Hiring An SEO? Hear From Google What SEOs Do
This Google video “How to hire an SEO” isn’t new but it’s to the point and vital to setting expectations. I encourage both SEOs and clients to watch this video and learn what Google says you should look for in an SEO.
How to hire an SEO
| Transcript |
| hi I’m Maile Ohye and I work with Google |
| search I like to share advice to help |
| you hire a useful SEO and prevent hiring |
| a bad SEO one who you might pay a lot of |
| money without positive results or even |
| worse one who implements shady practices |
| on your website that result in a |
| reduction in search rankings SEO stands |
| for search engine optimization – some |
| SEO seems like black magic having worked |
| with Google search for over a decade |
| what I’ve learned is that first it’s not |
| black magic and second if you want |
| long-term success |
| there aren’t any quick magical tricks |
| that an SEO will provide so that your |
| site ranks number one it’s important to |
| note that an SEO potential is only as |
| high as the quality of your business or |
| website so successful SEO helps your |
| website put your best foot forward so |
| that it ranks appropriately in the spot |
| where an unbiased potential customer |
| would expect your site to be seen |
| a successful SEO also looks to improve |
| the entire searcher experience from |
| search results to clicking on your |
| website and potentially converting a |
| good SEO will recommend best practices |
| for a search friendly site from basic |
| things like descriptive page titles for |
| a blog or small business to more complex |
| things like language markup for a |
| multilingual global site SEO is ensure |
| that you’re serving your online |
| customers a good experience especially |
| those coming from a search engine and |
| that your site is helpful whether |
| they’re using a desktop computer or |
| mobile phone in most cases the SEO will |
| need four months to a year to help your |
| business first implement improvements |
| and then see potential benefit my |
| strongest advice when working with an |
| SEO is to request if they corroborate |
| their recommendation with a documented |
| statement from Google either in a Help |
| Center article video or Google a |
| response in a forum that supports both |
| one the SEO description of the issue |
| that needs to be improved to help with |
| ranking and to the approach they |
| prescribed to accomplishing this |
| tasks requesting these two bits of |
| information will help prevent hiring a |
| poor SEO who might otherwise convince |
| you to do useless things like add more |
| words to the keyword meta tag or by |
| links because if you search for google |
| advice on this topic you’d see blog |
| posts and videos from us that clearly |
| explain that adding keywords to the meta |
| tag wouldn’t help furthermore while |
| google uses links for page rank our |
| documentation highlights that we |
| strongly advise against the approach of |
| buying links for the purpose of |
| increasing page rank one basic rule is |
| that in a majority of cases doing what’s |
| good for SEO is also doing what’s good |
| for your online customers things like |
| having a mobile-friendly website good |
| navigation and building a great brand |
| additionally if you’re a more |
| established brand with complicated |
| legacy systems then good search friendly |
| best practices likely involved paying |
| off some of your site’s technical debt |
| such as updating your infrastructure so |
| that your website is agile and able to |
| implement features faster in the long |
| term if you own a small local business |
| you can probably do the initial work |
| yourself check out our 30-minute video |
| series on how to build an online |
| presence for your local business now if |
| you still believe you want to hire an |
| SEO here’s a general process one conduct |
| a two way interview with your potential |
| SEO check that they seem generally |
| interested in you and your business to |
| check their references three act four |
| and you’ll probably have to pay for a |
| technical and search audit 4 decide if |
| you want to hire let’s break this down |
| and start with step 1 conduct a two-way |
| interview in the interview here are some |
| things to look for a good SEO doesn’t |
| focus only on search engine ranking but |
| how they can help your business so they |
| should ask questions like what makes |
| your business content and/or service |
| unique and therefore valuable to |
| customers they want to know this |
| information to make sure it’s |
| highlighted on your website for your |
| current and potential new audience |
| – what does your common customer look |
| like and how do they currently find your |
| website 3 how does your business make |
| money and how can search help for what |
| other channels are you using offline |
| advertising social networks 5 who are |
| your competitors what do they do well |
| online and potentially offline if the |
| SEO doesn’t seem interested in learning |
| about your business from a holistic |
| standpoint look elsewhere it’s difficult |
| to do good SEO without knowing about a |
| business’s goals their customers and |
| other existing marketing efforts SEO |
| should complement your existing work the |
| second step in hiring an SEO is to check |
| references if your potential SEO |
| provides prior clients be sure to check |
| their references you want to hear from |
| past clients that the SEO was able to |
| provide useful guidance and worked |
| effectively with their developers |
| designers UX researchers and our |
| marketers a good SEO should feel like |
| someone you can work with learn from |
| experiment with and who generally cares |
| about you and your business not just |
| getting your site the highest rank as |
| ultimately those techniques rarely last |
| long if they work at all they’ll want to |
