You have a thriving online business, your traffic and sales are remarkable. You have an excellent product to offer and a well-designed website. Then one day it all comes to a standstill. Your traffic has dropped and you can’t understand why. You wonder if your website has been hit by Google’s latest Penguin update. The sad thing is – you have invested a lot of time and energy into your business. It just doesn’t seem fair. This is a typical scenario of someone who has hired the wrong SEO consultant in CT. This mistake will not only cost you money to repair their mistakes, you can lose traffic, sales and profits. Here are a few important things to help avoid this common nightmare.
Check for Valid References.
Would you leave a newborn baby with a child care provider without checking his/her references? Of course not. Your business should be treated the same way. When it comes to hiring an SEO company, make sure you check their references. If they refuse to provide you with their references – it’s time to move on. A legitimate SEO company will have no problem with providing verifiable client references.
Don’t Rely Solely on SEO – Diversify.
Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket. Utilize other effective forms of marketing, such as email marketing, social media marketing and PPC advertising. This is an excellent way to build and maintain your client list and drive more traffic to your website or landing page.
Conduct a Thorough Research
– Here are a few important things to ask your potential SEO consultant before signing the dotted line:
– Ask if they sell linkbuilding services. If their answer is: ‘yes’, you should flea like a bird. A reputable SEO company, in 2014, will not sell linkbuilding services. Google frowns upon paid for link services. You could run the risk of getting your website penalized.
– Ask about their content marketing strategy. Do they have one? A good content marketing strategy will include a team of experienced content writers, graphic designers and other content producers. Ask them to give you an example of a typical ROI for one of their clients. An experienced SEO company should be able to provide ROI metrics of at least one of their clients. This is usually a big selling point. If they can provide one client that is closely related to your type of business – even better.
– Do they help build brands? Six years ago, Eric Schmidt, former Google CEO said: “Brands are the solution, not the problem…brands are how you sort out the cesspool.” This way of thinking still applies today. Google loves brands – small brands included. They seem to focus more on brands that are relevant and brands that possess an authoritative voice.
