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!
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
-
What's better for SEO an Optimized Image URL vs Optimized Image File Name?
I would like to know what is best practice for optimizing images for our website. Is it better to give an Image an optimized filename Or an optimized URL for SEO? Or is it better to do both? Would there be any harm in doing both if they are identical in their format? Any help would be greatly appreciated. With thanks, Kate
Image & Video Optimization | | K_borg0 -
On-page Local SEO
I'm wondering how to pull it off on-page local SEO for a financial institution website with 70 locations. However, they are broken in down in regions, which would make it easier to get our hands around. Would a viable solution be setting up regional pages? I don't know about our CMS capability, but it seems like it would be beneficial to have on each regional page aggregate local-centric press releases (example: a volunteer event or recognition) and local announcements such as paper shred days. Thoughts? Anyone else posed with a similar challenge?
Image & Video Optimization | | SSFCU0 -
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 -
How do you handle local SEO when a business has had multiple names?
Hi, Here is a quite simple question... that comes from a real life example. When a local business, with one phone number and one business location, has been promoting itself with up to 4 different names over the years. How do you handle local SEO? Do you try to update all pages (and directories) on the Web to the new name? Do you keep the existing records as they are and find some ways to show Google - and people - that those are all the same business? Thanks, Adrien O'Leary
Image & Video Optimization | | AdrienOLeary0 -
Page Extension for SEO Post Penguin
I am setting up pages for an SEO campaign. This campaign will focus suburb/area focused keywords to the home page and an inner page talking about the local area. My keyword I am targeting is "flower delivery brisbane" The keywords pointing back to both pages will be made up of brand and variances of the keywords so that is ok What I would like to know, am I know over optimizing the inner page extension "flowers delivery brisbane" as it is an exact match of the main keyword to rank since google penguin. I did this prior to google penguin and it worked well. the site address is
Image & Video Optimization | | VivaArturo
simpleflowers.com.au inner page is:
simpleflowers.com.au/flowers-delivery-brisbane Would love to hear your thoughts0 -
Is creating great content not important for Local seo?
I'm helping a friend out with Local SEO/Google Places and his content is lacking - no blog, no articles, etc. I've read the major "How To" guides for Local seo by Andrew Shotland and David Mihm and their ranking factors but I never see anything about content or linkbuilding (aside from directories).
Image & Video Optimization | | seo_f20120 -
What's the best way to host video for SEO purposes?
Hello SEOmoz folks, I'm curious as to whether it will be more beneficial for a website to host a video on the site itself or to host it on YouTube and then embed the code on your site. The options so far, as it seems, are: 1.) Host the video on YouTube or Vimeo or wherever else, then embed the YouTube code into your own website's HTML. 2.) Host the video on your own website by itself. 3.) Host the video on your own website AND YouTube AND Vimeo. I'm wondering which option is best. And if hosting your video on your own website is a good way to go, whether to go that route solely or in addition to hosting on YouTube, what is the best way to go about that? Do I have to embed a player AND the video info into the HTML of my website? What player is best for this? Flash, or something else? And once I get the video on my site one way or the other, how do I write the code to make sure the video thumbnail shows up next to my search results in Google to maximize the SEO potential for the video clip? Sorry for the long question, but I've been searching everywhere for this and I'd love just a direct answer on it. Thanks for your help! Cheers, Dani
Image & Video Optimization | | MountainMedia0 -
Is there a free/cheap self hosting video site? Can't afford wistia, but want to do it for the seo benefits
Is there a free/cheap self hosting video site? Can't afford wistia, but want to do it for the seo benefits
Image & Video Optimization | | anchorwave0