You want your company to get onto the first page of the search results. But this can be very difficult, especially if you are starting out with no experience in SEO.

Many businesses, therefore, choose to hire an SEO consultant or agency to help them achieve their organic search goals quicker. But this can also be a hard thing to get right.

How do you choose the best consultant? What should you look out for when hiring an SEO expert?

Have they got experience?

This is one of the most important aspects of hiring a good consultant. You should look at their experience. Have they got customers, and can you read any of their recent reviews or gauge what results they have delivered to their clients?

James Ewen, an SEO consultant who works for SEOtagg (an SEO agency in London), says that he makes sure all proof is on their site as a priority.

“It’s important to make sure that prospective clients can see our work, the results we’ve got and that we are a real business with real clients” he says.

This is what you need to look out for. Check sites in depth and make sure that you do your homework in the research stage of finding an expert.

Where they are based?

SEO is global and it doesn’t matter where your consultant is based. You can hire a consultant from anywhere in the world, so long as their methods follow Google’s guidelines.

But if you prefer face-to-face meetings or being in the same time zone, then make sure you choose someone local to you. If you’re located in the Bay Area or Silicon Valley region, you may want to specifically search for companies based in San Francisco. Using local SEO services in Bay Area or Silicon Valley can also provide a deeper understanding of your target audience and the local market. This can lead to more effective SEO strategies that are tailored to your location.

Do they have any reviews?

Similar to the last point, it’s important to check reviews. You would do this with a SaaS tool or a product, so do the same when hiring professionals.

Check their Google profile, and often there are a number of sites that are specific to SEO agencies or professionals.

It is important to check these in detail. Ask yourself, has the consultant worked with real businesses and can you see evidence of them improving these businesses’ sites based on the reviews?

Ensure you check the good and bad reviews to get a balanced opinion of the SEO consultant and what it’s like to work with them.

How is their website ranking?

I love this as a way of checking how good an SEO consultant is. If your SEO consultant struggles to rank their site, then how can they be trusted with yours?

Always check an SEO consultant’s site with a basic SEO tool or even Google terms related to the service you are looking for.

You can even ask a consultant to show you their past success when it comes to ranking websites. Always ask for proof that the consultant has experience in ranking websites. Google is public knowledge so use it when analysing your consultant.

All of this is great information when it comes to choosing the best expert on offer for your business.

Are they willing to chat with you in person?

A lot of SEO ‘experts’ will say that they know what they are doing, but how many are willing to take the time to chat with you on a call?

This is a great way to identify a great SEO consultant from an average one. They will be able to walk you through their process and how it would work for your site.

Every site is different, so don’t be afraid to ask what they can do for your specific situation. Most SEO consultants will be happy to show you a high-level plan for what will happen if you take them on.

These calls are invaluable when it comes to selecting an SEO consultant. There’s a whole range of data points to check, but being able to chat with a real person can give you more than you need to know about a potential hire.

Now you know what to look for when finding help, or click here to work with one of London’s best SEO consultants.

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