5 Tips for Hiring a Search Engine Marketing Expert
Figuring out how to optimize your web sites is a job best left to the pros. After all, they’re the ones who should be spending a lot of time trying to understand how the big three search engines (Google, Yahoo and MSN) operate and how to boost your site’s rankings against their algorithms. But if you’re running a small business, how do you find somebody who can really help you do the job?
We asked Randy Zlobec, a search engine marketing (SEM) expert, to share his advice for hiring a consultant. Zlobec is the author of the upcoming book, Search Engine Optimization, due in December, which is intended to give small website owners the opportunity to “grasp what SEM is and to implement it in their own marketing.”
Put together a shortlist of possible SEM candidates. Zlobec recommends doing a search on “search engine marketing consultant” or “search engine optimization specialist.” He also suggests visiting topseos.com, a site that lists all the major SEM consultants and marketing firms. It provides a ranked listing of the best firms, based on responses to a set of questions, such as “What are the applicant firm’s competitive advantages?” “How are the applicant’s services and pricing levels superior to the competition?” and “What other attributes/innovations does the applicant provide to set it apart from the competition?”
Once you’ve identified finalists, ask them a few simple questions.
- How long have you been in the business? (The longer the better.)
- How long have you been an SEM consultant? (Likewise.)
- What was your previous job? (Was it technology-related and something totally different?)
- How long do your clients remain with you? (A good sign of customer service.)
- Have you done repeat jobs with any of them? (The best testimonial.)
Ask for a couple of client names with web sites and search terms they’ve optimized the sites for. Type those terms into Google, Yahoo and MSN to find out just how the sites rank. “If they’re not on the first page of results, find somebody else who can get you there,” Zlobec said.
Once you’ve confirmed the results, get references. Here, said Zlobec, you’ll want to be cautious. If somebody claims to have optimized a particular site but can’t name a contact person at the client, move onto the next consultant. “I do a lot of research myself. I’ve heard many of [my competitors] say, ‘Well, based on non-disclosures [I can't reveal that information].’” Don’t buy it. “If you’re doing a search engine marketing campaign for somebody, they’re not going to tie you down so much that you couldn’t tell another potential customer to use them as a reference.”
Don’t count on doing a pilot project; it’s all or nothing when it comes to SEM. “It takes quite a bit of time to increase link popularity,” Zlobec said. “It would take a few months. You can’t really give somebody a small project and say, ‘Well, let’s see how you can do on this.’” There’s a lot of strategy behind SEM, he said, both “on-page” and “off-page.”
The on-page optimization is the back end code — meta code, alt tags, description and title tags. “The off-page stuff is link building, article writing and distribution and pay per click campaigns,” he said. “You have to combine that. The engines take time to come and re-index web sites. It’s not going to happen overnight.”
Last, make sure you’re not dealing with somebody who uses Black Hat techniques. One example is creating “doorway pages.” These are additional pages within a web site that could help increase the search engine ranking. Sounds good, right? According to Zlobec, “You’re going to hire the consultant, they’re going to use their black hat techniques, you pay them and they leave and move onto the next client. Then you’ll find your site a few months down the road put onto Google’s blacklist. You’ll never rank.”
The search engines are getting “smarter and smarter” every day, he said. “They’re going to find you one way or the other. You could come up with techniques that are borderline shady, and you don’t want to do that.”
That’s why, said Zlobec, you should expect to pay an upfront setup fee and a monthly maintenance fee. “The engines change constantly. You want them to follow that change and do whatever needs to be done to get them up to the top of those engines.”
What’s your advice for locating just the right SEM expert?
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I think the bullet points above are good traits for any type of freelancer you are looking to hire, SEM, SEO, Design, Copyrighter, etc…
That’s a very good TOP 5, and I typically do not like the top 5 lists that are SEO-focused since it’s usually just an obvious atttempt at “more copy” by the top 5 author; however, these tips are spot on.
I would also add that it pays to offer a GENERAL project outline for a potential SEO client. SEO is mostly behind the scenes and driven by web research and web participation – the person hiring you rarely knows what you are doing and how/when you are doing it.
Thus, plotting the process reduces the client’s anxious wondering.
Or … don’t.
Most SEO consultants aren’t doing anything worthwhile for your business. Instead, invest in someone who can help improve your content and implement important, but basic, site changes for search engines.
The content you produce is way more important than your keywords or meta tags…
As an SEO I can help add to this a bit.
An SEO who offers you a price without even looking at your site is probably not a good SEO. They should do a needs assessment with you to find out what it is you are looking for, as well as taking a look at your site to see what is required before even talking cost.
More often than not, the clients I deal with generally lack a decent number of links pointing to their site. This means that there are more other sites linking to their competitors then their own site.
However if this is the case, there is no quick fix. Link building takes time. And don’t think throwing more money at link building is the solution. A good SEO knows to balance the number of links with the time it takes to acquire them. If they promise better results if you spend more over a shorter period of time I’d steer away from them because this isn’t how link building works.
For onsite changes, I’ve found it’s best to have a tech person on staff to make the changes. Some SEO firms offer that service as well and if so then you will want to know the in-house tech guy’s qualifications as well. Remember this is your business, you don’t want them to break something on your site because they aren’t experienced.
One more thing. Don’t expect the firm you are looking for to rank highly for “search engine optimization” or “search engine marketing” today many firms have niche’s they market to whether they are geographic or service specific. just because you can’t find them ranking where you think they should be doesn’t mean they aren’t good at their job. It just means they expect to be found somewhere else. What you could do is to look at their meta tags (select view, source from your browser menu) find some terms there and then search for those terms. If you still can’t find them, that’s a cause for concern.
Finally, if you do chose a firm, find out how long the people working on your account have been doing this. Sometimes you will find firms who claim to have been around for 10 years and may in fact have been, but many of their employees may have less than 2 years experience. So try and find someone whose employees have enough experience to handle your site.
1. Be web standards compliant (on-page) and
2. Create content that’s to die for (off-page)
But even if you get #1 right you’ll gain so much headway.
I enjoyed your post. AdAge just published a story related to SEO and Social Meda optimization. Matt Creamer, one of their editors, writes about his experience being “optimized” by SEO and SMM. You might enjoy the article: http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=122344