| educate you and your staff on how search |
| engines work so that SEO becomes part of |
| your general business operations step 3 |
| is to request a technical and search |
| audit if you trust your SEO candidate |
| give them restricted view not full or |
| right access to your Google search |
| console data and even your analytics |
| data before they actually modify |
| anything on your website have them |
| conduct a technical and search audit to |
| give you a prioritized list of what they |
| think should be improved for SEO if |
| you’re a larger business you can hire |
| multiple SEO to run audits and |
| prioritize improvements see what each |
| has to say and then determine who you |
| could work with the best in the audit |
| the SEO should prioritize improvements |
| with a structure like one the issue to |
| the suggested improvement 3 an estimate |
| on the overall investment in other words |
| the time energy or money it would take |
| for your developers to implement the |
| improvement and for Google search as |
| well as searchers and customers to |
| recognize the improvement the SEO will |
| need to talk with your developers to |
| better understand what technical |
| constraints may exist for the estimated |
| positive business impact the impact |
| might be a ranking improvement that will |
| lead to more visitors and conversions or |
| perhaps the positive impact comes from a |
| back-end change that cleans up your site |
| and helps your brand be more agile in |
| the future five a plan of how to iterate |
| and improve on the implementation or |
| perhaps how to experiment and fail fast |
| should the results not meet expectations |
| that covers the structure of the |
| technical and search audit now let’s |
| talk about each of these audits |
| individually in the technical audit your |
| SEO should be able to review your site |
| for issues related to internal linking |
| crawl ability URL parameters server |
| connectivity and response codes to name |
| some if they mention that your site has |
| duplicate content problems that need to |
| be corrected make sure they show you the |
| specific URLs that are competing for the |
| same query or that they explained it |
| should be cleaned up for long term site |
| health not initial growth I mention this |
| because lots of duplicate content exists |
| on web sites and often it’s not a |
| pressing problem in this search audit |
| your potential SEO will likely break |
| down your search queries into categories |
| like branded and unbranded terms branded |
| terms are those with your business or |
| website’s name like a search for Gmail |
| is a branded term while the search for |
| email is an unbranded or general keyword |
| an SEO should make sure that for branded |
| queries such as Gmail your website is |
| providing a great experience that allows |
| customers who know your brand or website |
| to easily find exactly what they need |
| and potentially convert they might |
| recommend improvements that help the |
| entire searcher experience from what the |
| searcher sees in search results to when |
| they click on a result and use your |
| website for unbranded queries an SEO can |
| help you |
| better make sense of the online |
| competitive landscape they can tell you |
| things like here are the types of |
| queries it would make sense for your |
| business to rank but here’s what your |
| competition is done and why I think they |
| rank where they do for instance perhaps |
| your competition has great reviews |
| really shareable content or they run a |
| highly reputable site an SEO will |
| provide recommendations for how to |
| improve rankings for these queries and |
| the entire searcher experience they’ll |
| introduce ideas like update obsolete |
| content they might say your site is |
| suffering because some of your well |
| ranking content is obsolete has poor |
| navigation a useless page title or isn’t |
| mobile-friendly let’s improve these |
| pages and see if more website visitors |
| convert and purchase or if they can |
| micro convert meaning that perhaps they |
| subscribe or share content improve |
| internal linking your SEO might say your |
| site is suffering because some of your |
| best articles are too far from the |
| homepage and users would have a hard |
| time finding it we can better internally |
| link to your content to feature it more |
| prominently generate buzz the SEO might |
| say you have great content but not |
| enough people know we can try to get |
| more user interaction and generate buzz |
| perhaps through social media or business |
| relationships this will help us attract |
| more potential customers and perhaps |
| garner natural links to your site learn |
| from the competition your SEO might |
| explain here’s what your competitors do |
| well |
| can you reach parity with this and |
| potentially surpass them in utilities or |
| can you better show customers your |
| business’s unique value again a good SEO |
| will try to prioritize what ideas can |
| bring your business the most improvement |
| for the least investment and what |
| improvements may take more time but help |
| growth in the long term |
| once they talk with you and other |
| members of your team such as developers |
| or marketers they’ll help your business |
| forge a path ahead the last thing I want |
| to mention is that when I talk with SEO |
| s one of the biggest holdups to |
| improving away |
| site isn’t there recommendation but it’s |
| the business making time to implement |
| their ideas if you’re not ready to |
| commit to making SEO improvements while |
| getting an SEO audit may be helpful make |
| sure that your entire organization is on |
| board else your SEO improvements may be |
| non-existent regardless of who you hire |
| so that wraps it up thanks for watching |
| and best of luck to you and your |
| business |
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