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When many business owners want to make their site easier to find they often turn to an SEO agency. Search engine optimization (SEO) can be a big investment, so if you want to outsource this marketing work, you must do some research. Ask plenty of questions about methods, experience, and processes before selecting an agency to use.

Questions to Ask When Evaluating an SEO Agency

Before choosing an agency to work with, you want to collect some information on each agency’s strategies, processes, experience level, and results. A complete SEO effort should cover links, web copy, web page attributes, and content marketing. Links from quality sites help, but so does fresh content that targets relevant keywords.

Regarding strategies, any SEO agency worth hiring will be able to implement a variety of strategies to bring qualified customers to your site. Many SEO agencies offer additional consulting or marketing services. You’ll want to know if they offer expertise in another area of marketing strategy or online marketing that would be valuable to your business. Find out if the SEO agency also at least offers content marketing help. Starting a blog, guest posting on other sites, and adding new content can all help with your search rankings while also enhancing your reputation with potential customers.

You want to see team members who have experience doing SEO work for your industry or writing about your industry if content writing is part of the SEO package. You also want to know if they’ve gotten good results for past clients in your industry.

Use these questions as a guide when doing online research and when discussing your SEO needs with a potential hire.

1. What SEO strategies do you implement?

2. What services do you offer, in addition to search engine optimization?

3. Can you share case studies?

4. How much experience do you have with businesses like mine?

5. What tools do you use?

6. How do you measure success?

7. Who will I be communicating with during the contract period?

8. How many years of SEO experience do you have?

9. What kind of progress can I realistically expect to see?

10. What link-building tactics do you use?

11. How do you find placement opportunities for links or guest blogs?

12. How will you and your team be communicating with us?

13. How much input will you need from my people?

14. Who will be doing the SEO work for my account?

15. Can you write new content relevant to my site?

16. Do you offer different service levels, and what does each one include?

Those questions provide a framework for gathering information, but they can’t help you decide if you are ready to hire someone for your search engine optimization work.

Before Searching for an SEO Agency

Remember that search engine optimization is just one part of an overarching strategy. If you aren’t investing in other forms of marketing, an SEO campaign might deliver disappointing results. However, if you are already investing in things like paid search and Facebook ads, outsourcing your search engine optimization may also be helpful. Make sure you are financially prepared to invest in optimization work for a few months before seeing measurable results.

Rely on SEO Agency Experts Whenever Possible

Optimizing your visibility online is a process that requires both technical expertise and regular attention to create a decent return on investment. If your business needs more visibility online, learn more about our in-house SEO agency and contact us for a free SEO site audit.