Where do you find an individual/freelance SEO?
-
I know Moz has a directory of recommended companies, and I've found that very useful.
However, we're really looking for an individual (who, of course, keeps up with the latest best practices and trends in SEO) to optimize our site while we put our time into client sites.
We've done Craigslist ads, but those seldom pan out. Have any of you had luck finding part-time SEOs? Where did you find them?
Thanks!
-
Hi Jess,
You'll probably want to figure out what kind of SEO work you need done, technical or editorial. Technical optimization of a website deals with a site's code, user experience, and overall performance while editorial optimization deals with content, linking strategy, and conversion goals. Structured data fits right in the middle, with both technical and editorial expertise needed. Which one to prioritize depends on the resources you have and how fast you need to see results. It will also depend on how competitive your chosen keywords are for the pages you want to rank.
I recommend you offer to pay for ranking performance. Offer a certain amount of compensation commensurate with the number of pages that improve for selected keywords over a certain amount of time. You can get a good baseline right here on Moz.com, and then monitor progress every week or two. Insist on proper SEO strategies and put payment penalties in place for any black hat activity. I've work under this model with several clients and they all seem to be pretty happy being able to see what they're buying.
Before you do all this, make sure it's cost effective--advertising might give you more bang for your buck in a shorter amount of time, depending on your type of business.
Kevin
-
Good suggestion - thank you!
-
Thanks, EGOL. You're always so helpful!
I think you're right - searching the forums (and possibly LinkedIn) for active, reputable posters is probably the best way to go. Time consuming, but in the long run, it should leave us with a good selection of freelancers to call on when we need them.
-
Thanks, Amanda!
I can handle content development and social marketing/engagement for the company without sacrificing our ability to get work done for clients, but nitty-gritty SEO tweaks end up taking up way more time than I have to give when I have many clients who deserve that attention on their own sites.
Someone who can optimize page titles, descriptions, schema, alt image text, etc. and then work on off-site SEO would be ideal. In this case, we need technical know-how more than creativity.
-
I think LinkedIn is a good resource, because like MOZ it has a rankings and referrals system, but it showcases a broader range of individuals.
With SEO it really depends on what skill-set you are looking for. I find that the MOZ SEO scene is mostly populated by technical SEO mavens rather than content stars. Even in SEO people have specialties. Are you looking for Social Media Marketing? Someone who is really awesome with analytics? A writer, who can optimize your pages and text content using keywords, while creating stylish copy? These skills don't always come equally in the same package.
That's why LinkedIn might be a better bet, because you aren't limited only with the SEO pros who like MOZ. As much as I'm a Moz-er, there are other programs and forums, but there's only one LinkedIn. And yes, I do freelance SEO;)
-
...hire for specific tasks....
This is what I have always done. I find someone who has demonstrated expertise for the work that I need. I have gotten paid help from 10-20 people, each on different types of work.
-
Every person who I have ever hired for consulting, SEO, or technical work on my websites has been a person who I have learned about in an SEO forum. There you can see many things about a person. These include:
-
their ability to communicate clearly
-
their areas of technical expertise (htaccess, CMS set-up, programming, etc.)
-
do others respect their work ("good answer" votes from members, "endorsed answer" votes from Moz staff, articles published in YouMoz or the main Moz Blog -- some people at moz have hundreds of "good" and dozens of "endorsed" answers)
-
their personal style (generous, thorough, etc.)
If someone can give great information here at Moz Q&A for free, imagine what you might get when you pay them.
For about 15 years, I have repeatedly gotten paid assistance from forum posters. I have never been disappointed because I knew who I was hiring and seen their good and generous work repeatedly in advance. In my opinion, people from forums are a lot lower risk than other sources of assistance.
Read the person's Moz profile, check out their website. Most people say if they are available for work or not. (I am not, I only work on my own sites, so not hoping to find work here.)
In my experience it is pretty easy to find good help at a place like Moz Q&A. Look at their endorsed and good answer counts on the right of this chart.
-
-
Since you're hiring part-time you might want to make the work more piecemeal in relation to your site, i.e. hire for specific tasks that are aiming to achieve your overall goals. When you're hiring full-time you have more options as you can compete with agencies for their talent. (Sorry for mentioning that agency friends!) As Sean and Ray mentioned above, finding people here at Moz with a proven track record helps as does some out reach via PM.
