Hiring an SEO Company
-
I am looking to hire an SEO company each have there own ideas and strengths. My concerns are what is good and what is bad.
Here is one company where their Silver Package fits within our budget. But there are a lot of features on here we do know if is it good or bad SEO. I attached the packages they send us.
If we were to hire an SEO Company to do our offsite SEO, what should we be looking for that is considered whitehat seo for 2015?
-
Good discussion here. I want to add, I noticed that you had categorized your question in two of our Local SEO categories, so I'm guessing you might be specifically looking to hire a Local SEO. If that's true, I recommend that you check out the websites of some of the experts who participated in the Moz Local Ranking Factors 2014 Survey. You'll see them listed on the left side of the survey in the box titled 'Contributors'. There are some very good companies represented there:
https://mza.bundledseo.com/local-search-ranking-factors
If you specifically need Local SEO rather than traditional SEO, you'll want to be sure you're working with Local experts.
-
A general rule to follow would be that if they are offering a package deal, it's probably not good. What works in one niche may not work for another. A lot of their link types are considered spammy and they are offering a ton of items for a very low cost which throws a lot of red flags.
-
Thanks for the great answer. I had a feeling it wasn't right and why I shared it as a question. You know when you get that bad gut feeling? That is what I got when they sent us this - it seem wrong and off for some reason. I am glad we checked it out! And I am glad this site has great community of members as yourself to help.
Now off to find a reliable company.
-
I read through most of the "services" they offer with the different levels.
RUN AWAY SCREAMING. That's my best advice.
Several of the services they offer are old and outdated from a few years back.
Several of the services they offer communicate that they will artificially create likes, shares, social bookmarking with specific numbers of each. That's a big red flag for fake promotion.
Several of the services they offer are outright spam.
So take the time to read the content from the links Richard provided in his comment. It's well worth the educational value.
-
Hi there
Here are some great articles to check out:
10 Questions to Ask When Hiring an SEO Consultant (Entrepreneur)
SEO Company Checklist: How to Hire the Right Vendor (Inc)
The Recommended List (Moz)One thing I will say out of the gate - any company that says "first page of Google", ignore them. Any company that has strategies solely based on link building, ignore them. If something sounds TOO good to be true, it is. You'll get gut feelings talk to SEO companies - you can tell when someone has your best interest at heart and asks the right questions.
I would recommend as well that you take a look at the Learn section of Moz to educate yourself a bit as well. This way, you can hear red flags on basics and understand fundamentals in the industry.
Based on a very, very quick skim of the attached document, I would be questioning the Custom Backlink section. Here's a great article from Forbes on what not to do from a link building perspective. Also, Webmaster Tools shouldn't be "optional" - it's a must. Here's how to set those up from Google and Bing.
Hope this all helps a bit - good luck!
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
-
Local SEO: thoughts on driving users to a homepage or to a local landing page?
I work with a client who is about to launch a local landing page for one of their locations. They're worried that the new local landing page will cannibalize some of the keyword rankings for the homepage. Any advice on how to have a local presence but still drive people to the more valuable homepage?
Local Website Optimization | | jrridley0 -
Can PPC harm SEO results, even if it's off-domain?
Here's the scenario. We're doing SEO for a national franchise business. We have over 60 location pages on the same domain, that we control. Another agency is doing PPC for the same business, except they're leading people to un-indexable landing pages off domain. Apparently they're also using location extensions for the businesses that have been set up improperly, at least according to the Account Strategists at Google that we work with. We're having a real issue with these businesses ranking in the multi-point markets (where they have multiple locations in a city). See, the client wants all their location landing pages to rank organically for geolocated service queries in those cities (we'll say the query is "fridge repair"). We're trying to tell them that the PPC is having a negative effect on our SEO efforts, even though there shouldn't be any correlation between the two. I still think the PPC should be focused on their on-domain location landing pages (and so does our Google rep), because it shows consistency of brand, etc. I'm getting a lot of pushback from the client and the other agency, of course. They say it shouldn't matter. Has anyone here run into this? Any ammo to offer up to convince the client that having us work at "cross-purposes" is a bad idea? Thanks so much for any advice!
Local Website Optimization | | Treefrog_SEO0 -
Schema training/resources for local SEO?
I am currently in the process of apply schema for dozens of clients (many are large retailers). Although I am not a developer, I do know the basics of schematic markup & structured data. I do work with a development team and I'm trying to provide them with schema application best practices. Obviously there are many good articles/blog posts out there about schema. However I'm looking for a more substantial training course, webinar or resource website about schema application. Does anybody have any good recommendations?
