10 Questions to Ask When Hiring an SEO Expert
The 10 Interview Questions I Now Like to Ask SEO Experts
1) What Search-related blogs/forums do you read and enjoy? This is my favorite and a way to casually start conversation. It will hopefully spark discussion and you will get a sense of whether or not they just do SEO because it’s their day job or whether or not they are truly interested in their profession. If they are having a lot of trouble with this (at the very least they should name a Search forum) it is highly possible they are going through the motions and don’t really have much passion. Side note: On the flipside, beware of the SEO enthusiast who is just a lot of talk and gives you the sense that all they do is read blogs all day long. They might be a lot of talk, and sadly, no action behind their words. Needless to say, this is bad too. See SEO question #4 to help eliminate this risk.
2) Can you tear this website apart? Best question to ask. Grab a laptop, pull up any website, hand it over to him or her. Ask the person to tell you what’s wrong with it and how can it be improved, right there. Make it a random site that has nothing to do with your own site. Does this person start looking at the code? Does he or she talk through the process? Does this person identify elements on the site’s pages that should be optimized? Does this person pull up search engines and do some link checks and page checks? Can they identify URL/domain issues, redirects or any technical problems right off the bat? Does this person stare at the screen like a deer frozen by some headlights?
3) How would you pursue links for your website? Linkbaiting, SMO, looking at competitor’s links, blogs, PR, directories, spam and bad link farms? Not everyone is a linking expert, but they should have a good clue on how to obtain them.
4) How do you track results to prove success? Is this person just going to name that they have achieved a #1 ranking for a brand name term? Or are they also going to talk about the importance of long-tail keyword traffic and how it can offer both relevant and higher converting search engine traffic? Are they going to discuss the increase in conversions for the website? Are they going to mention different ways they were able to substantially increase and generate new traffic to the website that was never there before?
5) Can you describe or produce a recent successful SEO campaign? If this person truly did succeed, they should have a good story to tell.
6) Do you have any technical skills you are confident about or any type of website programming/design experience? I think this is one of the things that many search marketers are often missing from their skillset. I am not saying it is the absolute most important skill to have to be a great SEO (because I’ve worked with some great non-technical SEO marketers and strategists that were phenomenal), but I think it can definitely put a candidate over the top and this person will probably identify and resolve triple the amount of issues that a non-technical SEO professional will. Do they know how and why they should use
7) Name tools that you use for SEO: for keyword research (if they name Overture Tool, I’d run)? Tracking keyword rankings? Tracking links? Identifying bad redirects and problematic JavaScript. Do they do it by hand? How and what do they use is important here.
How many SEO campaigns have you been involved with and what was your role? Was this person a strategist for some real important accounts? What were they? Did they get their hands real dirty and concentrate on identifying and resolving issues? Depends on what you want or need, preferably, you’d want both.
9) Do you own your own website or blog? Some employers would be scared off by this, especially since they would fear that their SEOs would optimize on their company time, but screw that. The fact is, the more exposure that an SEO has with websites (especially their own), the more tricks of the trade he or she will be able to develop and fire off as part of their arsenal. This will lead to them finding the latest that truly works real well for their own site to generate traffic, and then introducing it to your site with proven results.
10) What are the most important on-page elements for search engine performance and how would they rank it in order of importance? E.G. Is it Title tag first? Description tag? Headers? Text? Extra geek points if they can tell you exactly what each of the search engines like specifically.
I am certain some of you have your own good SEO questions and interview experiences with SEO candidates but these are just some of the ones that I’ve encountered. Would love to hear your thoughts and feedback on these.
Great post! I especially like point’s 2 and 4. So many people in the interview process try to talk a good game, but come up short when it comes down to specifics or demonstrating that knowledge.
Comment by Jenn Osborne | April 7, 2008
Thanks Jenn, I’m glad you liked it. If you ever try it out, let me know how it goes. I’d be so curious to hear people’s thoughts on this approach, good or bad.
Comment by Frank Antonellis | April 7, 2008
Great article. I guess I need to answer those as well. I am a marketing strategy expert but for some reason they lump some of the seo stuff in there as well now. I do some for our clients bt plan on hiring someone in the future if all our clients want that service. Hard sometimes to explain Markting and Business Strategy is the big picture and SEO is the implemenation in combination with PR, radio, print, etc.
