4 Critical Questions to Ask Before Hiring SEO Services for Your Business

SEO can make or break your business. But hiring the wrong SEO agency can mean digging a deeper hole.

Brisbane is one of the most progressive cities in Australia. Key industries include finance, government, education, retail as well as transport. These industries account for more than half of total employment in Brisbane.

So, if you own a business in Brisbane, you must have your website optimised. And in that context, reputable SEO brisbane services will help you on the path to making even hundreds and thousands of dollars per month. But bad SEO might cripple any gains you have had with your search traffic. Thus, it is crucial to choose cautiously.

If you are about to hire a Brisbane SEO company, keep in mind that you need to ask critical questions to make the right choice. This article discusses the questions you need to ask before hiring anyone for your SEO Needs to know what to expect.

Cost of SEO in Brisbane

SEO brisbane services typically cost you around $700-$2000 per month. Meanwhile, hourly SEO rates range from $105-$250. So, overall, the higher the competition, the more top dollar you need to pay for your SEO.

What are your tactics for improving search engine rankings?

You will never get any significant results in the absence of a serious SEO strategy.

If you are only randomly targeting keywords or building links, you might witness varying results, but you will never see consistent traffic gains.

Every good SEO expert will be required to implement a process, regardless of whether they are freelancers or work for an agency. They might not specifically tell you their strategy, but they can suggest some specifics, such as enhancing your on-site technical SEO to discover critical areas for quick wins. Afterwards, they will determine the best keywords to target.

It would help if you also asked about backlinking. Backlinks have been a huge part of search engine algorithms for years and will continue to play a massive role for years to come. SEO services in Brisbane will build links to your website to improve rankings.

But not all backlinks are created equally. Keep in mind that one premium backlink is worth more than thousands of subpar backlinks.

What is your process of informing me of changes you will be making on our website?

A reliable SEO company will send you reports regularly. A good frequency is once per end of the month. But there are a few who will send you weekly updates.

You need to provide your SEO company access to your website, and this is one of the top reasons it is crucial to hire a trustworthy SEO company. You can reduce the risks by having every website change made by an in-house team, but you will need to deal with slower results. So, you need to ensure open and consistent communication between your in-house team and the SEO agency.

Meanwhile, some SEO consultants will not s suggest any website changes. If this happens, it might be a red flag. Although off-site work is a massive part of SEO, on-site work is often more vital initially.

Changes need to be tracked, and you need to make sure that your SEO company is thorough about any changes to the website they are making. If an SEO company says they are tracking changes internally, it might not be good enough. You must factor in what would happen if your SEO freelancer suddenly ghosts you and becomes unresponsive. You will end up with a broken or damaged site.

To fix the problem, you need to know the reasons that caused your SEO to spiral down in the first place. And a good SEO company will be prepared to send you vital information about any website changes they made. 

Can you share a portfolio of your results?

Bear in mind that searching for an SEO company is comparable to searching for anything else. You may want to check out reviews, testimonials, and their past clients. Don’t expect an SEO company to reveal every client they had, but they will likely be happy to provide examples of their huge successes and big-name clients. Moreover, they should be confident enough to show their results over a long period. 

If they cannot provide an example of a client with a legitimate business, it is a big warning. Either they were unsuccessful with big clients in the past, or they don’t have enough experience for higher-level SEO. So, it would be best if you asked them who their longest active client is. Asking this question is critical since a considerable risk with shady SEO agencies is that they utilise unsafe short-term strategies. They want to show quick results to their clients, and they do not care if it will put the site at risk in the future.

Also, if you are consulting with an SEO company that has been around for a long period and their active client is only with them for under a year, it is also another red flag. 

Do you abide by Google’s best practices?

Best practices are crucial to traffic growth for the long term. Your SEO agency must follow the best practices laid down by Google and, to a lesser extent Bing and Yahoo.

Google implements approximately 500 algorithms yearly, and every update is aimed at one purpose: to provide optimised results for searchers. These guidelines are the golden rules of user research, and every respective search engine publishes it. Besides, when you act in violation of the rules, Google won’t be too happy. Thus, it has released specific algorithms that have penalised a massive number of shady sites. On-page violations result in penalties from algorithms such as Panda. On the other hand, off-page violations are punished by Penguin algorithm updates. When Google hits you with one of these, it could impact your traffic hard. 

A good SEO company or team is worth the investment. They can help you expand your business by as much as 15% per month. These are consistent results year after year. Other than that, also make sure that your SEO is optimised for your Brisbane audience.