5 Questions to Ask an SEO Consultant (Before You Hire Them)
Hiring an SEO consultant can change your business. With the right consultant, it can power your traffic, leads, and sales 10x - or more. But to find the right SEO consultant for your business, you’ve got to be asking them some tough questions.
Considering the cost and inflexibility of hiring in-house SEO specialists - and the same issues can be said about many SEO agency/client relationships - hiring an SEO consultant may be the best move you can make for your digital marketing program. But how do you know you’re hiring the right expert for your business?
You start by asking the right questions upfront. So, my aim here is to help you identify five questions you should be asking your SEO consultant before you hire them. Depending on their answers, you’ll know if you’re likely working with someone who can boost you to organic search glory, or leave you in the dustbin of Google Results Page 2. Here are the five questions to ask:
Why Are You Qualified To Be An SEO Consultant?
Anyone can “put up a shingle on their window” and say they are an SEO expert. But what makes them actually so? Two factors:
Experience: You don’t become an SEO overnight. And, most of the time you’re not learning to become a great SEO in your college coursework. But one thing that does make a great SEO is experience.
It is only by doing SEO for an extended period of time that you learn what truly works and what doesn’t. This is how an SEO consultant hones their knowledge. Whether they do so as an in-house marketing expert or with a digital agency, you’ll want to see more than a few months or even a year on the job before someone goes solo.Track Record of Success: Experience is key. But experience without success doesn’t add up to much. This is why you want your SEO consultant to be able to demonstrate their history of success.
There are a number of ways a consultant can do this. For starters, they can provide the hard numbers that they’ve been responsible for the growth of traffic, leads, and sales. This can be backed with screenshots or data pulled from real analytics or third-party tools. Additionally, providing you with testimonials, references, or case studies can add to your assurance that your prospective SEO consultant is an actual expert.
Your SEO better be.
2. How Will You Measure Our SEO Success?
There are many ways an SEO consultant can measure the success of an SEO campaign. But in the end, the four most important KPIs tend to be the following:
Organic Traffic Growth - This can be measured using Google Search Console clicks, or users or sessions from Google Analytics (sometimes referred to as “visits”). The goal of SEO is to bring the right audience to your website through organic search. And for them to take actions that you want them to take like filling out a form or buying your products.
The more an SEO consultant helps you grow your organic search traffic, the more success you should have with organic search.(Qualified) Leads - Unless your profit model is to drive as much website traffic as possible, you will want to grow your qualified leads. The more qualified leads you drive to your website, the more sales you are likely to have in the end.
Revenue - They say “cash is king” and they aren’t wrong. If you don’t drive sales revenue, you have a hobby, not a business. And if your SEO efforts are not contributing to your top line in some way, you are wasting your time and your money.
You can track sales by measuring total revenue growth, lead-to-sales conversion rates, or the total number of sales in a given period. It all gets to the same idea - how much is SEO helping you “get the money.”Return on Investment (ROI) - The bottom line is… well… the bottom line. And your SEO program is either contributing to it or sucking up resources you could be using more efficiently. You are investing money in your SEO consultant now to reap profits from that SEO program later. If your consultant isn’t helping you track the inputs for ROI, they may not be leading you to the best possible outcome.
Your consultant may look at secondary metrics that support each of these four individual goals. But the above four KPIs are most of the ball game. And where you want to see your SEO focus their efforts.
Just ask Gomez.
3. How Do You Stay Up To Date with Your SEO Practices?
Overall SEO philosophy and strategy tend to remain stable over long periods of time. But the Google algorithm changes constantly, and big changes can happen quickly. As a result, the best SEOs know they constantly need to update their methods and tactics to match the latest best practices.
There are many ways an SEO consultant can stay up to date on best practices. For example, they can:
Follow SEO news sites, blogs, and journals (some of the best include Search Engine Roundtable Search Engine Journal and Search Engine Land)
Subscribe to SEO newsletters (SEOFOMO by Aleyda Solis and WomenInTechSEO are both fantastic)
Listen to SEO-focused podcasts
Take online courses or get a certification in an SEO-related topic
Go to live SEO conferences and events (including the now-legendary BrightonSEO)
These are just a few of the ways a great SEO consultant can keep their knowledge fresh. The particular media and creators they choose are less important. What matters is that they are consuming some type of quality media to stay up to date. You want an SEO strategy that is tailored for 2023, not 2013! (And the latter is more common than you’d expect in this industry.)
Great question!
4. What Deliverables Will You Provide Me with?
A deliverable is a tangible item that you should expect to receive during the course of working with an SEO consultant. Often at the completion of a particular task. Deliverables help keep SEO consultants accountable. And are important for establishing clear expectations, letting you know how much progress has been made on the work along the course of the relationship.
Common deliverables that an SEO consultant may provide include:
an SEO audit
a strategy deck
a content calendar
a competitor analysis
keyword research
a new blog post
a page optimization doc
a KPI tracker
a document of SEO title and meta description optimizations
technical SEO recommendations for site speed improvement
By knowing what deliverables to expect from your consultant, the better you’ll know how productive they are. And if they're making any progress towards your SEO goals. Deliverables are the work products that will help drive your performance in the long run.
However, make sure to ask your SEO consultant what deliverables they will provide along the way. These need to be detailed in the legal contract or agreement. This way, you can hold them accountable for providing them. Make sure the deliverables they guarantee to provide make sense for your business and your specific goals for SEO. A deliverable that doesn’t contribute to your goals in some way is simply a waste of time and money.
5. What Are Your SEO Consulting Fees?
When it comes to hiring an SEO consultant, fees are clearly one of the most important topics. And probably the one that is most top of mind for you. Obviously, you want to hire an SEO who is capable, competent, and has integrity. But you want to pay a fair rate for those attributes, as well.
What do SEO consultants typically charge? And how do you know if this is fair value?
Several reputable websites provide some solid data on SEO consulting fees. Perhaps the best of these is Ahref’s survey of current SEO consultants and agencies. For example, Ahrefs found that the most common hourly rate for SEO consultants is between $100-$150 per hour.
But there are a number of factors that can cause these numbers to vary widely. For example, because experience is one of an SEO’s most important attributes, more experienced SEO consultants tend to charge much more for their services.
The best way to find an SEO consultant for you who (1) is the right fit and (2) is charging you a fair rate is to shop around. Most SEO consultants will be happy to provide a free consultation about their services as well as an estimate of what their hourly rate or monthly retainer will be. Knowledge is power. And more importantly, it leads to a much better consultant-client relationship and a stronger chance of success.
If your SEO consultanat only costs one banana, I recommend you run…
Choosing the Right SEO Consultant
Navigating the world of SEO is complex. But the rewards for finding the right SEO consultant can be virtually limitless. The right consultant at a great business can easily 10x your traffic, qualified leads, and, sales over time.
As you seek to level up your SEO strategy by hiring a quality consultant, asking them the right questions is essential. A qualified SEO consultant can be your guide to becoming an organic search powerhouse, but you need to be sure they are truly up to the task and the right client-consultant fit. Otherwise, they will likely leave your no better off than before but you’ll have paid for the pleasure.
Remember, your business deserves the best. Don't settle for anything less than an SEO consultant who is great at what they do, able to understand your goals, and work for you with the utmost integrity.
Thanks for checking out my blog post on the SEO questions you should ask any consultant. If you’re interested in learning more about my consulting services, I hope you’ll consider taking a minute to review them on my services page. I can cover everything from creating your full SEO strategy to short and highly specific SEO one-off tasks.