There are a lot of things to think about when hiring an SEO Specialist. The following three recommendations we consider to be especially important.
Identify how SEO is going to help your business
The first thing you should do is to have a clear plan as to how SEO will help your business. This should be a long-term plan because SEO is a long-term and gradual process. So start by setting some SMART goals. That is, your SEO plan should ideally be achievable, relevant, and time-bound.
It is also ideal that you do some market research and understand your position in SERPs to see the kind of improvement you could bring to your business over time if you were to acquire higher search placements.
For instance, if you rank #10 for a popular search term and you would like to reach the top 3 sometime down the line – you will start seeing significant results depending on how popular this query is as you move up so you can have an idea for the traffic you could expect.
When measuring SEO results, it is good to keep in mind the search intent of some of the queries you may be tracking. For instance, if this is a search term for a product or service page which is closer to the end of the sales funnel, it’ll convert better than a blog post.
Know who you’re working with
You should ideally have a clear conversation with whoever will do your SEO so that you are both on the same page. Be sure whoever you hire does not pursue black-hat SEO and ideally, you should approve anything that is going to be posted on your website. So if the person you hire will be in charge of creating content for your site like product descriptions, about pages, or blog posts — make sure you go over any deliverables and approve them.
At first, you may even consider checking any copy you receive to make sure it is plagiarism free and that it is unique and of high quality. It pays to work with someone you can trust to deliver results that you don’t have to be actively checking to see whether it is unique, of high quality and if it even has the right tone for your brand.
Another problem is many service providers will simply create Ai-generated content or get you very low quality copy which may not even be very helpful to effectively rank on Google. Sometimes they pair these initiatives with link schemes which is a red flag if you have a business which you plan to run for the long haul.
Black hat SEO is best for businesses who are just thinking about getting a quick return on their investment and aren’t worried about what may happen later on. These businesses will have a hard time being known as a dominant player in their respective industry because they are not putting in the work needed to succeed long-term.
Measure and keep improving
Once you have determined how SEO will help your online business and who will help you get there. Make sure you continue to measure any SEO initiatives pursued. Whether that’s occasionally looking at your rankings, the quality of the deliverables received from your SEO, or how it ties to your overall marketing strategy.
Lastly, if you aren’t sure whether you even need an SEO, check out our article “Do You Need an SEO Specialist?”.
