Don’t get tricked while hiring a SEO Consultant

Every industry has incompetents however scams are very much prominent in SEO industry because

• The rules are hidden here
  “It takes time to show results in SEO”, scammers keep on giving the same excuse & make money till the time client loses hope and discontinues the contract
• It is easy to trick an average client with not much knowledge of SEO by making few changes in title tags, Meta tags etc. However advanced SEO requires much more than this.

Two incidents one after the other finally inspired me to write this post on “don’t get tricked while hiring a SEO Consultant”.

Let me share the first incident that happened to me lately.

I have a professional connection on LinkedIn who is running a very innovative business for many years. She has offline stores as well as an e-commerce portal for her business.
She recently contacted me for advice on her e-commerce website’s SEO as she wasn’t getting results from her SEO Company.
With the growth of online shoppers in India, e-commerce businesses are now keen to leverage the SEO benefit.
As a professional connection, I thought to help her and when I analyzed the website, I realized that she has been seriously duped by her SEO consultant. In spite of a nice website and low competition niche, she wasn’t ranking anywhere on Google even for a single long tail keyword.
Besides when I checked the Backlink Profile, there was a high number of unnatural, lowest quality links created harming the website’s credibility! Anyways I advised the best I could when she requested for SEO Consultation.

Second Incident

I logged in my Gmail account and found a message that I have been granted access to a view in Google Analytics Account of www.XYZ.in

I got confused as I was least aware about this. I then logged into Google Analytics.I found the analytics access to a little known e-commerce portal. I thought there must be some confusion and decided to report the same.

I went back to my Gmail Account where I had already received an email with Subject “Consultation for XYZ.in”

Below is the email:

Dear Neha,

We get to know about you from Your linkedin account, we are looking for consultants to join us for helping/mentoring/guiding our team for digital marketing for our client. We are giving u access for analytic to give us insights on the following

a) Increase in the Number or Transactions for the orders
b) Increase in Traffic month

Please let us know your consultation expectations and how many hours you can devote us on monthly basis. Also let me know a right time to talk to u on the same.

It was really shocking. How could an agency grant access to its clients Google Analytics Account to some random SEO on LinkedIn? And not only this, after an email conversation with the agency owner who granted me the access, I got to know that he gave read only access to many SEOs & asked them to come up with a best affordable SEO Consultancy plan for his client.

This is a serious violation of client’s trust. I mean is there no term like data confidentiality in the agreement?

Conclusion from above two incidents

1. Though there are many SEO consultants/ companies in India who are giving good results to their clients, at the same time there are SEO Agencies who are still following the old school SEO and tricking the clients.
2. While the demand for SEO is increasing in India with the growth of Internet and e-commerce, SEO Industry is still at a very nascent stage here. In spite of the fact that India is also a preferred place across the world to outsource affordable SEO services, there are many professionals in the industry who are not even aware of basic code of ethics.

FAQ 1: I just started a new venture and eager to grow my business online. I heard that SEO can help me get the business with low cost incurred. Does my website need SEO? How should I find the best SEO Company for my business?

Well, the answer is definitely YES! Yes, you should SEO your website as this helps in getting business at low cost.
However the second question needs thoughtful action. To whom should you hire as your SEO Company/SEO Consultant?
Well it needs homework. Don’t just blindly follow random top list of SEO companies

Here are few things that you can do while selecting a SEO Company/SEO Consultant for your business.

1. Take a detailed interview asking for examples & success stories
   Connect with the SEO Company/ SEO Consultant and ask for the portfolio. The kind of work they have done in past and how successful they were in providing results to their clients. You can also ask for references if you like. It is much better if the SEO Consultant/company has working experience of your niche.
2. Make sure he/she understands your business as well as business goals
   In my initial days of SEO I literally worked on the campaigns with least idea about business model of the website. Neither I used to have the idea nor did my manager. That’s true!
   However at that time, SEO Process was very much based on keywords. And thus we used to get rankings for clients.
   Now SEO is highly based on topics and not on key phrases. Thus it is very important for a SEO to understand client’s business objectives. If your SEO Consultant understands your business objectives then only he will be able to convert it in measurable goals.
3. Is organic traffic the only metric you follow to measure the success of your SEO Campaign?
   If yes, you are mistaken. Don’t burn your money to see the rise in organic traffic.
   Like any other online marketing channel, the real measurement of SEO success is sales & profit. Or may be enquiries and leads but not only traffic or rankings!!
4. Don’t prefer discounts/free analysis over the right experience
   Don’t be mistaken to choose free consultation along with cheap SEO packages over an experienced SEO consultant/company.
   Remember, “Best things in the world don’t come for free”. And why would someone give you free analysis anyways in this selfish world?
5. The right SEO Consultancy for your business may or may not be much of a consultancy
   Your SEO Consultant might be working from his home office or his couch for you. Your right consultancy might not be very big in terms of infrastructure. Or it may be very big too. In either case it shouldn’t matter to you.

FAQ 2: What should I do before hiring a SEO Consultant/Agency?

Before making a final contract of hiring, ask the SEO Agency/Consultant for a clear strategy with their month by month list of things to do and expected outcome. Everything should be transparent. If you are satisfied with the strategy & expected outcome, go ahead.
As I already said, outcome should not include only rankings goal. Their focus should also be on relevant traffic as well as sales (may not be in first month but surely after three months).

Final Words

SEO, if done correctly is one of the low cost marketing channels. However SEO is a long term effort. But it does not mean your SEO Company keeps on giving this as an excuse and gets paid every month.
Unlike any marketing effort, clear goals should be defined here and the strategy should be transparent.
I understand you want to make profits soon but short term strategies and low budget SEO doesn’t work for long.

So do a little homework before hiring the right SEO Consultant. Good luck in your search!

This article is published on https://nehaagarwal.net/dont-get-tricked-while-hiring-a-seo-consultant/