-
SEO community sources (Moz, DigitalPoint Forum), and LinkedIn. Those are likely your best choices. When you reach out to them make sure you are asking them for their strategies to SEO. Also if they promise quick rankings they are not the one for you.
-
Referrals tend to be a great source for effective SEOs. The low barrier to entry allows for a lot of individuals, many times inexperienced, to present themselves as an authority and word of mouth referrals help weed out the ineffective SEOs.
I can be contacted through my Moz profile, Moz PM or directly through the website listed.
Elance can be a good community, but the risk is high if you cannot identify the low quality profiles.
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
-
Are these URL hashtags an SEO issue?
Hi guys - I'm looking at a website which uses hashtags to reveal the relevant content So there's page intro text which stays the same... then you can click a button and the text below that changes So this is www.blablabla.com/packages is the main page - and www.blablabla.com/packages#firstpackage reveals first package text on this page - www.blablabla.com/packages#secondpackage reveals second package text on this same page - and so on. What's the best way to deal with this? My understanding is the URLs after # will not be indexed very easily/atall by Google - what is best practice in this situation?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
Hypothetical SEO Question
I am running a website for a law firm. It has been running for many, many years and has plenty of backlinks and authority. I then create a standalone website for a specific type of case that the law firm is handling. On that website, I have a page that copies some of the attorney bio text from the main website. How much of a negative impact will this standalone website have on the main website as far as duplicate content issues are concerned? Please explain your answer in detail. Thank you in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | goldbergweismancairo0 -
Which is better /section/ or section/index.php?
I have noticed that Google has started to simply link to /section/ as opposed to /section/index.php and I haven't changed any canonical tags etc. I have looked at my pages moz authority for the two /section/ = 28/100
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TimHolmes
/section/index.php = 42/100 How would I go about transferring the authority to /section/ from /section/index.php to hopefully help me in my organic serp positions etc. Any insight would be great 🐵0 -
How do you find the source of a 404
I've recently noticed quite a sharp rise in the number of 404 errors on our site. Unsurprising really as we have just had a major upgrade of our site navigation. When looking in GA at the landing page stats the vast majority of them are from Google organic search. How do I find the source of the 404? All help appreciated. Thanks. Jon
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TTS_Group0 -
Any SEO suggestions for my site?
Site in question: http://bit.ly/Lcspfp Does anyone have any suggestions for any on-site SEO that would benefit my website? Any recommendations, big or small are appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RichardTaylor1 -
The format for image SEO
Hi there. After looking at a few SEO videos relating to image SEO it seems important to ensure images are SEO'd just as well as pages. I however have a question. If the page is Meta titles the following: Online for Equine | Riding Clothing | Just Togs Latina Ladies Breech And this particular page contains five images which are each variants of this product, how is it best to SEO them? Would you go with the: Online for Equine | Riding Clothing | Just Togs Latina Ladies Breech Front Online for Equine | Riding Clothing | Just Togs Latina Ladies Breech Back Online for Equine | Riding Clothing | Just Togs Latina Ladies Breech Side and so on... Or would this result in keyword stuffing with Google's new over-optimisation rules. Would it be better to rename them so they are all individual? I am considering deleting the images, renaming them on the server as the SEO proof name and then re-uploading them so the Image caption = filename. Am I on the right track? If you need the page: http://www.onlineforequine.co.uk/jodhpurs-breeches/22-just-togs-ladies-latina-denim-breech.html
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | onlineforequine0 -
Bing/Yahoo! Updates
On March 27th I noticed a huge rankings drop across the board on a client site in Bing and Yahoo! After some research, I found this article on SEOroundtable (it also links back to a Webmaster World discussion). For this particular site we're talking a few dozen of keywords dropping off the first page, or even from the first page dropping out of the top 50. The only thing not affected were brand keywords. The site was recently relaunched, and has a fairly weak backlink profile right now. It doesn't use keywords in the domain (which was one of the things identified in the SEOroundtable article). Has anyone else noticed changes? If so, what do you attribute them to and how are you combating them?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BedeFahey0 -
Local SEO for franchises
I have a client who franchises an ice cream shop. It started in Utah and there are several stores there. They are ranking well for local searches based in Utah. Now they have opened a store in Federal Way, WA. How can I get the new location to rank for local keywords on the same website?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fivestarfranchising0