I have been working in SEO for 10 years in total and yes, there is a trick on how to hire a good SEO expert to join your agency. How do you hire an SEO expert?
Show, do not tell! You do not need someone with a degree. You do not even need someone with working experience. The best way to find an SEO expert is to find a person with an affiliate website or a website they own and work with as a hobby. These people got their experience from real life and through their own personal commitment.
There are other things you should find out when you want to hire someone. For candidates from a marketing field, you can expect a great resume and the “I can do everything!” approach. And that makes it difficult to find out who can really do it.
How to hire an SEO expert (not a scammer) to grow your team?
For your growing business / agency, you decided to hire a new team member. Are you not an SEO expert and do you need some advice on how to recognize who knows the field and who just knows how to talk? Here is how to recognize an SEO expert from SEO scammer:
SEO experts have a portfolio with their clients
Any expert in a field should be able to provide you with examples of their work. If someone calls themselves an SEO expert, they should have a long list of clients in their portfolio. During the interview, ask about those clients and what did the candidate learn from them.
Everyone has some successful and some unsuccessful cases. It is important that they got the learning experience from the failed cases and are honest about that.
SEO experts can describe strategies they use to increase a website ranking
It is not only about having a specific knowledge. By willingness to openly describe tactics they used and are using to achieve a website rank, you can see if your candidate is using a “white hat” SEO. White hat SEO has the best long-term results because it does not go against google policies.
The shady tactics are usually just a short-term solution to the new updated algorithm fixes the problems. People who know SEO know it.
! Disapproved SEO techniques can bring your website ranking penalties
SEO experts have realistic idea of how long it takes to achieve SEO campaign goals
Of course, this is different every time and some precise and accurate prediction really does not exist. But having too high expectations for how long it takes to improve a website ranking shouts out: “I do not know what I am doing!”. There is no right answer to the question, but there are definitely wrong answers!
SEO experts will not give a false guarantee
Clients are asking to get a guarantee that their page will rank number one. And many SEO scammers are happily reassuring that this is the case. It’s an impossible claim, and let’s hope the person you are interviewing knows it, too. If the candidate agrees in a theoretical scenario that he could give potential clients a guarantee – RUN!
SEO experts can measure a success of the SEO campaigns
They are familiar with google analytics and understand which data are important. Google analytics is an important tool when you need to prove to your client results. Therefore, if you are an SEO expert and have ever worked with clients, you know how to use this.
SEO experts have good copywriting skills
Even if content marketing is not the main part of their specialization, SEO experts have an adequate level of copywriting skills. It is not possible to do complete SEO services without some content creating.
SEO experts can create a visual content
Tables, charts, infographics, and other visual elements can attract website visitors. People read much less and although the text is the easiest medium for google algorithm, this is not enough to keep your readers attention. It is important to keep readers’ attention, provide value and entertain.
SEO experts can identify good link-building opportunities
Link-building is an extremely sensitive area of SEO and must be done right. Some links can actively harm the website! And at the same time, good link-building is one of the best techniques to improve website ranking. That is why it is so important for SEO experts to be able to find the opportunities and proceed to take an action and get the good organic links to your website.
One high-quality link can be worth thousands of spam-links
How to hire a trainee for SEO?
Are you willing to invest some time into training a new person? Then go and find someone who is interested in SEO, but is not an expert yet! Easier said than done? Here are my tips to how recognize who will be a good SEO trainee:
SEO trainees love learning
There are many things a new trainee needs to learn, so if your candidate does not like learning and is not able to do that unsupervised, the teaching and training will be extremely difficult.
SEO trainees are highly motivated to work for you
The first signs of their motivation can be found in a resume and cover letter. During an interview you can focus on finding out how well they prepared. Did they go through the company website? Did they try to find basics about what you are doing in your business? What did they learn from the research?
SEO trainees are doing marketing, not hacking the system
The good trainee needs to understand what SEO is about. Getting high ranking on the website is not the main goal when you perform search engine optimization for your clients. What they usually want is to see an increase in their revenue. It is not about trying to hack the system, it is about finding ways to promote a business and get through the competition.
SEO trainees have good writing skills
Did you notice during your email communication with the potential SEO trainee that it is difficult to understand their points? That is not a good sign of the writing skills. Ask them to submit a sample of their writing on a specific topic, you might eliminate some candidates very quickly and you will not regret it.
How should you approach the whole hiring process and find good candidates? How to find an experienced employee? Read more
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