Comment by Mark | April 7, 2008
10 Questions to Ask When Hiring an SEO Expert…
Where can I find a real good SEO expert and how do I separate the good from the bad?…
Trackback by socialmedia1.com | April 7, 2008
Great article Frank! Deserves more Spinns than just mine.
Comment by John S. Britsios | April 7, 2008
John and Mark - Thanks for the great feedback. I’m really glad you enjoyed the read.
Mark - It’s great to hear your perspective (since you are a marketing professional seeing more and more demand for SEO) and I think that your exposure to SEO definitely puts you a step ahead of some marketing managers who might be slower to adopt ways of utilizing this channel to connect with their audience. As much as the important of SEO is growing, it is still an unknown for most in any field who are looking for a good way to begin and adopt this. As you mentioned, I think that SEO is definitely a solid piece of the puzzle to getting your big picture out there. Thx again for the great comment.
Comment by Frank Antonellis | April 8, 2008
These are questions someone would ask who knows already a bit about SEO. But what should a company with no experience in SEO ask? You want to win there trust too.
Comment by Reynder (seo) | April 8, 2008
Reynder - That’s an excellent point as many of the interviewers themselves might not have the SEO experience to feel comfortable asking some of these questions to understand exactly what the correct response should be, for example if hiring for an in-house SEO position. In this case it might be a good idea to start off and mix in some of the questions that you would normally ask any candidate pursuing another type of role to break the ice, for example, the standard and effective “what are your strengths? or “what attracted you to this company”. I think that these type of questions will probably give a person a sense of trust that this interview won’t be an ambush in any way (which it isn’t supposed to be). I think the most important thing with these SEO interview questions is it offers a way to guage how confident and how willing the candidate is to try to give an intelligent response (whether right or wrong) and show that they can think some of these through (or even attempt to). Some questions may seem tough, and might require a bit of time and thinking by the candidate which should be allowed (like question #2). The fact that you choose a random website even justifies how the answer is truly not as important as the thought process at that very moment, because you may not know the answers yourself. As blatant as some of these questions may come across, this should seperate the inexperienced SEO from the experienced SEO, the creative problem-solver from the “seat filler” (again, maybe not be the best questions for an entry-level SEO, but I’m talking about finding true experts or professionals with tons of promise). For example, for question #2 where you ask them to analyze a site, if they are checking different things, and at least can show you a thought process and confidence that they are digging through a website for some kind of answer, just that alone shows problem-solving (and some determination), something that I think is extremely valuable, regardless if you are confident they have the right answer or not. How hungry are they to give you an answer? SEOs can expect the craziest questions from everyone at anytime, and should know how to try to get the answer. Or if they don’t like to read SEO blogs or forums (as question #1 asks), maybe they have another source of information such as they enjoy sharing questions and ideas with SEO colleagues via email or IM. Maybe Yahoo Answers? Something that will give you the confidence that they can find research it if they don’t know it. Thx again for the comment and hope this helps somewhat with the good question you’ve asked. - Frank
Comment by Frank Antonellis | April 8, 2008
Thanks for the guidelines. It’s a nice way to break down the skills that an SEO should have. Maybe you’re next post should be on some answers to those ten questions… Ahemm, I definitely wouldn’t be looking at that one.
Looking at the sphinn comments now, and enjoying the debate on whether the questions are correct questions (as they imply an answer that is relevant to good SEO). It sounds like you’re looking for someone who is good at SEO to do your work for you. Someone who knows what they are talking about, has some good experience - but isn’t too good (otherwise why would they work for you?).
@ reynder… That’s a pretty tough question. One of the people I work with has a somewhat basic understanding of SEO. We went back and forth on two reputable SEO companies. My opinion was that as long as they’ve achieved results or ROI for their clients - and they have happy ones (we cheat with using presentations at SE conferences from the founders as credibility), it’s hard to tell. There is no standard.
One of the companies I worked for used marketing sherpa’s list of SEO companies, and did hundreds of hours of analysis and picked one. They were pretty good, I had a great rapport, and they had some significant results (black hat though), but bottom line, I now know SEO companies who could do the same job for half the price.
