If your website doesn't show up on the
first page of search results on Google,
Bing or Yahoo, your potential customers
might not even know you exist. Better
search engine visibility can be critical to
boosting visits to your website, which can
lead to increased brand awareness and
higher sales and profits.
But what if you lack the time and technical
expertise to improve your site's search
engine ranking? It might make sense to
hire an experienced, reliable search engine
optimization ( SEO ) consultant.
Here are 10 essential questions to ask
when considering prospective SEO
consultants:

1. May I have a list of current and past
clients?
A reputable SEO consultant should be
open to sharing a brief list of current and
former clients and his or her contact
information, says Vanessa Fox, author of
Marketing in the Age of Google (Wiley,
2012) and founder of Nine By Blue, a
Seattle-based SEO software provider.
These references can help you gauge how
effective the candidate is, as well as verify
that the person did indeed work on
specific SEO campaigns. Clients may not
provide specific analytics, Fox says, but
they should be able to at least tell you if
they saw a positive impact on their search
ranking, especially in conversions and in
gaining an audience, as a direct result of
the consultant's efforts.

2. How will you improve my search engine
rankings?
Steer clear of SEO consultants who won't
freely discuss their methods in detail,
cautions Rand Fishkin, founder of Moz , a
Seattle-based internet marketing software
company and co-author of The Art of SEO
(O'Reilly, 2012). They should explain the
strategies they would use to drive up your
website's search engine ranking, as well
as estimate how long it could realistically
take to achieve the SEO campaign goals
you agree on.
Make sure the candidate's proposal
includes an initial technical review of your
website to weed out any problems that
could lower your search engine ranking,
including broken links and error pages.
Consultants also should provide "on page"
optimization, a process to make your
website as search engine friendly as
possible. It involves improving your
website's URL and internal linking
structure, along with developing web page
titles, headings and tags.
Also, ask consultants if they provide "off
page" SEO strategies to raise awareness
of your content on other websites, often
via blogs, social media platforms and
press releases.

3. Do you adhere to search engines'
webmaster guidelines?
You want a consultant who strictly abides
by Google's publicly posted webmaster
best practices , which specifically prohibit
12 common SEO tricks, including
automatically generating spammy content
and adding bogus hidden text and links. If
a candidate doesn't follow those
guidelines, your website could be
relegated to a dismally low search results
ranking. Or, worse yet, Google could ban it
from search results altogether.
Bing and Yahoo also post webmaster best
practices that consultants should confirm
they follow.

4. Can you guarantee my website will
achieve a number-one ranking on Google,
Bing and Yahoo?
If the candidate answers yes, Fox warns,
"Turn and run in the other direction as fast
as you can." Although it's impossible to
guarantee a number-one ranking on any
search engine, she says, some unethical
SEO consultants do make such bogus
guarantees.
Consider it a red flag if the candidate
claims to have an insider relationship with
Google or any other search engine that
will get you priority search results
rankings. Only Google, Bing and Yahoo
can control how high or low websites
appear in their search results.

5. Are you experienced at improving local
search results?
Appearing in the top local search engine
results is especially important to small
brick-and-mortar businesses trying to
attract nearby customers, Rand says.
You'll want a consultant who has expertise
in local SEO techniques.
If your website is optimized for what's
known as "local SEO," it should appear
when someone nearby is searching for
keywords that are relevant to your
business. To achieve that, a consultant
should add your business's city and state
to your website's title tags and meta
descriptions, and get your site listed on
Bing, Google and Yahoo's local listings,
which are online directories of businesses
that cater to a specific geographical area.

6. Will you share with me all changes you
make to my site?
Search engine optimization will most likely
require a number of changes to your
existing web page coding. It's important
to know exactly what adjustments the
consultant plans to make and on how
many web pages. If you would like the
candidate to get your permission before
accessing and altering your website code,
be sure to say so.
For example, will consultants add new title
tags to your existing HTML code or
modify the existing ones? Will they provide
additional copywriting content highlighting
your products and services to beef up the
number of visible, on-page keywords
relevant to your potential customers? And
do they plan to redesign all or some of
your website navigation or add new pages
to your site?

