How to Choose the Best SEO Company in Goa, India (And be Sure of it)

By: Joseph de Souza

Now you have finally decided that you require a SEO freelancer or company as you need to increase your sales. So which SEO freelancer or Company should you choose? At the outset you should set your goal. Your goal should be to increase relevant traffic to your website that will convert and thereby increase your revenue. It could also be to increase signups for a trial, increase downloads, or the popularity of your brand.

You should not go after getting the #1 ranking for a pet keyword where the coversions are low, vanity metrics like DA or DR (a few years back it was Google PageRank chasing - until Google dropped it) or trying to rank for keywords which are extremely competitive with respect to the authority of your website.

Once your goals are established you should make a shortlist of SEO companies or freelancers who can accomplish your desired goal and within your budget. You have also to be aware that even a good freelance SEO consultant will not want to take up your work in case you have a very low SEO budget.

Now do you choose a best SEO company or a good freelance SEO consultant ? Read on for some great tips to choose a good SEO company so that you do not waste cash.

How to Shortlist Good SEO Companies and Freelancers

We can shortlist possible SEO companies by looking at Google search rankings, referrals from your friends and personal networks and professional networks, references from Similar non-competitive companies, referrals from industry insiders whom you know. for example some top industry websites like MOZ maintain lists of recommended SEO and companies.
Steer away from "pay to play" lists i.e. which demand payment to be listed and ranked within that list and only payment determines the listing and ranking. Also stay away from lists or so called reviews of SEO companies where the basic listing is free and the ranking depends on the amount that the company pays. This is certainly not a test of quality. You should also stay from lists created by persons to promote themselves or from dubious sources.

You can also checkout author profiles at the leading and reputed SEO websites and contact the authors to check whether they are into SEO consulting.
You must also also be aware that the SEO companies recommended by leading industry websites or the the SEO that write in leading and reputed industry websites do not come cheap.
You can add to list SEOs with proven knowledge who contribute useful tips and suggestions in any SEO community and their comments are well received by the SEO experts in the community and the community members at large.
Below is my comment in inbound and the reply to it from internationally well known SEOs.



We will now look in detail at the shortlisting process what we have to check and finally the question that we have to ask the SEO company before we make our choice.

Shortlisting by References

Speak to your friends from your professional and personal networks who have used the services of a SEO consultant or company and ask them who has done the SEO for them.
You can also ask if you know of similar non-competing companies who have employed an SEO consultant. Lastly you can also ask known SEO experts whom you are familiar with to provide references.

Shortlisting by Google Rankings

I will now help you how to shortlist a possible good SEO consultant or company using Google search result. Remember to skip the ads and look at the organic results. This is because a good SEO will know how to get organic traffic for his website.
Again if the SEO is so busy because he has a huge amount of clients through referral that he cannot devote time to improve the his website, then again he will not require advertising.   
Skip this ....



Look here ....



Again, I wish to stress that Google Ads are a great way of getting traffic fast, specially for new websites or when you require to increase your traffic fast, but in this case you are searching for someone who can increase your organic traffic, that person or company must have a great track record of having increased the relevant organic traffic for their clients or the very least must be able to get organic traffic for their website.
Now once we have shortlisted SEO companies or freelance consultants we move to the next step.

Check What They Have Written On Their Website About SEO

The next important step is to see what the shortlisted company or consultant has written on their website. This will give you an idea of their SEO knowledge. For example I have written on Website Technical And On Page SEO Audit This is very important and all SEO experts are unaminous on this point.
Secondly you can also check whether they are active in SEO communities, forums and Question and answer websites. In case they are check the response to their answers by SEO experts in particular and the community members in general. For example my Quora profile has already over 231 thousand views so far ....    .

There are companies that even charge quite a bit but if you look at their websites they have not even implemented the basics of SEO. They do not have good content, no optimised title tag on each page and other basics of On-Page SEO are not followed.
Some other companies call themselves a digital marketing company and have filler text or dummy text (the text used to check formatting like lorem ipsum dolor sit amet), or pages without content, only a top heading and the menu.
Worse still some have copied full pages from other companies websites and when the other company blocked hotlinking of pictures the pictures went missing. Beware of such SEO companies.

Check If The Seo Company Follows The Search Engine's Guidelines

This is essential, otherwise sooner or later your website may incur a penalty. I have come across SEO companies offering packages that include "Link Wheels" and "Doorway Pages or gateway pages" as part of the package.

