Payday loans

What to Ask When Interviewing SEO Firms

Writing by Nick Stamoulis

If you are looking to hire an SEO firm for your next search engine optimization campaign, you’ll want to conduct extensive interviews. Don’t just interview one SEO firm. Interview several. And ask them all the same questions so you have a basis for comparison. But what questions?

At a minimum you should ask any potential SEO firm you are planning to work with the following questions:

  1. What new SEO tactics have you added to your portfolio of skills within the last three months? – Search engine algorithms are ever evolving and you want your SEO to be as well. That doesn’t mean they should take unnecessary risks, but they should constantly be testing new tactics and strategies. This question is designed to uncover an SEOs current knowledge of those.
  2. Where do you think the SEO industry will be in 5 years? in 10 years? – A good SEO has a handle on where things may be headed in the future. If an SEO can answer the previous question with ease then he should be able to answer this question too.
  3. Have potential SEOs critique your website for strengths and weaknesses and provide you with a report for improving your site’s SEO. – This will give you a chance to see the SEO in action. Is he methodical? Does he approach the site with a plan or does he just pick random sections out one at a time?
  4. What are your strengths and weaknesses? – Everyone has weaknesses. If an SEO won’t acknowledge any weaknesses then she is probably hiding something. Besides, if an SEO can’t think critically about his or her own skills then they probably can’t think critically about your website either.
  5. Name three link building strategies you recommend and why. – Link building is very important in SEO. You want to know how an SEO firm you are about to hire handles its link building processes. Plus, this is a good way to open the door on the white hat-black hat discussion without being too direct.
  6. What is your philosophy on link buying? - Has the SEO firm done any link buying? Was it successful? What did they learn from the experience? Would they do it again? Again, this is to test the knowledge and moral nature of your SEO before you get too embedded in your relationship.
  7. Give three examples of link bait that you have created that proved to be successful. – Can your SEO develop link bait? Does she know what it is? This question is designed to give you further insight into an SEOs link building philosophy.
  8. Which reporting and analytics packages do you use? - You’ll want to know how an SEO plans to report to you.
  9. How do you conduct competitor analysis? – Knowing what your competitors are up to is very important and you’ll want to know if your SEO firm has any experience with this and how they approach it.
  10. How long do you spend on keyword research? – A very basic question, but it is designed to tell you how an SEO begins a project. Do they go slow or jump right in? Are they guessing at the right keywords or are they methodical about how they approach finding profitable keywords for you?
  11. What is your average conversion rate as an SEO? - Many SEOs won’t know this, but if an SEO can tell you his conversion rate on traffic then it’s probably good. This is the ultimate question for determining the experience and skill level of an SEO firm.

Hat tip to Rebecca Appleton for a good post on hiring an inside SEO professional for you firm. But if you want to hire an outside agency to run your SEO, you should get a little more deep in the questioning. These are the basic questions to start with. From there, you’ll want to know how often your SEO firm will communicate with you, how they will report to you, and what kind of results you’ll expect to get from them.

8 Responses to “What to Ask When Interviewing SEO Firms”

  • David says:
    November 22, 2009 at 2:56 am

    Great questions there is one left how much is this going to cost? As you get what you pay for….

    A very important question who is actually going to do this, as some firms sales teams will say anything to win the contract. Ask if they even perform the work as many agencies may even out source your project…

  • Nick Stamoulis says:
    November 22, 2009 at 11:26 am

    Hi David,
    Great point, this could easily be a #12 in my list :)

  • Mike Harley says:
    November 22, 2009 at 5:17 pm

    I would agree with answers to the questions noted on this post. I would require one additional question, and that is, ‘are you a Certified Specialist’? Why? Simply because in light of today’s practice where any company states they are an expert in this field, the 10+ year certified companies just roll their eyes. The only other real question is ‘Can you show me proof of your abilities’?

  • Nick Stamoulis says:
    November 23, 2009 at 6:31 am

    Hi Mike,
    Great questions to add to the list. I think a question such as “can you show me proof of your abilities” is a much more powerful question than are you a certified specialist? Often many time newer SEO folks tend to use any certifications (such as SEMPO Institute or Bruce Clay) as leverage, this is often because they don’t have any real or practical experience. It is like a new college graduate entering the job market…anyway, I do think the 2nd question is a great one when a company considers hiring an SEO firm.

  • Afzal Khan says:
    December 15, 2009 at 12:41 pm

    Hi Nick,

    I think most of the questions you included but same time I believe it is also important to find an expert/firm and a main contact at that firm with whom you are going to deal and interact on a regular basis (probably the person who will be doing SEO of your site and will be responsible solely)

    SEO relationship typically is ongoing, which is where over the period Client keep guessing and went on toss to get SEO status of their websites.

    Also as a Client you need to ask in detail about what all are the On-page and Off-page SEO work you can expect from them.

    Thanks :-)

  • Nick Stamoulis says:
    December 15, 2009 at 8:23 pm

    Hi Afzal,
    Thanks for the comment, this is very true! Client/SEO firm relationship is very important meeting your contact upfront is very important! Since I own and operate a boutique SEO firm (Brick Marketing) and I am the main point of contact for most of our clients, it does wonders in the sales process when people see that I am truly vested in and appreciate every single SEO/SEM client and I am not just an Account Manager on their account :)

  • Lorraine Grula says:
    December 16, 2009 at 7:12 pm

    Hello Nick.

    Thanks a million for a well thought out and comprehensive list. Since I am currently doing my own SEO, I asked myself these questions and realized how much more I have to learn. I always learn something here. You are a superior provider of quality content on the usually over-hyped subject of SEO and I for one appreciate it.

    Lorraine

  • Nick Stamoulis says:
    December 17, 2009 at 7:01 am

    Hi Lorraine,

    Thanks for your kind words and for reading…I am glad you get useful info out of my blog! :)

^ Back to Top ^