You’re looking for an expert SEO company in a pit containing hundreds of self-professed experts. How do you pick the right company to get more traffic and sales so you don’t waste money on something you know little about?

Everyone claims to be good at SEO when all they do is read some blogs, change title tags, and sprinkle a few keywords into content. Dig deeper with the right questions and you will discover how much air is in the head of most agencies.

I’ve delivered good SEO results to companies for over 8 years. I am tired of hearing stories from prospects ripped off by bad SEO companies who decreased their client’s visitors. Spend a few minutes asking the following 5 questions to reap the rewards of doing SEO right:

Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers.Anthony Robbins

1) “Will you share with me all that you do?”

It’s common for SEO companies to hide what they do to keep a mysterious aspect to their work. They do not share what they do because they either do very little or engage in unethical tactics (black hat SEO).

A company should track the pages where your links are built, pages they’ve edited, content written, videos created, and other completed tasks.

Each month when working with Digital Darts, you will get a detailed report containing information of what was done.

2) “How will you talk with me?”

Are you after weekly updates? Or maybe a monthly update is good? Get on the same page with communication so your expectations are met. Clarify what reports you’d like.

3) “Do you do black, gray, or white hate SEO?”

Black hat SEO is a violation of Google guidelines. It often involves spammy tactics like link farms where many low quality websites link to your site. I suggest you avoid black hat SEO so you can sleep at night knowing your business online is safe. Not many agencies are in this bucket, but I’ve seen a few large ones do black hat.

Gray hat SEO describes ill-defined strategies in the eyes of Google. It is slightly risky because of its unclear nature, but not necessarily wrong. 500 Google algorithm updates a year can bite Gray Hat tactics. Not many will tell you they do gray hat and instead label it has white hat.

White hat SEO is seen as pure. It involves a lot of high-quality content creation, community management, and marketing strategy. Expect to pay four-to-five figures a month for this type of SEO.

Black, gray, and white tactics can work. It is good to know what type of SEO you’re getting into and the risk.

4) “What’s your best link building method?”

Answers to be careful for include forums, article directories, and directory submissions. These are okay to do when done together as part of a whole strategy, but if that’s their best link building method, they’re living in 2008.

There are wrong methods, but no one best method. Look for ethical methods that make sense to you. These are generally good ways for your SEO company to attract links to boost your rankings.

Link building methods I like to use for clients include: reaching out to manufacturers to get listed on their stockist pages, public relations with journalists, directory submissions, blogger collaborations, and outreach to webmasters who manage resource pages.

5) “How do I recover from the penguin update?”

This is more so a tactic rather than a specific question. It is one of my favorite recommendations. Call an SEO company, speak with the person who would provide the service, then ask technical SEO questions like:

• “What’s the difference between 301 and 302 redirects?”
• “How would you handle on-page SEO for a multi-lingual site?”
• “What influence does meta descriptions have on rankings?”

Speak with the actual person who manages, or will manage, your account. A sales person may palm you off. Know the answer beforehand so you can judge their response. Listen for uncertainty.

Many call themselves SEO experts but cannot answer these questions. They may give you an excuse then get back to you once they do online research.

I’m happy to answer any questions you have about SEO and Shopify. Get in contact.