Digital marketing services can be expensive. That’s no secret. But at the same time, every business has to spend money to make money, and you should think of the cost of (for instance) hiring an eCommerce SEO company as an investment and not just as an expense. 

A majority of digital marketing experts agree that SEO offers the best return on investment of all marketing channels. It is sustainable, efforts compound on themselves, and the results won’t fall off (like PPC) when you stop putting in work. 

Still, you don’t want to hire flippantly or have a cavalier attitude about attracting leads, right? 

So, vet your prospects before you hire by asking the following ten questions. 

Can You Explain Your SEO Process?

The purpose of this question is that it will give you an opportunity to understand SEO better (if you don’t) while also showing you exactly what efforts your money is going towards. 

There are over 200 ranking signals Google uses to assign rankings, and it’s hard to keep tabs on them all. An SEO company can go over the big ones with you so you know what’s important to work on during the course of a campaign. 

The answer to this question should also contain a detailed breakdown of what exactly the SEO company will deliver. Not all eCommerce SEO strategies are the same.

Some Seo Companies build links. Others only do keyword research and optimize existing content. Some write blog posts and press releases to support content marketing efforts. Others only do basic on-page optimizations, like updating page titles and meta descriptions. 

Ideally, the SEO company hire should offer a full-service process that optimizes as many of these ranking signals as possible. But you definitely need to know what the process entails before hiring.

How Will You Adapt Your Process to My Company/Industry?

A standard process might work, but it won’t work as well for each unique customer as it might. For instance, some models follow a B2B structure. For these businesses, it often doesn’t make as much sense to go after high-volume keywords that consumers are searching. 

The search volumes might be lower for commercial keywords and search terms that businesses should be targeting if their main clients are other businesses, but that can still have a much bigger impact on a website’s overall organic footprint. 

Most eCommerce SEO companies will start with an audit and a competitor analysis to uncover your current positioning so that areas for improvement can be identified and suggested. 

This will help them set a strategy from the start and also position them with a deeper understanding of your industry at the beginning of the project so adjustments can be made as the campaign develops.

What Do You Consider a Successful SEO Project?

It’s important to understand the answer to this question from the start of the campaign because different eCommerce SEO companies might have starkly different barometers for what they consider success.

Some SEO experts consider it a success if keyword rankings improve, even if no clicks or sessions follow. Technically, if keyword rankings (and impressions) improve, SEO has been implemented and a website has climbed the organic search results. 

…But it also means that there’s a lot left on the table. Why pay for more impressions when no conversions result from it?

So, other SEO companies might define success as an increase not only in impressions, but also in clicks and sessions. And, ideally, targeting and buyer persona definition will have been accurate enough that some of that new influx of traffic is captured as leads or converts right through the website.

So, for others, success in eCommerce SEO is a sustained increase in organic revenue, although that is a very hard thing to directly control with SEO alone. 

How Familiar Are You with My eCommerce Platform?

All things being equal, the platform you’re on really doesn’t make that much of a difference for SEO. Strictly speaking, some are easier to optimize than others (like BigCommerce which automatically generates a site map, or WordPress that is easy to edit at the granular level) but that’s not the reason for this question. 

The reason for this question is because, in order to make a website “better” and optimize it for search engines, the eCommerce SEO company you hire will need to make on-page changes, post to your blog, add links, and that sort of thing. 

And that is not easy to do on a platform with which you’re not familiar. So, if you’re built on BigCommerce, it doesn’t hurt to work with an SEO agency that has some demonstrated proficiency with that platform. 

It shouldn’t be a dealbreaker, though. It’s just something else to weigh.

What Tools Do You Use?

This is a critical question to ask because it will give you some indication of what sorts of metrics will be reported on in the first place. 

The two basic SEO tools that all experts should use are Google Analytics and Google Search Console. 

Google Analytics tells SEO specialists about sessions, time on page, where traffic came from, and what actions (including conversions) users took, making it useful for tracking the success of organic efforts including conversion rates and sales.

Similarly, Google Search Console can lend some insights into increases in average organic position, impressions, clicks and click through rate, as well as what sorts of impressions the website’s pages are getting, and for which search terms.

Neither of these two platforms offers direct data regarding increases in organic positions for specific keywords (at least not in detail) so some SEO companies will use tools like SEMRush (which does show that, at the URL level) or their own proprietary eCommerce marketing tools. 

Either way, you should know what they are before signing on so you know what you’ll be getting. 

How Long Should It Be Until I See Results?

I caution you that while you should ask this question, you should also be very realistic about expectations 

I say that because as a person that has heard the question before, I hesitate to give a concrete answer. There are just too many variables and too many moving parts in SEO to be fair about it. 

Our process is effective and has a demonstrated history of results, but the speed with which it works depends on the current optimization of the client’s website, the number (and size) of their competitors, and what keywords we decide to target, as well as how many we choose to pursue. It also depends on the volume and competitive difficulty of the keywords we choose. .

