Google’s Advice on How to Hire an SEO via @MattGSouthern
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Google's Advice on How to Hire an SEO
Google shared a three-step guide on hiring an SEO for businesses who may be doing so for the first time.
This advice was provided in the latest episode of Google's Search for Beginners series on YouTube, which is an extended version of the advice provided in the previous episode.
See: Google Recommends Hiring SEOs in New 'Search for Beginners' Video
The benefit of hiring an SEO, Google explains, is the potential to improve a site while saving time compared to doing in on your own.
Google warns businesses, however, that hiring an SEO also comes with the risk of damaging a site as well as its reputation.
With that said, Google provides a three-step process to vetting an SEO before hiring them which consists of:
Here's more about each of those steps.
Step One: The Interview
When interviewing an SEO to work on your site, Google recommends listening to make sure they're focused on the right things.
For example, they should be focused on helping a business overall by improving how they appear in search results. Being focused too much on rankings and where a site appears in search results is a red flag, Google says.
It's a good sign if they ask you questions like:
Consider it a red flag if you're interviewing an SEO and they're not interesting in your business from a holistic standpoint. If that's the case, then Google recommends finding someone else for the job.
Another red flag is unrealistic guarantees of ranking first in Google, as no one can promise that.
Step Two: Check References
The second step of the hiring process, as recommended by Google, is a reference check of past clients.
When checking references, Google advises asking questions to gauge how useful the SEO's guidance was. One of the major things Google points out is asking