SEO Expert: When You Need One and How to Choose the Right One

What an SEO expert does

SEO work is not just “adding keywords”. In practice it covers several areas, and a good expert will tell you which of them matter for your particular site:

• Site review – page structure, titles, descriptions, internal links, duplicate content and errors that prevent indexing.
• Technical advice – hosting, page speed, redirects, 404 error pages, sitemap, robots.txt and the use of JavaScript.
• Keyword research – what people actually type into a search engine when looking for what you offer, and which page should answer which search.
• Content – ideas for new articles and improvements to existing ones, so that every page covers one clear topic.
• Local search – the Google Business Profile and visibility for searches tied to a city or region.
• Tracking and reports – Google Search Console, analytics and an explanation of what changed and why.
• Training – so that you or your staff can write and publish content the right way in the future.

When to hire one

The earlier, the better. The best moment is when you are planning a new website or a redesign of the existing one. At that point the page structure, addresses (URLs) and technical foundation can be set up for search engines from the start, instead of being fixed and redirected later.

An SEO expert also makes sense for an existing site, especially when:

• search traffic drops suddenly and you don't know why;
• the site has existed for years, yet you can't find it even for your own services;
• you are moving the site to a new domain or a new platform;
• you don't have time to follow changes in search engines, but traffic from Google brings you customers.

What you can do yourself first

Anyone can learn the basics of optimization, and even when you hire an expert, you will understand more easily what they do and why. Before the first conversation it is worth reading:

• how Google Search works (google.com) – how Google finds, indexes and shows pages;
• search engine optimization – an overview of the basic elements, from keywords and titles to internal linking and speed.

Also, open a free Google Search Console account and connect it to your site. There you will see which searches your site appears for, how many clicks it gets and which pages Google could not index. Any serious SEO expert will ask for this data too.

Questions to ask before you hire

• Can you show me examples of your work? Sites they worked on and what changed on them.
• What exactly will you change on my site? A good expert explains every change and why they make it.
• How will you measure results and how do you report? How often, with which tools and what the report will contain.
• How long until I can expect the first changes? The honest answer is usually a few months, not a few days.
• Will you use my Search Console and analytics? The accounts should stay in your name, and you give the expert access.
• Do you also make changes to code and content, or only give recommendations? This decides whether you need someone else too, such as a developer or a copywriter.

Warning signs

Bad SEO can do more harm than good, so be careful if someone:

• guarantees the number one position on Google – nobody can guarantee that, because Google decides the order of results;
• talks about “secret methods” and won't explain what they do;
• offers to buy large numbers of links or to publish on networks of sites built only for links;
• creates pages stuffed with keywords, written for search engines rather than people;
• asks for the accounts for your site, domain or Search Console to be in their name;
• contacts you by unsolicited email saying they “noticed problems on your site”.

Such practices break Google's spam policies and can cause a site to lose rankings or be removed from search results.

The warning signs and some of the recommendations are based on Google's documentation Do you need an SEO? (google.com).