Hey r/sEO!
tl;dr -- I am an in-house digital marketer for a service-based company who contracted a local agency for SEO while I focus on my strengths as a marketer. I'm not happy with them and want to know, as someone who isn't an in-depth SEO, how to vet candidates for an in-house/freelance/other agency. What questions should I ask, what are the answers that would indicate that they are the real deal? I want to minimize risk of waiting 3-6 months that said candidate is full of shit.
I need help on how to find and choose a good freelancer/agency/in-house employee for a local service-based company (actually two companies out of same building, two different industries). I consider myself a well-rounded digital marketer (only in-house marketer currently) and am pretty experienced with localized SEO, running and managing PPC campaigns, social media, reputation management, some graphic design. When it comes to SEO and ranking, however, I have a decent understanding of it in general, such as the importance of good meta titles/descriptions, blog content, and things of that nature, but definitely lack in some of the more technical stuff like HTML, backlinking (maybe this isn't so technical), optimizing load times, etc...
While I plan on teaching myself the areas I lack, I am eager to hand off these duties to a professional as my plate is pretty full as is. Back in April I contracted a local agency to build one website/optimize the other, and begin a monthly SEO program for $500 / month / website. They were referred by a friend who has done website stuff for me in the past. From what I have seen so far, they have created 2 blogs per month per site, and are supposed to be getting backlinks as well, however I have a feeling they're not really getting backlinks. The blogs contain 300-350 words each. Over the last two months, according to the dashboard they gave me (something similar to SEMrush), there has been minimal ranking increase, and in some cases, decreases. Am I being too hasty here or is there more they can be doing? I feel like blog posts alone are not enough and it feels like bare minimum. I don't think they set up the schema properly, I asked for my social links to be fixed and they haven't been. I can navigate wordpress decently, but I'm just not a web developer yet. I just feel like when I ask for things to get done, they're not really done and I'm kind of getting brushed over as if I'm not the expert (I'm not, but again I have an understanding of the various elements that play into SEO--I've been following this sub a lot lately too which has been a great help).
So my question is if I look for a new SEO, whether an agency or in-house employee, what are the kinds of things I should absolutely list for a solid SEO candidate in 2019? What are the questions I should ask? What skills are a must? What are the things I should look for as answers to these things? I'm leaning toward a freelancer or in-house SEO so I can better directly manage and oversee what's going on, and even possibly learn a lot. I have a fear that the same thing will happen with another agency--all the love and focus is there when trying to make the sale, but once the contract is signed, we're not the priority anymore. If I take the agency route, should I go national? Any suggestions? Should I stay local? Sorry for all the questions, this stuff is just really frustrating me and I've been meaning to post here for a while. Thank you!!
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from Search Engine Optimization: The Latest SEO News https://www.reddit.com/r/SEO/comments/c4a674/advice_on_findingvetting_seo_candidate_for_a/>
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