1. How long have you been providing search engine optimization services? 2. Are you an individual consultant or are you part of a team? 3. How long have you and your team been online? 4. what types of websites will you not promote? 5. Do you participate and/or, are you a moderator for any of the seo - Search Engine Optimization / SEM - Search Engine Marketing Forums? If so, what is your username and can you provide links to your most recent or notable discussions? 6. Can you describe and/or produce recent successful campaign results? If so, can I use those clients for references? 7. Do you have website design experience? Technical background? what types of programming environments are you experienced with? 8. what are your opinions in regards to Best Practices for the seo - Search Engine Optimization / SEM - Search Engine Marketing industry? 9. Can you assure us that the optimization strategies and methods that you are utilizing fall under the criteria of Best Practices for the seo/SEM Industry? 10. How many search engine optimization campaigns have you been involved with? 11. Are there any guarantees for top search engine positions? 12. Do you have experience managing PPC - Pay Per Click, CPC - Cost Per Click, and other bid management campaigns? what types of programs do you use for PPC bid management? 13. what is link popularity? what linking strategies would you use to increase link popularity for our website? Is this service part of the proposed price? 14. what is Google PageRankâ„¢ and how does it affect our website(s)? 15. what changes can we expect you to make to our website to improve our positioning in the search engines? 16. what type of reporting (website log analysis) will you provide to us? 17. Do you offer ROI (Return On Investment) analysis? Is this in addition to your contract pricing? Have the consultant explain the process of how the ROI will be determined.
I've posted resources like this as well, but the funny thing is that if a client actually asked me all these questions, I'd be likely to refer them to someone else. Why? Because I've got more clients than I can handle, and I'd just as soon work with the ones who say "Here's a bunch of money, do good things" and leave me to my own devices. That might change over time, but right now there's so much demand for SEO services and so few providers relative to the demand that asking this many questions ensures that only the lowest quality SEO service providers will work through them. The best SEO companies will move on.
I'd have to ask for $100 down to answer all of those questions completely. Time is money! By the time I answered all of those questions, I could have a page ready for Google to rank on a front page somewhere. But it would be your call. In the long run, utah answered it best:
Too much questions. I think on the first interview you need to know if the person have any REAL experience, not just read some articles. SEOMoz has some articles on what questions are good to ask
I hope this will help: http://seoethics.blogspot.com/2007/11/how-to-hire-professional-seo-company.html
It would be the preferably the fast answers questions to a SEO website. Check the link - http://www.neuroseoservices.com/freqently_question.html
The best question you can ask is for the telephone numbers of three of their existing clients. Ask them if they're happy with the service and have received what they were promosed.