7. How do you measure the success of
your SEO campaigns?
To gauge the success of SEO efforts, you
must track exactly how much traffic is
being sent to your website and where it is
coming from. Consultants should be
experienced in using Google Analytics to
track improvement in your site's search
engine rankings, the number of links from
other websites driving traffic to yours, the
kinds of keywords searchers use to find
your site, and much more.
Be sure to ask how often they plan to
share these important analytics with you
and how they would use the data to
continually improve your search engine
rankings and website traffic.

8. How will we communicate and how
often?
SEO consultants' communication styles
and customer service standards vary. You
need to find someone whose approach
best fits your needs. Ask if the candidate
prefers to talk in person or via phone,
Skype, texting or email. And find out how
often will he or she reach out to you with
status updates.

9. What are your fees and payment terms?
You need to know how much you'll be
charged, of course, and also whether the
consultant gets paid hourly, by retainer or
by project. Project-based payments are
the most common in the SEO consulting
industry, and they can vary widely,
depending on a project's size and
complexity. Most contract projects ranged
between $1,000 and $7,500, according to
Moz's 2011 pricing survey of more than
600 SEO firms.
The study also found that the most
common retainers ranged between $251
to $500 a month on the lower end and
$2,501 to $5,000 a month on the higher
end, while the most common hourly rates
ranged from $76 to $200. Fox said
consultants who specifically serve small
businesses often charge less per month
and hour.
Other important payment-related
questions: How often are invoice
payments due -- every 30, 60 or 90 days?
Is there an interest charge for late
payments?

10. What happens when we part ways?
When your contract expires or if you
terminate it early, you should still maintain
ownership of all of the optimized web
content you paid the consultant to
provide, Fox says.
Accordingly, you'll want to make sure the
contract states that when you part ways,
consultants will not change or remove any
of the content they added, modified or
optimized on your behalf. You also should
ask consultants whether they charge any
fees for early contract termination, and if
so, to specify them in the contract.


Source..... www.entrepreneur.com/article/227229


Mod.... Lalasticlala
Pls, do the needful
Thank you

Hope you are not paying $5 for all that.

LatestTrend:
Hope you are not paying $5 for all that.

LatestTrend:
Hope you are not paying $5 for all that.

Nice piece. This stuff deserves the front page

Noted

Noted

c

LatestTrend:
Hope you are not paying $5 for all that.

lol abi o them like beta thin but they cant pay.. #i will toast any babe for you for $5

oh

We are just a month old and we have achieved first place on Google search for propershot. Its really not that difficult...

And how many website owners will pay for such expertise in Nigeria without underpaying?

Hiring an SEO specialist is a waste of money. Your web developer can just put your site on google webmasters, just wait for google to crawl your site. It might not appear on the first page at first but as time goes, with the right keywords on your meta tags, you will be fine. And when you are fine with google, yahoo and bing can go fvck themselves.

I am talking from real experience.... Who am I? A web developer.

Hmnnn

Too many questions

propershot:
We are just a month old and we have achieved first place on Google search for propershot. Its really not that difficult...

propershot:
We are just a month old and we have achieved first place on Google search for propershot. Its really not that difficult...

Just focus on original and quality contents for your site. With time you will be fine

So sad that just 20% of traffic is from Google search, if not for nairaland e for get as e be
Still working to optimize www.ityunit.com, the number 1 TechBlog

...

Service of a professional webmaster/web developer/web designer needed within 'Ibadan' Urgently to help with an existing website.

Kindly quote me, do not pm!

saasala:
Hiring an SEO specialist is a waste of money. Your web developer can just put your site on google webmasters, just wait for google to crawl your site. It might not appear on the first page at first but as time goes, with the right keywords on your meta tags, you will be fine. And when you are fine with google, yahoo and bing can go fvck themselves.

I am talking from real experience.... Who am I? A web developer.

What did you mean.

Is it by patients that my blog will appear.

So people are still trying to 'game' google search results with active SEO... with all the algorithm updates that google normally does?

Useful!

Thank you for this.

Pls how much does it cost, at an average to hire a SEO Consultant? Where can someone get them for hire?

OK noted

nice

ifyan:


What did you mean.

Is it by patients that my blog will appear.

If you are using blogger, just go and relax, no need to o any work, surely your blog is highly indexed

saasala:


If you are using blogger, just go and relax, no need to o any work, surely your blog is highly indexed

Sir please can I send you my Gmail account for more information.