10 Questions to Ask Before You Hire an SEO Company
Hiring an SEO company Ventura, California Ten questions
You are about to pay somebody every month for work you cannot see, on a website you probably cannot read. Ask these ten questions before you sign anything. Once you have hired them, the monthly report is where you find out, and we wrote up what that report should actually show you.
If they cannot answer questions one, five and ten, keep your money.
Nobody enjoys this conversation. You are not an SEO person. They know that, and a few of them count on it.
So here is the list we would hand a friend, and it is the same list we would want pointed at us. We are an SEO company in Ventura, California, so yes, we have skin in this. Ask us all ten. Ask the other three companies you are talking to as well.
Every one of these costs nothing to ask. Not asking has cost people around here a year.
The ten questions
At the end of month one, what will be different on my website?
This is the whole interview in one question. It is very hard to answer with fog. Real work on a site leaves a list you can check, and we walked through what that work usually changes.
Which searches are we going after, and who holds them now?
They should be able to name actual phrases your customers type, and who is sitting on those searches today. If the plan is "SEO", there is no plan. If most of your work comes off the map instead, ask how they handle local SEO and the map pack, because that is a different job.
Who is actually doing the work?
The person selling you is often not the person writing anything. That is fine if they tell you. It is not fine if you find out in month three, when the pages read like they were written by somebody who has never seen a job site.
Have you done this for a business like mine, in a town like mine?
Not "do you have clients". Have you done the thing I am buying, near here, for somebody who sells what I sell. A pool company and a machine shop are not the same job, and neither is a business in one town versus a business covering ten.
Can I see the hours?
You are paying for time. You should be able to see where it went, the same week it went there, without asking twice. Ours are logged in the open, which is not us being noble, it is us not wanting that argument on month four.
How will we know it worked?
Agree on this before money moves, because it is the thing you will argue about later. Impressions are the easiest number in this business to inflate and the least connected to your bank account.
What are you guaranteeing?
The right answer is nothing about rankings, and you should want to hear that. Google's own guide to hiring an SEO puts it plainly: "No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google." Anybody promising one is either new or lying, and both cost the same. For what happens when somebody sells the top spot anyway, read three fake SEO companies that owners paid anyway.
Who writes the pages, and how do they learn my trade?
Your customers ask for things by name: the part number, the fitting, the thing that failed at 2am. Somebody has to learn that vocabulary, and the only place it exists is in your head and your invoices. Ask how they plan to get it out of you, and how much of your time that takes.
If I leave, what do I keep?
Ask it early and watch how fast the mood changes. The pages, the profile, the tracking accounts and the logins should be yours because they are yours. Some setups are built so leaving costs you the whole thing, which is a business model, just not for you. If you are already paying somebody, check what you actually bought.
Can I call one of your clients?
The oldest question in trade work, and it still sorts the room faster than anything else. A firm doing real work has somebody happy to take that call, because they have had a good year.
Ours is a pool company that went from forty pools to more than two hundred. The story is written up here, and Dillon will tell you about it himself.
Send your website over. We will go and look, tell you which searches you are losing and what it would take to win them, and you can run all ten questions at us while we do it. Free, and yours to keep even if you hire somebody else.
How to run the conversation
Ask all ten, in order, to every company you talk to. Write the answers down while they talk, because a week later three pitches blur into one and you will remember the friendliest voice instead of the best answer.
Then read what you wrote. The good ones get specific and a bit boring: pages, hours, dates, names. The bad ones stay at altitude, where nothing can be checked.
- 01What changes on my site in month one?
- 02Which searches, and who holds them?
- 03Who actually does the work?
- 04Have you done it in my town?
- 05Can I see the hours?
- 06How will we know it worked?
- 07What are you guaranteeing?
- 08Who writes the pages?
- 09If I leave, what do I keep?
- 10Can I call one of your clients?
Screenshot this, or print the page. Three empty boxes at the end of a call is your answer.
Specific is not a personality. It is the sound of somebody who has done it before.
One more thing. If you already hired somebody and something feels off, this is the wrong list. The right one is the ten red flags that your SEO company is wasting your money, which is the same conversation held a year too late.
If you are in Ventura County
We are at 1793 E Main St, Unit L7 in Ventura, California. Come by, or send the website and we will read it before you decide anything.
No contracts, and never have been. If we are not good enough, move along.
Bring the questions, the quotes you have been sent, and the name of the town you actually want the phone to ring from. We will tell you where you stand today and what it takes to move, whether or not you ever hire us.