Top Tips For Hiring SEO Practitioners.

In this section:

What to expect from SEO

There are many people out there that claim to be SEO specialists – and like any profession, some are very good, but the vast majority of them aren’t. Here is some free tips to help you to sort the wheat from the chaff – so the money you spend on a professional is well spent from the start.

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What Search Engine Optimisation Is.

The whole idea of SEO is to encourage organic ranking of a website so that it can be found online by people looking for the products or services it promotes.

SEO is a thought process that requires effort, brains, a marketing mind and a good understanding of (and respect for) how search engines work.

At its most basic, the SEO process includes:

1	Research into how people search for your products or services
2	Careful and strategic selection of relevant keywords and phrases that will enable you to be found by the right audience
3	The preparation of fresh, relevant content and code on the site
4	The development of search engine friendly site structures and
5	The creation of links to your site.

Then, once that's all done, the real work begins in earnest.

This is the many hours of effort applied to creating content and opportunities for linking back to your website from a credible and relevant third-party site. A good search engine optimisation specialist looks to attract traffic to your site, and keeps an eye out for opportunities for you to potentially expand your market.

The bad news is that it doesn't end. Markets are fluid, so they can change quickly, search engines can refine or modify algorithms, and you need to stay abreast of these changes and respond to them to stay relevant to your market and maintain your rank.

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What Search Engine Optimisation Is Not.

It isn't pay-per-click advertising, or even search engine marketing, it is a process where someone works on a website to achieve one desired outcome - that is organic ranking.

Good SEO people are not a commodity. Shop by price and you'll get what you pay for (and there are plenty of monkeys out there gobbling peanuts too).

SEO is a very specialized skill that can add immense value to a business but be warned. Converting your visitors to customers is your job - not the job of your SEO practitioner.

Sales conversion is dependant on many different factors - often these are out of control of your SEO practitioner. For example, how your product is priced relative to competition, your geographic distribution, or how you present your product.

However, a good SEO practitioner should be able to advise on some elements if they're clearly not working for you such as the structure of the site or whether they can see a compelling benefit that is clearly communicated to the site visitor.

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8 Top Tips for Hiring A SEO Professional.

If someone offers to optimise your website for a few hundred dollars, you are not dealing with an experienced and thorough search engine optimiser.

An optimiser will charge you for time they spend working on your website, and to do it properly, it will take them many hours of work.

It's the old adage - you'll get what you pay for. No good optimiser is going to invest much of their time with you for a few hundred dollars. While you might think you're getting a bargain, chances are high that you will not be happy with the end result.

Would you skimp on an accountant, doctor or a lawyer? Just as you would hire any other professional, so too it is the case with SEO.

Here are some tips about what to look for:

1	SEO is not Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising. SEO is concerned with encouraging search engines to rank the site organically - not through sponsored listings.
2	Avoid optimisers that promote unscrupulous practices that are outside of the practices discussed here. If your domain gets blacklisted (banned from search engines), it can be an extremely difficult and time-consuming process (with no guarantees of success) to get your domain ranking again.
3	Look for clients that have used an optimiser and talk to them about their experiences. Ranking is not always the best measure for figuring out who is good at their job.
4	Ask prospective SEO specialists to describe their process. Most should have no problem in telling you what is involved, how long it takes, and how they approach different websites. A good SEO should try to educate you about SEO so you understand exactly what is involved.
5	Look for independent specialists. Web development firms that also sell SEO have a vested interest in trying to sell you their other services. If your website needs a redesign because of a navigational or structural issue, a good SEO practitioner should be able to tell you and advise you how to set up a technical specification to avoid future problems with site structure.
6	Unlike PPC where results are immediate, SEO for organic ranking can take time. Be patient and go with the flow with the process.
7	Look for future-proof optimisation - so that the work that is done today will continue to stand you in good stead tomorrow. If you are optimised properly from the start, you should have the flexibility to make some changes to your website without affecting your ranking.
8	If it sounds too good to be true, well, it probably is. Do they sound credible? Have they got experience that is relevant to Australia or the market in which you operate? Are they too cheap? (Time is money, and money is time spent on your site. Set aside a decent budget so you get a decent job.) Read how the search engines work so that you have a basic understanding of them - and this will stand you in better stead to have the conversations with prospective SEO practitioners.

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