When searching for reputable SEO Consultants for your business, there are a few things to keep in mind that will help you become more informed when deciding to invest in consulting services. Maintaining the vision of your business, what message you want to project to your ideal audience, and how you want to be perceived by your ideal audience is the first questions you should ask yourself as a business owner. With so much competition both online and for brick and mortar businesses, it is crucial for you to zone in on the authentic reasons behind why you created your business in the first place.
Understanding who you are and what makes your business stand out from your competition is the foundation for building a successful SEO strategy. Moving forward when you begin to search for SEO consultants to come into your business and update your website with search engine optimized rich content, you will have a better idea of how to explain to your SEO specialist how your business runs.
Search engine optimization is all about creating the most descriptive, relatable, and searchable written content for your website pages that will assist you in getting found by your ideal clients easier and faster.
An SEO consultant should first and foremost ask you about your business, how you run, how you operate, why you operate the way that you do, and what kind of website traffic you have received in the past. They should ask you specifically if you have ever run ads, if so what keywords you used, and if you do not know any of those answers, that is okay. However, your SEO specialist should be asking you these types of questions.
They should have taken the time to read through all the pages of your website rather than going in without any idea of who you are and what your business entails. Finding someone that is truly going to make the effort to take your SEO to the next level, should show interest and knowledgeability in your business. Ideally, you might also want to consider someone who has previously worked with clients that align with the vertical that your business is involved in. For example, this could be the food industry, the fitness industry, etc.
When speaking with an SEO professional, they should also be able to give you an outline of ideas about the changes or updates they would like to make to your current content and website pages. Should you ask this question, “What kind of changes to my current content would you make?” This does not mean that the SEO professional should be able to give you a full-on strategy on the spot, however, if they are prepared for your meeting with them, they should be aware of at least a few ideas about the changes that need to be made in order to improve your website’s SEO.
Brick and mortar businesses require local SEO as well. If you are a business owner that also has a brick and mortar location in your respective city, this is another point to ensure you are choosing the correct person for the job. Some SEO professionals do not have much experience in local SEO, which involves a better understanding of how to reach local customers rather than simply on a general national or global level. Often times if you are a business owner that has a physical location, this means that your stakes can be higher than a business owner who operates solely from their online presence. So research is key in this scenario as your monthly expenditures will typically be much higher, and not only require customers to reach you online but also for the local population to be able to find you even faster.
Keep these tips in mind when searching for an SEO consultant, and as much as they should be researching you, you should also research them and their online presence.
