Avoid SEO Scams: Key Questions to Ask Any SEO Agency!

James Dooley: So if I am looking to hire an SEO agency and I want to make certain I'm actually going to get results what are some questions that I should be hiring or what are some questions I should be asking before hiring an SEO agency? Guest: So the first question I'd want to know is legally um the contracts that's going to be put in place um is it a 12 month contract is it a 24 month contract is it a three month SEO contract or is it a rolling contract in an ideal world I would always want to team up with an SEO agency it's got a rolling contracts just so I'm not tied into long term I might not be happy with the quality of the content or the quality of the backlinks and if I'm tied into a 12 month contract it's going to be hard for me to get out of it so the first thing I would be asking in general with any SEO agency is how long are the contracts that you're looking to tie me in for? James Dooley: Yeah that's that's that's a really good point and obviously tracking um every month like okay what's what's going on um in some cases if you're a more newer business or new or website where you've not got that much history you can't really track it every single month cuz what they might do in let's say January you might only see the results in March as well so just bear that in mind if you are looking to hire an SEO agency it's not just like a one month and then boom we're ranking further with them um the next thing that I would probably be asking is what are the actual effects like what's the actual strategy going in place is it a black hat SEO strategy is it white hat um if it is going to be black hat are you okay with that cuz Google might end up penalizing your website um so just knowing a little bit more about the actual strategy potentially you might even want to watch a couple YouTube videos to just understand a little bit more on SEO because I think when you're hiring or when you're outsourcing something it's probably good to just be able to understand and speak the actual lingo. Guest: Yeah for sure another one that I'd want to look at is case studies yeah so how many other websites have you done search engine optimization for in my niche so if I do solar panels or I do finance or I do gambling they have very different SEO strategies that's needed to take place. James Dooley: Yeah so I'd want to see some sort of case studies in place to show okay yes I have ranked um in the UK for solar panels or yes I have ranked in law firm or legal industry in Orlando you I mean whatever it is I'd want to try to go yes I think these are the right person like these specifically understand my industry and my niche and therefore yes the case studies is is a really important question I would ask for an SEO agency. Guest: Yeah so another thing that I would also be doing a little bit of digging on is the actual strategy so for example a lot of SEO agencies they just have like a one size fits all so is it have they actually looked at your your website and what are you actually getting for that actual SEO strategy because again not every single website might need technical SEO for example if if you have just recently had your website redesigned and it's all been optimized and stuff you might not need technical SEO but you might need more on page SEO and more link building so actually figuring out like what you're what you're going to be getting um at the end of every single month is it just going to be a glossy report or are they going to be uploading blog articles are they going to be building let's say 10 backlinks every single month be just being able to actually understand what you're getting? James Dooley: Yeah I think you touch on a couple of good points there so the customization that's needed for that client cuz because I again a new website might need a lot of pillow or foundational backlinks like no follow backlinks business listings um a press releases if you're going a little bit black hat you might go down the Google Stacks or the cloud stacks and stuff like that so it's trying to understand the strategy like you said in the customization because if they are an aged site that have don't have much technical problems then obviously they might want to be spending more on the backlinks and the off page and trying to get more authority that's coming through to the website so so yeah the customization is important the reporting like you said is important what have they actually done the amount of like SEO agencies that don't they're just charging money and they're not saying within the reporting at the end of the month what they've done they should be pretty clear okay we have wrote 16 articles and we've done 15 backlinks and there you are that's why it's £5,000 this month if they came back and was like okay we fixed one or two 404 errors you're like that shouldn't cost £5,000 a month and then this leads me on to my next question that I would be asking an SEO agency probably the most important question is the costs and the prices how much are you going to charge me and what are you going to do for that and do I feel that's good value because the difficult part is some could think that the cheapest package is the best package but obviously that's not the case you want to make it certain you're trying to get best value out of whatever you're spending if your budget for SEO is only 500 pound a month or $2,000 a month or $10,000 a month or £20,000 a month whatever that budget is you want to be between try to make certain long term you're seeing a return on investment like you said it's it's difficult to start with because it can take a few months but as long as you know you're working in the right direction of building good quality content building topical authority technically the site is good and building backlinks and getting referring domains you know you're going in the right direction. Guest: Yeah definitely is there else that you would ask um I think that's pretty much it with regards to the questions may maybe looks is slightly different to case studies testimonials seeing if there is any I any video testimonials of um business owners that just just that personal touch um and then I probably say the last one is an account manager do I have someone who I'm able to contact um if I've got any questions do I have an account manager that can go back and forth with just saying why why have you built these links I don't think they're relevant or um I don't really like this content can we do it this way further down the line it might be like it's not persuasive enough in the tonality so been having an account manager to be able to deal with and have that personal touch I think is also important when you're looking to hire a new SEO agency. James Dooley: Yeah so hope this video has helped you guys when it comes to hiring a new SEO agency what I would probably be doing is just taking a few notes of of all the questions that we've asked and then if say for example the SEO agency isn't willing to actually provide any of the answers let's say they don't have any case studies that should be automatically a red flag personally speaking but if you guys do want maybe a growth strategy call check the link down below or head over to fatrank.com and fill in the contact form.