SEO Firms: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly - What You Need
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First and foremost, you’ll need to know ahead of time what your SEO needs are. Ask for a site analysis so that you know just where your site strengths and weaknesses are. This way, you won’t feel like you don’t know where the SEO firm or consultant is headed with your project, and you’ll be better able to gauge what you need from a package, or whether you’ll need to heavily customize your SEO project. It isn’t necessary for you to understand all of the aspects of what goes into your SEO project, as long as you understand what the end results should be.
Be very wary of any company that offers you guarantees, especially guarantees that state they’ll get you into the top ten results or your money back, or a certain percentage of the keywords you choose will end up number one or two in Google. This is great if you have an unusual type of site, or niche content. But there is a good chance that if you’ve thought of it, someone else has too. There is nothing wrong with guarantees like this, however: “We guarantee a x percentage increase in traffic by x date.” That is a far more reasonable guarantee to offer. Unfortunately, that kind of specific guarantee usually can’t be offered until the SEO firm has a good handle on what your site is doing in the SERPs and where its flaws might be.
Find out what a firm’s code of ethics or standards are. Also find out what type of contract you’ll need to get started. If a company doesn’t offer a contract, then you need to get one of your own. It seems these days that contracts lately are only as good as the company behind them, but it does help to have a plan of action on paper to which you can legally hold the company. Make sure it covers any extra fees, what happens if you’re not satisfied with the work, what your responsibilities are as a client, and so on. There are a few SEO agreement templates on the Internet.
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