SEO is one area of internet marketing that your law firm really needs to understand but unfortunately it has even the most seasoned of marketers running for the hills sometimes. Such is the amount of contradictory information, and indeed myths about SEO that it is virtually impossible to know what to believe.
If you are starting an online business you’ll want to get your website optimised for the search engines as quickly as possible, and unless you are already an SEO expert it is best that you employ someone who is. Unless you are already a very large business then this person is not going to be a company employee, but rather they are going to be an SEO expert who works on a freelance basis for clients.
To ensure you select someone who you can trust to do the job of optimising your website effectively, there are several enquiries you want to make first.
Prior to speaking to the potential consultant, you can undertake some research which will give you a fair picture of how credible and reliable they may be. Firstly, by visiting their own website you can establish how long they have been operating for. A consultant who has been around for several years doesn’t do so if their work is not up to scratch.
Next look for testimonials on their site, and even better, see if the names of the clients making those testimonials are present. Armed with the name of previous clients you can then contact some of them to discuss how they felt about the work that the SEO consultant has already done for them.
Once you are satisfied that the SEO consultant is reliable and has done good work in the past, you then want to speak with them about the services they offer, and those which you want for your website. Even if they have had glowing reports from previous clients be skeptical of any consultant who makes exaggerated claims about what they can achieve. The most common is guaranteeing a #1 ranking on Google for any keyword. This is nonsense because getting to number one in Google relies on many variables, and a great deal of them are not within the control of even the very best SEO experts.
You will also want to check that they use only legitimate methods to improve your rankings. This is crucial as the last thing you want is for them to use black hat tactics which work in the short term so you think they’ve done a great job, and pay them. Once they’ve got your money there’s not much you can then do if your site gets de-indexed by Google because of the dodgy methods they used.
Finally, as with any consultant type work, you want to have a written agreement in place which outlines exactly what work they will do for you. A list of what tasks you have agreed on such as link building, social media, or optimising your website meta data are just a few things that might be included.
