Google’s advice on hiring an SEO company

As a website owner, you should know a huge part of your online success will come from ranking highly in Google. In the majority of cases, this can’t be achieved without a lot of hard SEO work behind-the-scenes. SEO is a very complex strategy and the rules on how you rank can change quite rapidly which means you have to keep on top of Google Algorithm changes to continue to rank highly.

When it comes to choosing an SEO company to help you achieve your desired results, it is important that you do your research before hiring. So let’s go through the red flags Google warns businesses to avoid when choosing an SEO company to optimise their website:

Google’s advice

When hiring an SEO company you really need to think about it at the start. The best time to hire is when you are redesigning or launching your website. This way you can be certain the website is being built with SEO in mind from the start. However that doesn’t mean a good SEO can’t help improve your existing site.

1) Be wary of SEO companies sending you unsolicited emails

Google says that they even receive spam emails from “dodgy” SEO firms too. These types of emails are pretty easy to spot; they are usually very generic, claim you aren’t ranking very well within all search engines but don’t mention the terms you are trying to optimise for. Any unsolicited emails should be treated with the same scepticism as any other type of spam. Don’t believe everything you read, do some research and find out how legit these SEO firms are.

2) No one can guarantee a number one ranking

Avoid SEO firms that promise the world, if they claim to guarantee rankings or have a special relationship with Google don’t believe it.

3) Avoid secretive companies

Make sure you know what the SEO firm plans to do. It is easy to achieve high rankings by using black hat strategies that go against Google’s guidelines, but these practices can get you banned entirely from Google. You are responsible for the SEO company you hire so you should be sure they are using only white hat strategies.

4) Choose wisely

You should always do some research on the SEO firm before hiring them and one of the best ways to do this is with Google. If a SEO firm is dodgy you may find cautionary tales or they may have bad reviews on their Google Local Business Listings. A good SEO firm will practice what they preach, find out what they optimise for and see if they rank. Research other businesses they deal with, are they ranking consistently? By answering these questions it will be pretty easy to find SEO firms that are legit.