Most brands understand the importance of search engine optimization in their day-to-day success via Google, Bing and other search engines. Unfortunately, the broad popularity of SEO has led to a surge of so-called SEO firms, all promising to deliver huge results for little to no effort. While there are many great SEO firms and consultants available today, you have to be very careful about who you hire. Knowing what to ask at the onset of any discussion can help mitigate any risks and hopefully prevent potential hucksters from profiting off of your lack of SEO awareness. Today, we’ll discuss a few simple questions you should cover with any SEO firm before hiring them.

What is your primary focus in SEO?

To start out the interview, ask the following question: what is your firm most focused on when it comes to SEO? This is a trick question in effect: any firm that gives you a single answer is arguably someone who you don’t want to work with. The nature of SEO is complex, involving multiple concepts: keywords, rankings, links, content and on-page optimization are just a few of the very important elements at play. Anybody who can give you a detailed answer as to why their focus covers multiple aspects of SEO is at least worth listening to for a little bit longer. Otherwise, seek someone else out when it comes to pinging for SEO.

Do you provide content solutions?

One common element in fly-by-night SEO operations is that they focus predominantly on forms of SEO that relate to the functionality of the page, all the while overlooking content. Any comprehensive SEO solution is going to include either full-service content solutions or a dedicated inspection of existing/new content in order to ensure SEO compliance. Companies that merely talk about rankings or links are probably not focused on providing a full SEO experience; you cannot ascend the ranks of Google and other search engines without producing quality content that is in sync with the remainder of your SEO strategy.

How visible are the individuals working there?

Names. Faces. Places. These are all common questions to wonder about when dealing with a new company. Most people want to see who it is that’ll be working for them. When you visit one of these SEO firm’s websites, what does the about or contact pages show? Can you see a list of people who are working for the company, along with contact information? If these details are either obscured or missing entirely from the website, then that is a huge red flag. Not only is it good practice to advertise who is working for your company in a public sense, but not displaying that information is often an indicator of bad or faulty services.

Before you commit to pinging for SEO with a particular firm or company, you need to ask a lot of questions. Likewise, the firm should be asking a lot of questions as well. These are just a few of the more common considerations you need to make before hiring a consultant to handle your SEO needs. Be sure to ask many more questions and consider carefully a variety of criteria before committing.