You can ask these questions at anytime – but they are especially great when you’re thinking about making a partnership because they remove a lot of the need for ‘seeing how it goes’.
The biggest thing, is that you’ll have a reference for seeing how your partner performs later in the partnership – on track? Did they they do what they said they would do?
Questions to ask:
- Can you show me examples of your previous work and share some success stories?
- Do you follow the Google Webmaster Guidelines?
- Do you offer any online marketing services or advice to complement your organic search business?
- What kind of results do you expect to see, and in what timeframe
- How do you measure your success?
- What’s your experience in my industry?
- What’s your experience in my country/city?
- What are your most important SEO techniques?
- How long have you been in business?
- How can I expect to communicate with you?
- Will you share with me all the changes you make to my site, and provide detailed information about your recommendations and the reasoning behind them?
Brucey Bonus Questions – do they care about you?
ASK THEM WHAT THEY KNOW ABOUT YOU
- What makes our business or service unique and valuable to our customers?
- Who are your customers – can tell me everything you know about them?
- How do you think we make money, and how can search results help to grow that?
- How will you report to show that you are contributing directly to that?
- What other advertising channels are you using?
- Who are our competitors?
Check out Google’s advice for finding the right SEO partner (article & video) >