A search on Google for “SEO expert” will give you dozens upon dozens of websites, each claiming that they have SEO experts on board. Since anyone can claim to be an SEO expert, how can you tell if someone can genuinely help your business? Since there are many SEO professionals with different strengths and baseline knowledge of the practice, you can check out the guidelines below to connect with the right SEO expert.
First Things First: Set up An Appointment ASAP
Websites notwithstanding, the number one method of determining if an SEO professional is a genuine expert is by setting up a call or meeting and asking the SEO expert directly how they would approach the problem and what could be holding back your business from thriving.
While SEO professionals will not conduct SEO testing on the spot, you can still evaluate the quality of their initial assessment and experience in your market/similar market.
You can look at the SEO expert’s website, note the available services, and ask them about the initial steps you must take to gradually improve your search rankings and position your business better vis-à-vis your competitors.
An experience SEO professional should have no problem visualizing what an SEO campaign would look like and provide a general evaluation of your website. It’s a good idea to keep the communication going over the months you work with the SEO expert once you sign up for their SEO services.
Total Years In SEO
Anyone can start an ‘SEO agency’ on a whim and start saying they know SEO from top to bottom. However, just saying you know SEO doesn’t mean you have the wisdom and experience to carry out an SEO campaign from start to finish.
It takes many years of experience to learn what works in search engine optimization. SEO involves hundreds of steps, and many of these tweaks and steps are learned along the way. However, these smaller steps also affect the bigger picture.
An SEO expert must also know the different approaches to SEO, as no single SEO template will work for each website or business.
An SEO novice will likely try the same techniques on every website, which will produce poor results. On the other hand, an SEO professional with a long track record will be more concerned with analyzing the market and the website before engaging in any brutal campaign.
Past SEO Campaigns or SEO Projects
It’s easy to talk about how good you are at something, but it’s an entirely different game when someone asks you to describe your past SEO efforts. That’s why it’s a good idea to quiz somewhat the SEO expert about how they’ve done SEO in the past and how the results were.
Professional Knowledge of the Three Levels of SEO
SEO doesn’t stop with keyword research. It has three levels: technical, on-page, and off-page. Technical SEO tackles the site structure and improves how the search engines crawl each piece of content.
On-page optimization focuses on the content and its structure and involves plenty of work, from consumer behavior studies to determine which keywords work for which search intentions. On-page optimization is a massive undertaking if your website has never been optimized.
And finally, we have off-page SEO, which involves building a sensible backlink profile for the website. Building backlinks is also a form of marketing, as the goal is to improve visibility and distribute content properly. The links are the prize, but not all are valuable for SEO.
You certainly do not want one-trick SEO. However, to ensure the most excellent chance of success, you need someone to consider these three SEO levels simultaneously.
If search engines can’t access your pages and content, or some of the newer content pieces are too deep down your website, your SEO efforts will be for naught. Google discovers new content via links all the time.
This means that a true SEO expert must understand a website’s technical limitations and the possible reasons it has not ranked in the relevant market. In the end, keyword placement is just one step in a long journey to better visibility. The SEO expert must articulate these issues to whoever is working on the website so that they may address the problems.
Being Well-Rounded in All Aspects of Commerce and Marketing
Once the technical aspects of a website are dealt with, SEO is like more conventional forms of digital marketing. Content should be written to clearly explain the value to the reader while also guiding them to make a purchase. An SEO expert should know how to perform SEO in a way that satisfies both the business goals and the needs of consumers.
Modern SEOs need a comprehensive understanding of all aspects of marketing, including human psychology, the target audience’s culture, how the social media ecosystem works, web development, web design, viral internet marketing, content creation, product management, and the different business models that companies use to connect with their customers today. Taking SEO isolation from these other must-haves can lead to hasty, counterproductive decisions.
Ability to Grasp the Bigger Picture
An SEO expert must never be obsessed with simply ranking on Google. Seasoned SEO professionals know that ranking is the most straightforward part of the campaign. More critical is positioning, which requires marketing wisdom, grit, and plenty of SEO experience. SEO strategies should be geared toward achieving a specific goal and must never be tied to just increasing traffic, which is a vague objective. Not all traffic is beneficial for businesses, and it won’t work well if you are not attracting the right people.
Ability to Blend with Your Business’ Vision and Culture
SEO experts, by default, interact with different departments and professionals, especially if large companies or enterprises have hired them. Therefore, it will be difficult for everyone if the SEO professional’s communication style and personality do not align with what everyone else is doing in the company.
Exceptional Communication Skills
An SEO expert must have the right skills to explain the rationale and necessity of a requested website update in terms anyone can comprehend. In other words, an SEO can’t possibly handle everything on their own, so they must be able to delegate work and communicate their needs properly and effectively. In addition, they must be able to communicate with executives and creatives in the marketing team.
