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Tips on Choosing the Right Consultant

Written by: Barry Nagassar

Article Overview: You are aware of the need to expand your sales online, however, you don't have enough knowledge about web marketing to make informed decisions on potential consultants. At least you think you don't know. Here is a brief tutorial on best practices to prevent future SEO consultant heartache.

Tips on Choosing the Right Consultant

Regardless of the size of your web site you probably do not have adept knowledge about the web marketing industry. Some people do, and just require a consultants help because it saves them time. Others don't, and they need to hire someone who has the expertise to accomplish their online goals.

What can you do to prevent yourself from investment precious marketing dollars into un-qualified consultants? Well you'd be surprised how a little can go a long way.

For starters, here are some things to stay away from:

1. Do not go with flat rate consultants. Since every web site is dynamic and unique there is no 'one size fits all' approach to your web site. So-called SEO consultants try to lump low level strategies into packages in an attempt to maximize their turnaround time, saving them money, and accomplishing little for your web site.

2. Stay away from guarantees. This does not mean guarantees on your privacy or the necessity for clear and concise goals. However, consultants who guarantee placements in search engine rankings are too good to be true.

Sometimes the promise comes to pass, and you get lucky. Most of the time it doesn't and the only way to recover your initial investment is to go through the messy process of litigation.

3. Try to hire closer to home, or at least on the same continent. Many people want to save 50% off price points and hire in third world countries. There are many qualified and under-qualified consultants off-shore. Chances are you'll get the unqualified version for the bottom basement dollar price you want to pay. Trouble is, there is no way to hold the consultant responsible for their work when they are so far away.

Some tips to pick the right consultant.

1. Just like ANY new purchase you have to compare the service. That means yes, there is a process where you compare consultants by asking for references, calling references, looking at previous results, Googling the company.

2. Usually you will have a period before money changes hands. For exceptional consultants you may have a to pay up-front but they'll generally apply the prepayment to your initial invoice. Most of the time you can spend a few phone calls testing the consultant with your questions, asking them for a plan, and then discussing the proposal.

3. Make sure you have clear and concise goals. Goals are not guarantees but what they do accomplish is provide measurable benchmarks you're trying to attain. If you're way off the mark then you may try to find another consultant sooner rather than later.

4. Try to spread payments over longer periods of time. This means you can track success before releasing next payment.

5. Avoid long term contracts. Here is a secret: on-page SEO really should take a couple of weeks to complete and only needs to be done once (every six month-year). The rest is web promotion. (That's a general rule). Year long contracts may put you in a bind you don't want to be in.

So those are some really basic but necessary tools to apply when looking to hire an SEO consultant. It's really no different than any other large purchase. Just because you don't know much about the industry doesn't mean you have to hire blind. Apply some due diligence and reap the rewards of profitable consulting.

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Article Tags: closer to home, continent, dollar price, guarantees, initial investment, level strategies, litigation, marketing industry, money changes hands, placements, previous results, qualified consultants, search engine rankings, starters, third world countries, turnaround time



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