If you’re a business who wants to establish their presence online or enhance their digital footprints, the best thing to do is hire an SEO company or an individual consultant. But don’t commit any mistake and fall prey to the hands of any fly by night company that claims to be SEO expert.
Hiring an SEO company is a big investment, something which will cost you a fortune. However, if the things are done right with proper planning, the results will gain you ten times your investment. Hiring an SEO partner, be it a big company or an individual service provider, it’s not as easy as buying bread and butter for your morning breakfast.
So, whether you’re hiring an individual or partnering with a leading digital marketing company, there’re few things that you would like to know to help you make better judgement.
- Research is your best friend
Research is the best weapon every consumer has. It won’t take time and the things will turn out differently and then you’ll realize that it’s not you were promised. So, research is very crucial in the beginning to ensure that you don’t get crooked. Read about the companies you’re planning to hire, check their authenticity to find out whether they’re trustable.
- Check the list of current and past clients?
A reputable SEO company is transparent with their prospective and past clients. They won’t hesitate to share the details of their past and present clients unless they are not what they promise. If somehow you get access to their client details, don’t hesitate to call em up and ask few questions. Check if the websites of their clients are performing well or not to be sure their work is long lasting.
- Find out their client retention stats
How long a company manages to keep their client happy is what defines how good they are. Check out what’s the longest association of the company with their clients and the reasons why they weren’t able to retain their clients. You should be aware of the company and prepared in case the company or consultant leaves you in the midway. Find out what is the minimum tenure of their business contracts.
- Your requirements, do they serve those?
Make a list of your requirements where you need your SEO company to help you with, be precise to avoid being overcharged and be concrete, don’t miss out anything. Do some pre-hiring dialing, talk to them or personally visit them.
- Get everything on paper
Most of the times, SEO companies make the promise which they never plan to fulfill. They offer to cater a solution for all your requirements, but, as soon as they get the payment they turn a deaf ear on you. Making a promise and keeping up to them are different things and not everyone is good at both. So, follow the most important rule of business, get everything documented on the contract sheet. Make your money count and keep a trump card with you. Having a documented proof will help you sue them if they don’t deliver what they promised.
- Local and global search result experience
The every SEO companies is good at enhancing your digital presence globally. But even the best of all break in efforts to improve the local digital presence. Hence, this is the most crucial parameter to lookout for while hiring the company. If your business is planning to target the local consumers first, it’s a waste if you’re hiring someone with good experience of improving global search result.