Some useful questions to ask an
SEO include:
Can you show me examples of your
previous work and share some success stories?
Do you follow the Google
Webmaster Guidelines?
Do you offer any online marketing
services or advice to complement your organic search business?
What kind of results do you expect
to see, and in what timeframe? How do you measure your success?
What's your experience in my
industry?
What's your experience in my
country/city?
What are your experience
developing international sites?
What are your most important SEO
techniques?
How long have you been in
business?
How can I expect to communicate
with you? Will you share with me all the changes you make to my site, and
provide detailed information about your recommendations and the reasoning
behind them?
While SEOs can provide clients
with valuable services, some unethical SEOs have given the industry a black eye
through their overly aggressive marketing efforts and their attempts to
manipulate search engine results in unfair ways. Practices that violate our
guidelines may result in a negative adjustment of your site's presence in
Google, or even the removal of your site from our index. Here are some things
to consider:
Be wary of SEO firms and web
consultants or agencies that send you email out of the blue.
Amazingly, we get these spam emails
too:
"Dear google.com,
I visited your website and
noticed that you are not listed in most of the major search engines and
directories..."
Reserve the same skepticism for
unsolicited email about search engines as you do for "burn fat at
night" diet pills or requests to help transfer funds from deposed
dictators.
No one can guarantee a #1 ranking
on Google.
Beware of SEOs that claim to
guarantee rankings, allege a "special relationship" with Google, or
advertise a "priority submit" to Google. There is no priority submit
for Google. In fact, the only way to submit a site to Google directly is
through our Add URL page or by submitting a Sitemap and you can do this
yourself at no cost whatsoever.
Be careful if a company is
secretive or won't clearly explain what they intend to do.
Ask for explanations if something
is unclear. If an SEO creates deceptive or misleading content on your behalf,
such as doorway pages or "throwaway" domains, your site could be
removed entirely from Google's index. Ultimately, you are responsible for the
actions of any companies you hire, so it's best to be sure you know exactly how
they intend to "help" you. If an SEO has FTP access to your server,
they should be willing to explain all the changes they are making to your site.
You should never have to link to
an SEO.
Avoid SEOs that talk about the
power of "free-for-all" links, link popularity schemes, or submitting
your site to thousands of search engines. These are typically useless exercises
that don't affect your ranking in the results of the major search engines -- at
least, not in a way you would likely consider to be positive.
