Small Business Web Development & SEO | 10 Questions to Ask before Hiring Anyone

 I was contacted a few months ago by a potential client about taking over their Web Development and Search Engine Marketing Campaign. The client had hired some friends from college to build them a website and then paid a pretty decent amount each month for what was billed as, “SEO services and CMS fees”. Over the course of 6 months, the client spent thousands of dollars on these “services” but saw no results. When I started looking at the data, the first thing I noticed was that the domain was still a Page Rank zero (0). I thought this was crazy considering the amount of money paid for SEO services. Surely the site should have reached at least a PR of 1 after 6 months.

After more digging, I saw that only 12 backlinks had been built for the entire domain. What did all that money get spent on by the current SEO company? I had no idea, but whatever it was, it didn’t do anything for the client. Same with the website build. The client paid a hefty fee for an old school website done in HTML and CSS, not WordPress. They had no control over the site content, and no blogging platform, even though they were paying a fee each month for supposed, “CMS” services.

I had the unfortunate task of telling this potential new client that whatever money was spent on their small business web development and SEO had been wasted. It was a hard thing to do. Part of me was excited at the opportunity show this client some real results. The other part felt sad for the client’s loss of capital. They had been misled and taken advantage of. Whatever company they worked with had obviously been unethical, and from the looks of it… just took the money and did nothing in terms of SEO.

I see this all the time and it really makes me mad. Dishonest Web Development and SEO companies do nothing for our industry. They steal from small business owners and harm the reputation of the industry overall. So… This post is the beginning of a series on what to ask a Small Business Web Developer or SEO service before hiring them. I’ll give you the list of questions here and cover each one in detail over the next several weeks. Once armed with this info, you’ll stand a better chance of getting what you need from a Small Business Web Developer or SEO service instead of getting ripped off.

For now… here’s the list.

• Tell me what SEO means?
• Do you do keyword research?
• What platform do you build on?
• Do you help with content?
• Do you guarantee rankings?
• Do you use a keyword plan?
• Do you provide a blog queue?
• What on-site SEO do you do?
• How do you choose a domain name?
• How Much…?

I’ll start with the first question next week. You’ll find out what comprehensive small business SEO really is. It’s a lot more than most designers or developers ever think or know about.

Till then,

Johnetec

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