Businesses spent more than nine billion on advertising last year, this exceeded what was spent on print advertising for the first time in history. More than ever, both large and small businesses want SEO vendors to provide exposure via both the Internet and more traditional marketing avenues. If your work involves SEO, whether you are doing it on your own (consulting, or for your own sites) or as a part of a team, there are certain questions that you should be able to answer. How about if you are looking for an SEO vendor? You will need to find one who is able to carry out an effective strategy to make sure that your website becomes highly ranked. Do you know what questions you need to ask? Below are questions to which every competent SEO professional should be able to offer answers. These may be useful in helping you decide who is qualified and who is not.

Q 1. Which of these linking strategies will have a more positive effect on our website’s rank, getting 10 links back from 10 different websites, or having one site link to us 10 different times?

Multiple linking domains provide the best SEO result in Google, possibly because the search engine sees it as a more valid endorsement.

Q 2. A high ranking on Google Local is extremely important to many small businesses; also important is the ranking in Google Places, and Google Maps. Give me the three most important reasons why these search engines play such a significant role in a website’s success or failure.

The consumer’s reliance on Google for its ability to recommend local businesses and the emergence of location-based social networks, are among the acceptable answers. Google Places also allows consumers to rate the local businesses they patronize.

Q 3. Which two search engines receive the highest number of queries in the United States? Tell me the top two search engines for China, the United Kingdom, Russia and China as well.

Baidu is the most widely used search engine in China, with Google ranking second, in the UK the top two are Google and Bing, the same as in the US. In Russia, Yandex is the most popular, and Google is in second place.

Q 4. Other than getting a website linked to directly from social sites, in what other ways would you use them to improve our website’s search engine rank?

Simply put, it helps to build awareness of a brand. It is a tool of promotion. Social marketing can be used to mold perception of a product or service.

Q 5. When it comes to placing keywords on a page, give me five places on a page where using a keyword will provide a positive benefit to that page’s search engine ranking.

The domain and sub-domain name as well as such elements in the page as the title and body are all good parts of the page to place keywords. The answer given may include any of these.

Q 6. Why should we use your services? What makes you better than another company (or individual)? What do you bring to the table that another SEO expert will not be able to bring? Also, how would you manage our account?

An SEO professional should have qualities that you believe suit your company’s specific needs, perhaps due to experience, or knowledge of your industry.

Q 7. How does optimizing a page figure into your overall strategy? Follow up questions here would be: What percentage of pages on our website will be optimized? How will the flow of communication from the end user/client to the provider work?

Page optimization involves figuring out the visitor’s intentions, needs, and to create content that is relevant to their searches. You will want to be kept in the loop and fully informed, you will also want to be able to get in touch with them whenever necessary.

Q 8. How do you go about building links? You may follow this up with, would you alter your method of building links in your packaged solutions based on the client’s needs? What about your team, how are the work responsibilities divided among them? What type of leader are you? There are many ways in which backlinks may be built, these range from requesting links to submitting articles to directories. You will want to ensure that the SEO will be able to adapt his services to your needs.

Q 9. While we do not expect any crises, how well do you handle them? Do you have experience with handling situations where you had to perform damage control where a client’s reputation was at stake? Explain your reaction to the situation, the measures you took and how effective they were.

One way of addressing the issue is by using straightforward and informative blog posts on your sub-domains. These posts should directly deal with the cause of the crises. Ensure that your customers know that you are being open and forthcoming with information.

Q 10. What are the ways in which you would improve the ratio of pages on a website that are indexed by a search engine crawler? Do you understand the concept of topic modeling and how different forms of topic modeling are implemented?

Improving the quality of the content and the efficiency of the navigation can improve the ratio of pages crawled by search engines. Topic modeling is a method of using mathematical concepts to link a search engine query to a particular set of content.

Other Areas to Take into Consideration Consider the SEO’s previous experience, have they worked with clients who had needs similar to yours? Their knowledge of the less obvious nuances can make the difference between a solid business partner and one that is merely average. The key to an effective relationship will be each party’s willingness to learn from the other. Both clients and SEO vendors should be active listeners. Vendors will have to listen to the needs of their clients; clients should likewise be open to instruction from their vendors. Looking for an effective social and reputation management expert involves:

•  Finding a partner. The word “partner” connotes someone who is more involved in your business, beyond the level of a mere “vendor.” Your marketing partner is more deeply committed to the growth of your business than someone from the outside. While they will have to take time to learn the ins and outs of your business, the amount that they will need to learn can be minimized if you know what to look for.
•  Building a brand via using social sites. Social media is an important tool for building brand awareness, which can in turn lead to positive results when it comes to search engine ranking. The most easily recognized benefit of a strong social media presence are the links directly to your site from social sites like Twitter and Facebook. Also, brand associations on social sites may be used by search engine algorithms to decide whether a particular page is popular or relevant to the search engine query.
• Considering the big picture. When looking for someone to handle your SEO and digital marketing, avoid those who place a stress on using social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. While these sites are important elements in a social media strategy, they should only be parts, not the entirety of your game plan. There is also much more to the role of SEO than mere jargon, you will need an SEO expert who can provide a specific benefit via a clearly defined method.
• Finding a vendor who can get your site indexed on Google. If you are not indexed on the Internet’s most popular search engine, then your site will likely not be found by customers using Google for searching for products/services in your niche. Part of the work of an SEO professional is getting your site on Google, and getting the links back to your website indexed. A SEO vendor should be able to explain to you how they go about getting links back to your website indexed.
• Identifying the trends. While certain aspects of SEO are fairly easy to carry out, one that requires a fair amount of skill and knowledge is trend-spotting. The ability to spot and use trends in link building can make a huge difference in how fast your site gets indexed.

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