For small businesses looking to grow their customer base from online marketing, investing in a SEO campaign can deliver long lasting value. The most critical aspect of any SEO campaign is selecting a competent, qualified SEO consultant to conduct your SEO program. This presentation outlines six qualifying questions that you should ask any prospective SEO consultant who is trying to earn your business. The answers to each of these questions should give you a good indication of the level of competency, experience and results you should expect from that SEO consultant if you were to select them for your project. This should help you weed out the consultants who aren't as qualified and may be a risk to you for your investment, and should help you determine which SEO consultant you've interviewed is the right choice for you.

1. 6 Questions to Ask Your
Prospective SEO Consultant
By Chris J. Everett, Principal & Founder
Captivate Search Marketing

2. 1) How Do You Build Rankings For Your Clients?
SEO isn’t brain surgery. Be wary of SEO consultants who overuse SEO jargon and
a mess of other technical terms to explain how they execute their clients’ SEO
programs. Yes, SEO is a practice that is based on a multitude of different factors,
but it can easily be explained in layman’s terms.
Make sure that the SEO consultant covers both on-site and off-site strategies that
they utilize. Among the topics your SEO consultant will discuss are:

Keyword research and competitive analysis

Meta tag optimization and optimization of on-page content

Off-site strategies such as Content Marketing, Social Media, Blogging, etc.
Be sure they don’t subscribe to any automated SEO linking networks to help build
rankings for their clients – these programs to far more harm than good.

3. 2) Do You Guarantee No. 1 Rankings?
This question will quickly quickly help you determine whether the SEO consultant is
worthy of your trust.
Of course, earning top rankings is the aspiration of anyone investing in SEO for their
business.
BUT...
The fact is, No SEO consultant can guarantee natural rankings because they aren’t
the ones who own the search engines!
If you run into a consultant who promises you No. 1 rankings, you might want to
think twice about their credibility and whether or not you want to do business with
them.

4. 3) How Long Does SEO Take To Work?
When done properly, SEO campaigns provide sustainable rankings and outstanding
return for your investment, but depending on a number of factors, SEO can take
several months to see major strides.
If your site is well established and has been around for years and is ranking in the
top 100 search results for your targeted keywords, you could see spikes in your
rankings and traffic in just a couple of months, depending how aggressive your SEO
budget is.
If you're launching a brand new site from the ground up in a highly competitive
industry, it could take anywhere from 6-12 months to see major strides in your
rankings.
SEO is an investment, if you're not committed to at least 6 months of ongoing work,
you're selling yourself short.

5. 4) How Important is Social Media?
Nowadays if your Internet marketing strategy doesn’t include social media, your
strategy isn’t living up to its full potential. Social media signals and social sharing is
a part of how Google ranks your website’s content.
The more it’s shared, Liked, Tweeted, and +1ed, the better the opportunity it
will have to rank toward the top of the search results.
Social media also affords businesses an opportunity to increase the awareness of
their brand with both prospective and existing customers.
Keeping consumers engaged with your brand through social media by asking them
questions, giving away freebies, Re-Tweeting them or giving them a mention helps
to build trust, long-term brand loyalty, and keeps your company Top of Mind.
While this doesn’t pertain exclusively to SEO, the consultant should be aware of the
power of social media can have for small businesses in growing their online
presence.

6. 5) Can You Provide Examples of Your Work?
This question’s purpose is multifaceted.
First, it helps you determine the quality of work that the SEO consultant has
produced for other clients, including how competitive the keywords were they
achieved rankings for and what industries they’ve performed SEO for before.
Secondly, the answer of this question can give you a better idea of the typical
caliber of client the SEO consultant works with and what the consultant’s fees might
be to take on your project.
There may be an occasion where the SEO consultant is bound by confidentiality
and can't tell you the name of some of their clients, however there should be some
clients who they aren't bound by confidentiality, letting them provide you examples
of rankings from their SEO programs.

7. 6) Reporting: What Kind and How Often?
Staying on top of the overall performance of your campaign is a must – especially
for small businesses. Knowing where your marketing dollars are being invested and
what you’re getting in return for that investment is an important expectation to have
when selecting your SEO consultant.
Among the reporting you should expect from your consultant are:

Website traffic reports segmenting Direct, Organic and Paid search referrals

Ranking reports for your targeted keywords for the three major search engines

Link Building/Content Marketing reports: What articles where submitted and
where.

Citation Building Reports: What local business directories were claimed,
optimized, etc. for the time period.

An analysis of the performance and suggestions moving forward.
The frequency of these reports might vary from report to report. Some of these
reports could be delivered on a weekly basis (Traffic, Keyword Rankings), while
others might be delivered on a monthly basis. Be sure your consultant has a well-
structured reporting system to keep you well informed your campaign.

8. Conclusion
If you're a small business owner or a marketer who is searching for an SEO
consultant to work with, these six questions will go a long way in helping you
determine which consultant is the most qualified to take on your project!