If you do business on the internet, you know how important SEO is to the success of your company. Comprehensive SEO can increase your search engine rankings and thus increase the traffic to your website. While some business owners enjoy taking on the challenge of SEO themselves, others choose to hire SEO professionals to do it on their behalf. If you’re part of the latter group, consider these 6 ways to screen SEO professionals before hiring one.

Who Called Whom? If an SEO professional calls you first, be wary. Unless they are just starting out in the business, quality SEO professionals should be too busy working for their clients to be making cold calls. The greatest irony in receiving a cold call from an SEO professional is that SEO professionals should be experts at marketing. And if they can’t find their own clients without cold-calling, how do you…

There is a misconception in the business world that SEO is equivalent to “free traffic,” as though SEO involves nothing more than waving a magic wand and watching the traffic come pouring in to your business website. The reality is that SEO is quite costly. Whether you outsource your SEO to an internet marketing agency or choose to train your own professionals in-house, you’ll find that SEO is a significant investment. But the reality is that you simply can’t afford not to do SEO, no matter how much it hurts to see that money come out of your budget.

You may feel like you’re saving a bundle if you choose to take care of your SEO in house. But if that’s your choice then you’ll have to hire experienced professionals or pay to train staff that you already have. You’ll need to allocate some funds to an SEO consultant to help to prioritize your SEO opportunities and help your in-house employees hone their skills. You’ll have to invest in…