What Not To Ask When Hiring an SEO

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51
Sphinn It!

Went Hot: Jan 19, 2009 - 03:47 am
Posted By: DavidWallace 425 Days ago
Source: http://seo.site-reference.com
Category: SEO

David Harry writes, "Are you looking to hire an SEO consultant or in-house staffer? Then do me a favour, don’t even bother asking an SEO about what keywords they have ranked in the past… and screw the references while we’re at it ok? No really, I mean it."

4 Comments

Comments

from stbalaji2u 424 Days ago #

Votes: 0

Excellent though mate. i actually made some good standings for keywords but when i left that project the keywords screwed up. Let the corporates read your post. :)

from qwerty 422 Days ago #

Votes: 1

I agree with the argument regarding rankings, but not on references. Of course a prospective hire is only going to include positive references (they’re also not going to list jobs from which they were fired on the first day), but a decent reference says more than just "this person is good." In the case of an SEO, it’s likely to include insights about what they learned from working with you and what you stressed in working on their site.For example, a reference that says that you got them a #1 ranking on the vanity keywords they wanted can indicate that you did nothing to educate them on what’s really important. A reference that says that you were always available when they needed you, that you answered all their questions clearly, that their site is now fully indexed and that you taught them how to write useful content that’s grown their site and vastly increased their income provides some pretty useful information.

from Jill 422 Days ago #

Votes: 0

Great point, qwerty, couldn’t agree more. While references may not tell you you everything, I’d be scared of the company who can’t provide any!

from theGypsy 421 Days ago #

Votes: 0

Well, the impetus for that part, as mentioned, was a HR manager that was talking on CNN as part of a series on finding jobs - Ultimately those can easily be fudged and they are only going to give you those that have nice things to say - hell, I know enough website owners to create a bunch of bogus referrences, soooo.....I took the extreme view to highlight that point and to highlight that some education is warranted (ie; evaluating an SEOs knowledge). Back in the 80s there were horror story after horror story of crappy home renovators - when the DIY craze hit in the 90s and consumers became more educated, it became harder on the fly by night types. Business owners should have at least a grounding in the basics to not only hire an SEO, but understand what they are doing for them and associated reporting.And yes, I was taking my point to the extreme end and do believe is some type of referrence, I just wanted peeps to think about how much stock they put in them...Ya know?