Comment by David - Los Angeles Internet Marketing | April 8, 2008
Great post and great advise, it’s more less what I went through for my first seo job interview!
Comment by Matt Ridout | April 8, 2008
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My only comment is how will the average business owner know what the correct answers are to these questions. From my experience, our clients range from barely being able to use email to the ones that actually know why a 301 redirect is used and also ones who think they already know everything there is to know about SEO, but yet still need your help.
Good post though!
Comment by Casey | April 8, 2008
I think in addition to the above key SEO skills include pure business skills. Understanding a companies business objectives are vital. I also think understanding and being able to task a design team to ensure traffic is correctly handled is important. All just IMHO.
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Comment by Dave Robinson | April 8, 2008
Good idea to have a ‘practical test’ in an interview; first of all, it will indicate whether they know anything about ‘SEO from scratch’, and if they do then it will probably lead the interview into some interesting territory…
Comment by linkdan | April 8, 2008
Great article, that will definitly be useful in my coming hiring process. But Dave is also right concerning business skills. having a good SEO teammate that is unable to understand who is the target of a client or a company can also be really problematic. For me, SEO is a mixed experience where both business/mkt views and technical skills are useful. But this profile is really really hard to find… God
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Sorry, but I see only #2 as being somewhat applicable here.
#10? I’d love to hear just one SEO’s answer to those questions. If you were interviewing me and asked #10, I’d of answered something like this:
“There is no right order of importance. No one can tell you what each engine values as most important today or next week. The question should be asked maybe this way: Please give me just a handful of positive changes a current site could make in order to make it more user friendly and search engine friendly.”
As far as the rest? None of the rest would be questions I would ask if hiring a potential SEO. Sorry. Your number one is just silly at best. Your best SEO blog out there might be my worse SEO blog out there. I guess if you are looking to hire someone who is “like minded”, then you would not be hiring me.
Comment by Doug Heil | April 8, 2008
Great point Doug. I’d probably be amused with someone intelligently throwing these questions right back at me with some great alternatives or maybe even simply walking out in disgust.
thx for the feedback!
Comment by Frank Antonellis | April 8, 2008
I’m jealous. I’m an article writer and had to do an SEO article on this topic last year - your article is sooooo much better. I loved it. (Now I’m working on my first SEO job.) Thanks for a good read…
Comment by fivekitten | April 9, 2008
FiveKitten - Thanks for the extremely kind words and that’s one of the nicest compliments I’ve heard. I’m glad you enjoyed it and I truly look forward to reading your stuff out there! - Frank
Comment by Frank Antonellis | April 9, 2008
Hiya Frank - Got referred to your blog via Search Engine Round Table - must say that this is an awesome post, am adding you to my RSS feed and will track your blog in future. Keep up the good work!
Regards, Jacques
Comment by Web Results | April 9, 2008
Great post and lots of great tips. I don’t really need an SEO expert though. I figure these things out on my own.
Comment by Jenny | April 9, 2008
In #7 you mentioned the “Overture” tool, what tools should they be using instead of that one? Thanks.
Comment by Jo Jo | April 10, 2008
Jo Jo,
The Overture tool is highly unreliable and the results are usually extremely inaccurate. Not to mention that it is extremely slow and down on many occasions.
Some of the other tools that offer better results include: Wordtracker, Keyword Discovery, and Wordze. I also like using the free MSN Intelligence Excel plugin for keyword research.
If you’re looking for keyword tools for PPC, then Spyfu and KeyCompete are great as well.
Hope that helps.
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Я подписался на РСС ленту, но сообщения почему-то в виде каких-то квадратиков
Как это исправить?
Comment by Руслан | February 4, 2009
Great post.. will help me in hiring SEO expert
Comment by Vikrant | April 14, 2009
Опять-таки побочная проблемка. Вряд ли она кому-нибудь мешает, мне лично как то все равно
Comment by Мурат | June 13, 2009
Я совершенно случайно зашел на этот сайт, но задержался тут надолго. Задержался, потому что все очень интересно. Обязательно скажу о вас всем своим приятелям.
Comment by Семен Соколов | June 18, 2009
Автор, посты , конечно, интересные. Но вы не думали заменить дизайн?
Comment by Azot | June 20, 2009