Hiring A Search Engine Optimization Consultant: Pros + Pitfalls
Here’s the deal. Search engine optimization isn’t a regulated industry. Anybody can do it.
And many people do.
Badly.
First and foremost, “consultant” should be a term carefully watched. If someone is advertising themself as a consultant, it’s potentially just someone in their garage.
We’re not against all these people but in our experience it’s often extremely difficult for those people to be credible, to produce real and approved results (more on that later) and have actual clients who are willing to sing their praises.
However, if your consultant is a confirmed agency that has a track record of positive reviews, results and has been around for sometime, now you’re dealing with more than a “consultant” you have a world class agency who can deliver your website and your marketing into the 21st century.
Search engine optimization is not easy and it’s not quick. But if you have any aspirations of getting your website to page 1 of Google for your products and services, you’ll need SEO to succeed.
If you do SEO yourself, you’re just asking for a lot of headaches. Therefore, you need to hire an SEO consultant to provide these services.
So what are the pros of hiring an SEO consultant and, more importantly, what are the pitfalls of choosing the wrong one?
Let’s lay out the pitfalls first. It’s always good to end on a high note, right?
Core issues with hiring a search engine optimization consultant who doesn’t care about you
Here’s a little secret. Digital marketing, which is the generic term for SEO consulting services, is an absolutely out-of-this-world booming industry. In fact, The global digital marketing software market size was valued at USD 43.8 billion in 2019 and is expected to register a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 17.4% from 2020 to 2027.
In other words, there’s money to be made.
Remember, not regulated. And anyone can open up a SEO agency, claim that they have all this experience and expertise and not actually know what they’re doing. Of course, they don’t care because their sole mission is to make money off you whether they help you or not.
So what’s the #1 thing you should keep in mind when considering a search engine optimization consultant?
Never buy SEO on your first impressions. Never.
You could absolutely love the person you’re talking to, they could know their stuff and they could even show you live campaigns from other clients but you should never buy based on one person’s opinion, specifically a very biased one who wants your business.
Numbers can be misleading. People can be smooth talkers.
Buying on first impressions doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed to be screwed. It just means you’re opening yourself up to a lot more risk that they could overpromise and underdeliver.
That’s quite a pitfall.
Another pitfall is lack of communication.
The #1 key to success for any client who hires an SEO consulting agency (we’ve made it clear you shouldn’t hire a single person working out of their garage, right?) is communication.
Results are good. Understanding results is better.
People who don’t understand SEO are easy prey for consultants who are more money motivated than results motivated.
In other words, once they have your money, they might not communicate how they get results for you, or worse, they might not do the work at all, or even worse, they do the work but it doesn’t follow Google’s Guidelines and therefore could compromise your website’s standing with humans and search engine algorithms alike.
One of the best ways to pick up whether they are a “white hat” SEO agency, is to see what they are promising.
If you ask them if they can guarantee your #1 position in Google, Yahoo or Bing and they say “Yes”, RUN IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION.
Many SEO consultants will promise some inside relationship with Google or will say they’ve cracked the code on how to get you to page one.
THIS DOESN’T EXIST.
SEO consultants are not Google employees and Google doesn’t not freely give away some “secret recipe” to become the #1 result.
Only Google, Yahoo and Bing can control where you rank. Following their guidelines is the only way to improve online and even then, there is no guarantee you’ll hit page one.
Hiring a search engine optimization consultant who guarantees page one results is a massive pitfall and these people/companies need to be avoided at all costs.
What you can do to avoid making a big mistake
There are some more pitfalls out there when hiring SEO consultants and we’ll outline them below:
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They don’t guarantee timely communication
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They don’t have any way of showing you success or not
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They are overextended and can’t devote the necessary time to your campaign
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They are an extremely cheap option
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They promise to create hundreds of links for your website in a matter of days
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They own the work they create instead of you
These are the basics that will get you into trouble.
But fear not, we’ve created a handy guide that will help you avoid hiring the wrong SEO consultant for your business.
