“Business-pivoting websites that can have a better performance and yield through optimization are achieved through best SEO (Search Engine Optimization) practices.”
Don’t make a rush job, rather do your groundwork and research to find the most suitable and credible SEO company. It will help your brand and business by building the most inquisitive optimized website on a budget.
Here is the list of the follow-up questions which are most commonly found that we recommend you to ask your SEO agency in an interview-
How long have you been in this industry?
This is the first question that usually comes to everyone’s mind. You should always start questions from the groundwork and build upon the important key areas. When you are considering hiring an SEO agency or SEO services their experience counts more.
A digital market is a competitive place, where every brand is hustling to make it in the limelight. SEO companies in India take a long-term approach rather than using shortcuts to get optimized views. An experienced company knows the market in and out. They can see the big picture with websites that last long with optimized rankings organically.
You can cross-check all the information on testimonials sites like Facebook, Google My Business, etc with ratings and feedback. A few negative reviews do not make the SEO Agency all bad or some good reviews do not make it all good. A balance of both holds the key. Therefore, you should look for any red plays and assess their work wisely.
What is your SEO process and how can you improve the rankings?
The next question that you should go about is about their whole SEO process and which modern SEO strategies they use to get the job done. A holistic SEO strategy with experienced execution can lead to transparent results. If your hired SEO agency can do it right, it should be able to explain the details of the process.
If the SEO company in question cannot verify all the details, then they are all about business rather than quality assured improvement for your website.
How do you approach backlinks and what is the link-building strategy?
Backlinks are a crucial part of Google’s Page Rank algorithm that counts as a ‘vote’ in the search engine popularity contest. When you are questioning or interviewing any SEO company, you need to keep in mind that they should have transparency in bundled quality.
A good and quality-assured backlink is more valuable for your brand and business than multiple backlinks. Therefore, a good SEO agency would never pursue low-quality backlinks. While interviewing, you may ask about their process of backlinks. When you ask such questions, always remember if they are being in the dark, you should avoid hiring them.
How you can track the progress?
SEO is a very technical aspect of your website and if you ask this question, they will surely tell you their process overall. Though you do not get into the details overall information might help you choose better. There are multiple ways or metrics of tracking the progress of the SEO company’s work-
- Rankings- The search engine ranking reports will establish the fact what progress you have made. You can keep a tab of all the keywords if they are moving or down to implement it in your content.
- Website Traffic- The incoming web traffic report clears the room of how much search traffic for a specific time frame your website is enjoying when compared to the previous reports.
- Clicks- The click-through rate helps you to understand how many users are going to your website through SEO campaigns.
- Conversions- A SEO agency with expertise, knowledge, and experience in this work, knows that the money is in lead conversions. When any potential lead or web visitor becomes the customer, there is a sale which therefore induces revenue. If there is no quality conversion, there is no return on investment. Thus, any incoming traffic is just a vanity metric for show.
Each of these metrics is related to one another. You cannot track the websites’ rankings without incoming traffic, web traffic without search engine rankings and therefore you need to stay ahead considering all of these factors.
Do you follow Google’s best practices?
Google is the top search engine that has a magnificent set of functionality and best practices to increase your rankings and visibility on the network. You must surely confirm the SEO company in India that you are interviewing, whether they follow Google’s best practices.
Google indexes your website, so you need to comply with all its regulations or it may disappear as a form of penalty. Google recommends the best SEO practices that are powerful enough to make your website set a foot in digital competitiveness. An experienced SEO agency should know when they can push the boundaries.
What do you know about Google’s algorithms?
Google has a powerful algorithm that keeps updating regularly. These updates have a minor impact on every website. Significantly, some algorithms are well known for their excellent work. Any qualified SEO agency to handle your brand and business should be familiar with Google’s top-notch algorithms and put them into use.
What can you share about your previous projects?
When looking for a qualified SEO company that can well suitably do your project of yours, inquiring about previous projects and work is important to set a benchmark. What to expect and how much they can fulfill your requirements and are at par with their competitors. This is what you should look for, an SEO agency that will put in the work and increase your SEO rankings significantly within 3 to 5 months. Studies have shown you can expect 50% growth in organic traffic over 12 months.
Can you tell me about an unsuccessful campaign?
Failures do not define the SEO agency’s worth or how much they can do for you. Though, it is important that they learn from their missteps. Therefore, this question might be harsh to ask them, but you should be well informed as a client what went wrong and how they corrected the course.
It is not only about return on investments, but good participation from SEO agencies means you can have a transparent working relationship in the future.
Who is your longest client?
Does this question determine that the money you are willing to spend to improve your website’s rankings, is worthy enough? It is to determine if the investment is good enough in the long run. Relation with clients for the long-term establishes that the agency will not let your expectations down.
A consistent, hard-working, quality-assured SEO agency will lead your website to a profitable end and will make good of the money that you are willing to spend to hire them.
Can you guarantee top rankings?
When you are interviewing, no SEO company can guarantee you the number 1 ranking in the search engines. If any SEO agency is telling you otherwise, they are not being truthful.
Google has a very complex algorithm and is technically a mystery. Most of the SEO companies read all the insights from Google’s publications and patent filings. Sometimes, SEO agencies conduct their own research. But to crack Google’s algorithm will open a new revenue flow., which is an impossible task to accomplish. Most qualified SEO companies in India work around it as they are changing every day.
How much transparency is in the work process?
Transparency in a corporate relationship is of utmost importance even when you are looking for a qualified SEO agency for your website. You as a client should have a ground knowledge of their working process, billables, SEO campaigns, expected results, improvement in rankings, and revenue too. With transparency comes communication, and all-time you and your SEO agency should be on the same page.
What tools are you using for SEO reporting?
Most of the qualified SEO agencies have a basic set of reporting tools that they use for tracking their progress, ongoing work and are the primary metrics for the base of the assessment report. They are multiple SEO reporting tools like-
- Google Analytics
- Google Search Console
- Google Search Central
- Google Data Studio
- GrowthBar
- Ahrefs
- SEMRush
- Moz
- KWFinder
These are some of the best and most executed SEO reporting tools that report on the metrics like search engine rankings, high priority keywords, backlinks count, organic traffic improvements, etc.
Conclusion
Finding a qualified, experienced, and price-sensitive SEO agency might be a hectic task. Maintaining a successful work relationship with an SEO company establishes trust, transparency, and mutual understanding on both fronts.
The process of assessing professional SEO firms is a difficult task. But with these above-mentioned questions will give you a head start and an opening to ask more follow-up questions if you lack a strong understanding of search engine optimization (SEO).