Hiring an SEO can be one of the most trickiest situation your Marketing Manager had. Simply because you are not very sure of what an SEO firm is or because you have some misconceptions about what an SEO does to your business.

SEO is a time taking process and deadlines are often good but not all the times.If your SEO firm does the right steps regularly, then the output will be as predicted or closer. But, there is nothing to be surprised about if this is not the case as well.

There are a few things that every firm should be aware about before hiring an SEO, both about the firm/freelancer you are hiring and your business of course.

Here are a the things that you might want to look in an SEO/SEM firm before hiring -

• Never go for an SEO/SEM which guarantees you a N0.1 position on Google - It’s the same as promising the stars and the moon. If it does, cool - but it can’t be guaranteed, especially for fiercly competitive keywords.
• Never trust SEO/SEM’s that already has a poorly done website - well, if they knew how to dress up, then why do they look ugly? Simple formula
• Avoid spammy SEO sites - this can be noted by looking if the site has got - spammy content,unrelated articles,links from link farms,cloaking,redirections etc.
• Avoid SEO’s that push too much - It is more likely that an SEO firm which rings you up to “enlighten” you that your business will get three times your client base next google update is simply an inefficient one.There is no thumbrule though, leave it to your intuition to decide.
• Never go for an SEO who posts links to their website from yours while working on your site. Reverse Engineering??
• Look for their client list - their keywords for which those sites are optimised -this is the most guaranteed method that will show you everything in black and white.

Now, what you should you keep in mind when hiring an SEO?

• Give the SEO fulf freedom to tweak your site - well not alter it completely but tweak it.Never be adamant on that flash animated page, or that javascript links that you fancy.If they think they have to be removed, there’s probably a strong reason.So trust them.
• Never demand - never demand that your site should be No.1 for a particular keyword, well you can suggest a few keywords that you like to optimised for, but they can never guarantee you a NO.1 spot - if they do, they are probably lying.(Unless he’s an unethical Google employee)
• Suggest as many keywords as possible - It helps the SEO to tweak the site in to “compartments” and give you more traffic and dilute the competition, while shooting up to the top.More options are always good.
• Be patient - Never expect an SEO to do miracles to your business but he can do a gradual improvement. So please don’t tie yourself to tight deadlines, If you ask me go on a permanent contract with them so that when there’s an algorithm change in the search engines, you may want to use them again.Don’t treat an SEO like you treat your project developer, give him ample time and keep him with you on an on going basis - It helps both parties.

These tips should help you in deciding how to hire an SEO company, and make sure you are clear with your objectives and wrong notions that you may have.As I always say, it’s more of PR(Public relations) that SEO.

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