seoconsul: What are your Top Five Question to ask before, selecting Professional SEOs?

Owner of a Web & SEO Development company for 5 going on 6 years, choosing the right SEO agent makes a HUGE difference here are some questions you should be asking

1 – How long have you been in business?
Certainly, everyone needs to start somewhere – and there’s a chance the new consultant you hire will be able to obtain the same results you could achieve with a renowned SEO firm. However, when it’s your hard-earned money that’s on the line, keep in mind that a long track record of successes demonstrates that the SEO provider you decide to work with isn’t just blowing smoke at you.

2 – How does your company stay up-to-date on industry changes?
Things change so quickly in the SEO industry, it’s important that you hire an individual or firm that’s up-to-date on the latest algorithm adjustments, so many SEO Agents do not practice new updates, they focus on the basic setups and methods ignoring the new changes and for most sites that have no rank, the basics will get them a rank. For most SEO agents the goal is to show improvement but your goal is to get targeted traffic, and conversion rates from the services you are purchasing and staying up to date is the ONLY way to produce this consistently so It is a HUGE must that a SEO professional stay on top of the latest news and releases.

3 – Do you engage in any grey- or black-hat practices?
In you’re making the investment you do in hiring an agency to improve your website’s optimization, why risk blowing your money on consultants who use the grey- or black-hat practices that could eventually get your site penalized in the search rankings? I am not saying they do not work because of course they do, but if your paying someone to do this make sure its going to stay ranked so to avoid throwing your money down the toilet in this way, carefully question agency candidates on their ethics and the specific methods they use to promote their clients’ websites or networks.

4 – How do you approach keyword research?
There are as many ways to approach keyword research as there are SEO consultants working today, so while there’s really no right or wrong answer to this question, it is important that the agency you select uses keyword research techniques that are in line with your company’s natural search placement goals. Pay special attention to agencies that promise high SERPs rankings for extremely competitive keywords. While the eventual payoff may be nice, you’ll see much better results with a keyword research plan that will allow your company to target, work it, and move up the ladder of keywords instead of shooting for gold right away because you have to have a foundation before you can build a house so focus on the medium keywords then the High competition keywords will come. (If a SEO agent promises you top rank on High Competition keywords stop right there and leave)

5 – How will the success of your campaign be measured?
This is so important because without a plan from the start to measure the success of your website and the SEO changes that your agent is doing, well it can be very dangerous and very easy to end up with not much more then you started with because as a simple increase in site visitors isn’t enough to justify campaign success, be sure to ask your chosen SEO agency how they determine if their efforts are working. Be sure whatever metrics are used to measure success are ones that truly indicate success for your business. As an example, simply increasing average time on site – a commonly-reported SEO metric – doesn’t matter if these changes aren’t tied to corresponding conversion rate increases.

6 – Can you provide contact information for references at these companies?
SEO agencies are occasionally criticized for drawing out the length of their projects in order to increase their billable hours. So for this reason, it’s important to gather feedback from past customers who have successfully completed long-term projects with your potential consultants. If you hear from several companies that investing in a full-length project with your chosen SEO agency resulted in positive ROI, that’s a good indication that you’ve chosen who will put your website’s needs ahead of re-billing priorities. ( also another good way is if a company instead of billing hourly bills by job, sets a measured mark and reaches it for that amount this is how we commonly charge our clients and has worked very well over the years)

7 – Do you limit the number of clients you take on at once?
Most major SEO agency's have a substantial in-house staff, and ensuring that appropriate focus is given to your project is not normally a issue. On the other hand, if you decide to work with a small team or a solitary SEO consultant, ask if your chosen provider sets limits on the number of ongoing projects that can be taken on. Because SEO campaigns require consistent effort to be successful, the last thing you want is for the provider you’ve contracted with to bump your project to the back-burner to handle a bigger customer’s request.

Here are some good questions to ask your SEO agent and some good info for anyone who is thinking about having their websites optimized, We have gigs here on SEO clerks with feedback on our SEO and SMO gig so check us out we would love to hear from you, even if you have more questions we don't mind answering them!

i never applied for seo
also i want to know.. i want to promote my website..

1) On Page Optimization Techniques.. Very very Important i think You have to Know About All 178 Techniques
2) Methods to S.E.M of Your Website .. Marketing..
3) Pay Per Click Advertising Ratio
4) Web 2.0 Web Linking (High PR Blogs Linking Actual PR)
5) How Link Pyramids or Link wheels Help Our Website to Get on Top of S.E

Hmmm.

If you ever hire someone, there is only one question that really needs to be satisfied... Show me proof of your results (more recent the better) of your work.
If they are legit, they should have examples.
Be Well, J