Then again the time it takes to see improvements is also linked to factors that are difficult to account for, like what sorts of customizations we make (if any) for the client’s campaign. 

Here’s what I can say. Be very skeptical of any eCommerce SEO expert that promises anything, especially on a specific timeline. Sometimes SEO results roll in within a 3 month window, and sometimes it takes more than a year. 

In general, though, it takes more than 6 months, although that is a very loose average. All I can say is, be patient and recognize that you should be in SEO for the long haul if you pursue it as a digital marketing channel at all. 

What Cooperation Do You Need from Me/My Company to Ensure Success?

SEO is, more or less, a highly collaborative process, and more often than not, open lines of communication with and clear directions from a client help to get the ball rolling. 

The more available and responsive you can make yourself to your SEO expert partner, the more successful your campaign will be. 

This is not something you can really offload and forget about. Your SEO partner will need you to answer questions about your goals, core value propositions, biggest competitors, and more. You’ll also have to approve keywords, proposal to strategy changes, and maybe even approve content. 

So make sure you clear that up with the SEO agency before you hire them, as some might be better working autonomously than others. It’s better when the process is a bit of give and take anyway.

Do You Have Any Demonstrations of Success for Other Clients?

Hollow promises are one thing, solid results are another, and some SEO agencies may be able to furnish you with actual figures that you can apply to your decision making. 

For instance, many eCommerce SEO companies publish case studies. Some of the time, the case studies might lack specific metrical reporting (such as if the client was in a niche industry and a special strategy had to be adopted) but the best ones always have figures. 

Specifically, look for eCommerce case studies that contain figures about keyword ranking increases, domain authority increases, or even better, snapshots from Google Search Console or Google Analytics that show changes in user behavior from early in the campaign compared with behavior as the campaign progressed. 

In a case study, the main things you’ll want to look for are increases in organic keyword rankings, organic impressions, clicks, sessions, and of course, the best news is when conversions, revenue/transaction value, and sales all increase. That often doesn’t happen till long down the line, but a well-established SEO process can get it done.

An eCommerce case study that contains all of those metrics (and some do) is all the more valuable. If the company can do it once, especially for a client in your vertical, they can more than likely do it for you. 

Another thing you can look at, if the company works with developers or designers, is a client portfolio. You could also make it a point to look through testimonials and reviews, especially if they are readily available. That won’t show you client success figures, but it will give you an indication of the level of service offered, and if most clients were happy or not. 

What Other Marketing Strategies Do You Offer?

SEO does not work in a vacuum. It both influences and is influenced by the efforts of other organic marketing campaigns, so all things considered, sometimes it’s best to work with a company that offers multiple additional organic marketing services. 

Even if you don’t want to sign up for anything other than SEO right now, down the line you might want to carve out some budget for content marketing, email marketing, social media management, and other marketing efforts. 

And, if you are comfortable (and happy) with the one agency already serving you with SEO efforts, why not just let them keep it all in house? That will be fewer points of contact for you to chase, anyway, and some SEO companies offer processes that are synergistic with their other marketing efforts. 

Plus, social media management and content marketing, specifically, can both positively impact SEO (they benefit from it too, though).

Do You Work with Any Designers or Developers?

Many of the ranking factors that influence SEO fall more under the purview of a designer or developer than an SEO strategist. 

Items like site speed, security, structure, code, and integrations can all impact technical SEO optimization. 

Even though the strategist must be able to identify these issues, rectifying them may take certain technical skills and acumen that he or she does not possess, and deference to a designer or developer is in order.

There’s another reason to work with an SEO specialist that works with professional designers or developers or has their own in-house: to improve UX.

Let’s say, hypothetically, that your website is a little bit, shall we say, dated. Perhaps it’s not mobile-optimized or the landing pages you’re targeting for your SEO efforts are terribly UX-optimized. 

Getting a page that generates a lot of bounce to increase in the organic search results without making any supplementary changes to improve UX is likely to generate more bounce. The worst thing you can do is not improve the page and invite more potential customers to visit by improving SEO. You’ll get more clicks but a whole lot more bounce and possibly cart abandonment to show for it.

A designer or developer can create custom page templates, redesign the layout, and make a page more user-friendly and conversion-optimized, giving you the best chance of reaping a conversion when an organic user actually lands on the page. 

Just my two cents. 

Start with an SEO Audit 

Not sure where to start? At least you now have a few questions that can help you with the vetting process before you hire an SEO company. 

Also, you have the option of starting here with a free SEO audit that will show you where some of your opportunities lie. 

Otherwise, take your time. There’s no rush and you want to make sure you hire the right people for SEO, since it will definitely make an impact on the online visibility and long-term success of your eCommerce business. 

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