Use this handy guide when you’re on the phone with the prospective consultant and make sure they have an answer for every single one of these questions.
If they don’t or you’re not comfortable with the answers, look elsewhere.
As of 2017, there were over 13,000 agencies out there who do this type of work. You’re not stuck with a single option. Shop around and find the best fit.
*Important: Save it as a physical file first. Do not fill in answers in your web browser as they won’t save.*
What are the pros of working with a search engine optimization consultant
Again, choose an agency to be your SEO consultant.
You know how life is too short to read a bad book or watch a bad movie?
Life is definitely too short to get bad SEO consulting.
But enough chatter. Let’s get down to brass tax on receiving SEO consulting services for your agency.
First and foremost, SEO is one of the best business decisions you can make in 2020 and beyond.
In short, SEO increases traffic, engagement and conversions to your website. SEO is a long term strategy for the success of your business. And most importantly, SEO is quantifiable.
Search engine optimization services are some of the quickest growing service industry offerings in the world because ranking on Google, Yahoo and Bing truly helps your business. For more great info on why SEO is so important, check out this post “12 Reasons Why Your Business Absolutely Needs SEO” by reputable industry information leader, Search Engine Journal.
Second, good agencies can guarantee results because they’ve done it in the past.
We’re not talking “guarantee” as in hundreds of links in days or page 1 results by the weekend. No, no. Not those types of guarantees.
But we are talking guarantees of more organic traffic to your website and upwards trends in keyword rankings.
Those guarantees are real because consultants with proven track records should be able to get that for almost any business in any industry.
The best way to help you know that you’re going to get better rankings, traffic and leads is to evaluate the companies reviews and references. Talking with references should be standard practice and it’s integral to help ensure you’ve chosen the right SEO consultant to partner with.
Finally, search engine optimization consultants that can report all of their work is a HUGE pro.
SEO is quantifiable because the data tells you in black and white how successful you are and where you can make improvements. Once more, your consultant should ensure that all the work they complete to get you these stellar results is actually owned by you.
You don’t want to be married to an agency. There are horror stories of companies who trust an agency and then realize that when they leave that agency, all of their work is removed from the internet.
Here’s one final never for you:
NEVER work with an agency who owns assets for your company. Everything they create should be yours and NEVER work with a consultant who will remove the work if you leave.
Summary
Listen, SEO is worth it. 100%. Worth. It.
But there are a lot of snakes in the grass in the SEO industry. So you really need to make sure that you’re partnering with the right SEO consultant. It’ll save you money, it’ll grow your business, it’ll get you found online.
Now that you know some of the pitfalls and some of the pros and you also have our handy “QUESTIONS FOR SEO CONSULTANTS GUIDE”, you’ll be well on your way to hiring the right SEO consultant for your business.
Happy searching!
BONUS: Because you deserve to know more than just the good and the bad. Here’s some extra info that will help you understand what buying SEO services looks like.
#1. It’s going to cost some money
Quality SEO isn’t cheap. But how many investments in your business, that actually paid off, do you know of that came cheap? Probably none, right? Hiring an SEO agency to help your marketing team is like hiring a world class employee. That employee will take you to the next level but you still have to pay them, right? Same thing with SEO. The difference though is that you never have to pay your agency vacation days, social security, 401Ks, sick days and you don’t have to give them a parking spot, computer or even a chair to sit in.
#2. Not all SEO consultants are created equal
This is really more about what fits best for you. Do you want a large agency who gets results but treats you like a number? Do you want a smaller agency that can offer a more personal service? Do you want to rank nationally for your products and services or do you want to serve your local area or both? It’s just as important to identify what you want out of an agency as it is for them to serve you properly.
#3. Communication will be the most important thing
An SEO agency shouldn’t be a number on a balance sheet to you. They should be a strategic partner. Their sole mission is to help your website look better to Google and when it starts improving, they should be making suggestions to help your website convert that traffic into solid leads and sales. A good agency will include your business on core decisions and apprise you to what their work is and how it’s impacting your company. An SEO campaign that doesn’t have strong communication is average at best.