How To Select an SEO Consultant   by Ade Lewis

in Search Engines / SE Optimization    (submitted 2011-09-06)

An SEO consultant's job role includes a broad subject area, from discovering and resolving problems with the coding of your site which are hindering it from ranking successfully to developing the popularity of your website through the creation of proper links. SEO is a relatively new industry and consultants come from many different backgrounds. Depending on their route in to SEO a consultant will favour some kinds of optimisation techniques more than others. The primary purpose of an SEO Consultant, however, remains constant and that is to establish and implement techniques to better your rank within search engines.

Search engine companies such as Google have become pretty good at sniffing out websites who are taking advantage of underhanded SEO techniques in order to manipulate search engine rankings. Often these bad practices are penalised with a drop in rankings until the optimisation techniques are changed however at worst it could result in a site being completely de-listed from search engines. As with all other professions there are good and bad consultants so you can use the following tips to help you to choose the right SEO consultant and avoid the chance of getting your website rankings penalised.

Does the consultant adhere to best practices? Search engine companies publish guidelines of how they wish to see websites built and marketed, they additionally list practices ,for example; buying back linksand website cloaking that will attract penalties. It is essential that your chosen SEO consultant practices only 'white hat' techniques and follows the set guidelines of the search engine companies as underhanded techniques could damage the reputation of your website.

Make certain that your brand will be in safe hands and that the optimisation technique is going to offer consistent results. You would be severely disappointed if a month or two after hiring an SEO consultant your ranking with the search engines began to fluctuate wildly and your site became negatively affected. This type of problem could give clients a bad perception and impair your reputation, not to mention hinder business. Don't be afraid to ask the consultant lots of questions about their technique and approach to SEO. Even if you do not entirely comprehend everything that they say, your initial questions are probably going to make them adopt a more methodical approach to the Search Engine Optimisation for yourwebsite

Are their strategies going to appeal to web users? Sites should be optimised with web users enjoyment prioritised rather than concentrating exclusively on the search engine rankings. All of the major search engine companies state that all sites should be created to provide a visitor the best experience possible with well written, relevant material and a simple structure of navigation. An SEO consultant will give advice on how to enhance your site content to increase its relevance to a given search term. Remember that your purpose is to meet the requirements of website visitors, not just to rank as high as is possible in searches. The majority of SEO consultants will be happy to offer examples of their previously optimised sites. It is important for you to visit these sites as it will allow you to gauge the quality of the content and your experience.

Which would you say is more important; quality or quantity? The quality of your site visitors is more important than the quantity. 100 site visitors and 10 sales is more helpful than 1000 visitors and no sales. This is all down to the keywords you select to target for your SEO campaign. Say for instance you trade blue coloured Widgets. You could get a huge quantity of traffic to your website due to the professional optimisation of the site for 'Widgets', only the visitors were all looking for green Widgets so there is no positive impact on sales. If the site had been optimised with the keywords 'Blue Widgets', however, you would be far more likely to see an a positive impact on in your sales.

Exactly what kind of services are provided by the SEO? It is essential to know precisely what services they are going to carry out. There are a number of SEO consultants who provide an advisory role to clients and will write a report detailing the action required to improve the ranking of a site. If you have an in-house development team on hand that service is fine. Others will apply the work for you after they have taken care of the strategy work.

How much will you be paying for the optimisation services? Whilst this appears to be a straight forward question, it is a tricky one to understand To explore effective comparisons you have to have a clear understanding of the level of service you have been quoted for. What is the typical cost to optimise a site similar to your own? You may want to avoid any consultant who promises to get your site to a no.1 position as due to the variables, it is not possible to guarantee this.

Do you feel you would be able to develop a good working relationship with the SEO consultant? It really helps if you can uphold an effective working relationship with your SEO consultant. Whilst some consultants will only provide a basic service to fulfil their contract to you, others will do their best to obtain the best results. If you are amiable with your consultant you are likely to get a few more miles out of your campaign.

About the Author

My name is Ade Lewis and I am an SEO Consultant providing a wide range of SEO services from fixed price SEO packages through to high level SEO consultant services. I can offer you help and advice to get your website ranking in the top Google organic search engine listings. No matter how large or small your business is, or at what stage of development your online business presence is you will benefit from having an SEO Expert on-board. I can help you succeed in gaining higher search engine rankings.