How do You Know if the SEO Assistant You are Paying for Is Good?

Scott
From a business owner stand point, how do you know if the SEO assistant you are paying for is good ? Or if it's just a rip off ?
Is there a such thing as an SEO assessment, or evaluation?
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Mew ^👑
Hey bud,
This is a wonderful question and one that many business owners struggle with.
here are a few ways:
1. See if any reviews / social proof / references are available for the search engine optimization (SEO) assistant you plan to work with. If someone were to Google my name, they would see I have been in this industry for 10+ years which adds a level of credibility. Mind you, this doesn't mean I am a good SEO per-say, but at least lets you know that the person you are dealing with is not new to the industry.
2. Ask them for a list of their work and begin auditing it. If you find simple errors in their SEO, or they are not above your own skill level it may be a cause for concern. Mind you – there are some things that pertain to SEO strategy that very by search engine optimizer. However, there are also dead giveaways like using h3's to style "our services" and a plethora of other things.
3. Ask around! Most SEO's (SEO professionals) know other SEO's or have at least ran into them. If you message me and ask me about an individual in groups I am in, I am more than happy to vet their posts and responses to see what level of expertise I feel they have. In addition, by asking around you can begin to understand if other SEO's have a negative opinion about the SEO you plan to work with.
4. Give them a slice but not the whole pie. By this, I mean start them simple with a small SEO job and a monthly retainer. See if they can move the needle and how you guys collaborate together. This can help you to establish a long term relationship with your SEO.
These are the tips I have for now 🙂 _{👍🏽💟10}

Ilias
solid tips ! what are some things you'd recommend doing to help build social proof?
Philip
This is a great reply Mew. Seems to me some business owners have such a low technical understanding that they couldn't action some of these tips. If they could slicing the pie is a gold tip. 🤓 _👍🏽1
Scott ^✍️ » Mew
Do you think it is a good idea to have more than one person working on SEO?
Mew ^👑 » Scott
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No I absolutely do not. They will bump heads unless they are on the same team _👍🏽1

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Patrick
Besides results (increased traffic, higher keyword rankings):
If there are solid strides in helping you make great business, not just "SEO," sounding decisions, then I think you are working with a decent SEO.
This includes, but is not limited to:
– Better code
– Better PR
– Better Social Efforts
– Better copy
Etc. Etc.
I believe an SEO (and the client, aka you) needs to understand that SEO is just solid, great, business advice. _👍🏽2

Katerina » Patrick
could you please suggest a tool to check on the keyword ranking? A free tool would be preferred!
Patrick » Katerina
sorry, only familiar with Ahrefs! (And screaming frog, SEMrush). _👍🏽1

Mustafa
SEO is highly over rated, you will find loads of so called SEO gurus and analysts,
How do you evaluate SEO performance? It all depends on the impact factors, certain tasks have particular impact,
Let's say if some has fixed Technical errors, can you see that,
Also if they did On-Page Optimization, can you clearly see, which keywords and what are the search impacts of used keywords,
Likewise, if they are building links,
What impact it is bringing on the table,
One last thing, also consider Time Factor,
Regards
Mustafa » Falx
Did you move up in rank for your keywords within a reasonable time? If not, it's time to move on.

Mew ^👑 » Falx
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Hey Ana! Great to see you in group.
I would say for the other business owners onlooking this thread just to be mindful that in SEO rank can be equal to budget.
If someone gave me a million dollars today I could rank them for almost any keyword in a month or less. If they gave me $100 if would take months if not years depending on the keyword – for many reasons.
Reasonable time varies by expectation and allocated budget. _👍🏽1
Falx » Mew
I Agreed…that's why I said 'reasonable'. Reasonable depends on budget, competition, work agreed upon, what was communicated upfront, etc. _👍🏽1
Mew ^👑 » Falx
– Ah gotcha! I think it’s important you highlighted those things. A lot of business owners don’t know as much as you, if I may be so candid to say so 🙂 _👍🏽1
Falx » Mew
Noted! 😊👍

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Rienzi
So not long ago I showed a prospect client one of the projects we've worked with and said "Weird to have pages optimized so much for a keyword" that I don't care how my client's pages would read or look.
On the other hand, the very pages are ranked in #1 in the map and top 3 in organic search.
So would you say I'm a good SEO for bringing in the sales or…
am I a bad SEO for sacrificing readability on a location page that is meant to convert leads to call?

Lee
This is a great question of mine too, my home page has little text because i prefer to use images to explain the business, and it's a small business after. so the problem became it's hard to rank keyword for the home page, so i have to use blogs to make up. I focus on the aesthetic and user experience, but this is a "must" trade off?

Vickie
As an ecommerce biz owner, I have made so many mistakes when hiring SEO companies. One of the many challenges is that several required a 1 year contract. Not going to make that mistake again.
Tip: when SEO companies name drop the 'big guys', don't be impressed unless your budget is as healthy as theirs. _👍🏽3

Patrick » Vickie
may I ask why the 12 mo contract was bad?
Vickie » Patrick
bad communication + cookie cutter approach + their inability or unwillingness to grasp my business led early on to frustration on my part and minimal progress. It was painful.
Large firm, no one took responsibility for anything. Stuck with them for a year which was a waste of time and money.
As a result, I’ve discovered I’m better working with smaller firms. (Looking for one now!!) _{👍🏽😢3}
Patrick » Vickie
sorry to hear that! (and I sent you a PM!).
Scott ^✍️ » Vickie
do you do Google ads ppc campaign as well ?
Vickie » Scott
no. I figure, show me what you can do with organic and then we'll talk about ads/ppc.
You're in Anderson? Used to live in the Upstate. Adopted Clemson. Gorgeous part of the country! _👍🏽1
Federico » Vickie
12 months is not bad, but you cannot force a company to stick with you that long if you don't have few success cases to show.
IMHO the best is to provide a full analysis of the possible improvements, prioritize them by easiest to implement and impact expected, and then work by milestones, defining for each of them the metrics we should check to evaluate the improvements, and knowing there is window of time between the completion of the task and when you'll start seeing improvements in the metric. _👍🏽1

This may satisfy you: To know whether a person is really good in SEO | Search Engine Optimization
James
For local businesses it’s EASY to calculate your ROI, because Google keeps track of web page visits number of a phone calls and direction request . For my local clients i count a direction request as a NEW CUSTOMER because if they all ready been there they wouldn’t need directions make since . So if a new client is getting 1000 directions request per month and after three months I bump them up to 2000 direction request per month and there average profit per new customer of 8 dollars I can say my SEO value is 8000 dollars per month and that’s if the customer never comes back.
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Steve
In the early part, they should keep you updated with what they are doing.
Are they fixing technical parts of the website like redirects, or are they optimizing page titles and descriptions?
If they say they're doing link building month after month, ask about their process. If they can't tell you how they gain links, that's a problem.
If they aren't fixing and optimizing the website at all, that's a problem.
If they aren't transparent with you, that's a problem.
If you've gone 3-6 months with an agency and haven't had a positive change in rank, you need to ask some serious questions.
Of course if you haven't hired anyone yet, Mew nailed it with assessing a new SEO Agency.