Local Website Optimization | | RosemaryB0 -
Understand how site redesign impacts SEO
Hi everyone, I have, what I think, is kind of a specific question, but hoping you guys can help me figure out what to do. I have a client that recently changed their entire website (I started working with them after it happened, so I can't comment on what the site was like as far as content was before). I know they were using a service that I see a lot of in the service industry that aim to capitalize on local business (i.e. "leads nearby" or "nearby now") by creating pages for each targeted city and I believe collecting reviews for each city directly on the website. When they redesigned their website, they dropped that service and now all those pages that were ranking in SERPs are coming back as 404s because they are not included in the new site (I apologize if this is getting confusing!) The site that they moved to is a template site that they purchased the rights to from an already successful company in their same industry, so I do think the link structure probably changed, especially with all of the local pages that are no longer available on the site. Note: I want to use discretion in using company names, but happy to share more info in a private message if you'd like to see the sites I am talking about as I have a feeling that this is getting confusing 🙂 Has anyone had experience with something like this? I am concerned because even though I am targeting the keywords being used previously to direct content to the local pages to new existing pages, traffic to the website has dropped by nearly 60% and I know my clients are going to want answers-- and right now, I only have guesses. I am really looking forward to and so greatly appreciate any advice you might be able to share, I'm at a bit of a loss right now.
Local Website Optimization | | KaitlinNS0 -
If your company name is the same as a famous person/movement/celebrity what kind of options do you have in building your knowledge graph relevance, and improving your SERP?
Is it possible for a large global company to compete for SERP rankings against a pop-culture celebrity/movement that is regularly in the news? Thank you!
Local Website Optimization | | Scratch-Kony0 -
How to approach SEO for a national website that has multiple chapter/location websites all under different URLs
We are currently working with a client who has one national site - let's call it CompanyName.net, and multiple, independent chapter sites listed under different URLs that are structured, for example, as CompanyNamechicago.org, and sometimes specific to neighborhoods, as in CompanyNamechicago.org/lakeview.org. The national umbrella site is .net, while all others are .orgs. These are not subdomains or subfolders, as far as we can tell. You can use a search function on the .net site to find a location near you and click to that specific local website. They are looking for help optimizing and increasing traffic to certain landing pages on the .net site...but similar landing pages also exist on a local level, which appear to be competing with the national site. (Example: there is a landing page on the national .net umbrella site for a "dog safety" campaign they are doing, but also that campaign has led to a landing page created independently on the local CompanyNameChicago.org website, which seems to get higher ranking due to a user looking for this info while located in Chicago.) We are wondering if our hands are tied here since they appear to be competing for traffic with all their localized sites, or if there are best practices to handle a situation like this. Thanks!
Local Website Optimization | | timfrick0 -
Local franchise seo strategy. what could be the best practice?
Hello what Could be the best practice of seo and website optimization for a franchise company. Business model: Lets say, a company(company.com) situated in a country having stores in different cities (more than 2 stores in some), provides n number of services depending on store's location. Physical addresses for some stores are available and new stores shall be launched in future. But, the seo and website pages are needed for those locations at the moment as well. If I choose a sub folder, to give each store a URL. This is how it should look like Country level pages company.com, company.com/service1/ _ _ _ company.com/serviceN/ City level pages company.com/city1/, company.com/city1/location1/ , company.com/city1/location2/, company.com/city2/ , company.com/city3/ Q1) In case I make each service page specific to a store location for eg. company.com/city1/service1/, it will create duplicate content issue because content of company.com/city1/service1/ and company.com/service1/ shall be 60% same, except for **meta title,description and contact detail in footer. ** So, the question arises that shall i give canonical to country level main services page i.e company.com/city1/service1/ canonical to company.com/service1/ as it is very hard to make unique content for same services page. Q2) Or Do I need to rework on my complete website design and seo strategy?
Local Website Optimization | | Technians1 -
Does the Location of my Server effect my SEO?
Does the geographic Location of my Server effect my SEO? HELP US! We are arguing for 3 weeks already. My partner has mentioned multiple times in the past that "since 2013 google does not require your server to be in the country you are targeting for seo"
Local Website Optimization | | DanielBernhardt
And that actually all they care about is if its a good and fast server - not where its physically located in the world. I am a strong believer that the geographic location of your server directly effects your SEO ranking... lets say if you want to target www.google.ru for your seo, best you have a server located in Russia for hosting your website.. WHO IS RIGHT? Choose the winner and base the facts.
If anybody has the correct answer and information to base it on it will help us alot - and maybe even spare some unnecessary violent between us two! we found some articles across the web, sadly they are all dated back to 2012.... Thanks in Advance for all the help guys!0