 -
SEO benefits of linking logo to homepage?
Hello All, It will be helpful if anyone can list the benefits of linking the company logo (on every page of the website) to the home page, and how important it is in terms of internal linking / SEO factors. Thank you.
Image & Video Optimization | | NortonSupportSEO0 -
Will putting images in a light box or photo gallery affect my image SEO?
A website that is very image heavy and would like to enhance the user experience with a photo gallery. How will this affect the indexing of these photos? Can I still add alt. tags and title tags to these images?
Image & Video Optimization | | Unidev0