Note that all types of Link schemes like Link Wheels are explicitly mentioned as being against their guidelines by Google, so also Doorway pages or Gateway pages.



There are even companies which even highlight practices against Google guidelines in their packages as seen below. In case the SEO company under consideration uses any such tactics which are against Google guidelines then run away.

Do Not Select Any SEO Company Based On Spam Email Or Cold Call

Beware of a SEO company who sends you an email out of the blue promising great SEO results at a cheap price. And be doubly careful when it is emailed using a fake identity.
   Most of the times the email will be written in poor English.
Another point to be noted here is the SEO company must be able to get organic traffic (Search traffic) to their website.

The Company Claims a Special Relationship With Google

Google does not have a "Google Partner" or a "Google Premier Partner" for SEO. They have clearly stated that many times. Here is what is mentioned by Google "The Google Partner badge shows that specific Partners have passed Google Ads product certification exams and are up to date with the latest product knowledge. In other words, they earned it. "
Moreover some of the companies that display the badge, including few from Europe and USA are not even actually Google Partners.

Google have also stated on the Search Console Help Center "Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a "special relationship" with Google"

Google's Webmaster Trends Analyst John Mueller again repeated there is no "Google Partner" or a "Google Premier Partner" for SEO (See below)

Check The Previous Work

Ask the SEO company or freelance SEO Consultant to provide screenshots of rankings obtained for previous clients and it is better that you check some of the rankings yourself. Also check out if there are any SEO case studies like the one written by me in this website.
You can also check out the testimonials given by the SEO companies clients. For example see the testimonials given to me by two European companies.

Below are just a few rankings obtained by me for clients.

And here's just one of the queries out of the enormous number of search queries that I rank for on the first page of Google search results.

No SEO Company Can Guarantee a Particular Ranking

Google has clearly stated "Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a "special relationship" with Google, or advertise a "priority submit" to Google." Also be careful of companies who will will not inform you of the changes they do to your website. Ultimately you will be held responsible for changes done to YOUR website.
   Also remember that SEO is a long term process any any seo who plays by the rules cannot get results overnight.

What Will The SEO Company or Consultant Require Access To?

The SEO Company will ask for access to Google Analytics and Google Search Console (Webmaster Tools). They will also ask access to your Content management system (CMS) like WordPress, Joomla, Drupal etc. if they are going to enter the optimised content.
Secondly any good SEO company will always conduct an SEO (Technical, on-Page and Content) and let you know what needs to be changed and give you recommendations regarding the same.
Firstly technical changes may be necessary after a SEO audit. Here the SEO details the necessary changes and hands them over to the client for implementation. Most companies have a developer who implements the changes. (or a developer from the SEO company could implement at extra charges)
The SEO consultant or company will suggest the keywords to be target and the content to be written or added to existing pages. Here the client may write the content or outsource it to some one else and then hand over to the SEO consultant. The SEO will then rewrite the content taking into account the best practices for ease of reading of visitors and search engines. This covers writing the headings, ALT tags, optimizing HTML code as well as the title and description meta tag.
The optimized content can be then entered by the client or the SEO service provider. The SEO company also does a Content Audit and according deletes or adds noindex to thin content pages. Also checks the site structure, url structure and internal linking as well.
In case the SEO Company or Consultant does not mention all these things, and they want to rank your website WITHOUT any on-site changes. Be VERY CAREFUL. They are very likely to be using methods against the Google Guidelines.

Know The Person Who Will Actually Work on Your Website

You need to make sure that the person working on your website actually knows his stuff.
In case you choose to hire a medium or a large sized company the person working on your site will be different from the team or persons that did the initial presentation. The practise being that the best person or persons in company will usually do the presentation so that the comapny has the best chances of closing the deal.

In case of a freelance SEO Consultant, it is almost always the same person that will do your work, so you know beforehand.

Finally Check This Out

You need to make sure that the person to whom you are entrusting your website knows SEO.
Recently there was a discussion on Twitter where it was reported that quite a few people take up SEO projects without knowing anything about SEO. Their clients did not bother to even make a cursory check before awarding the project.
As soon as the project was awarded, the person posts in various social forums asking "How to do the SEO for the site"
At the very least avoid consultants who satisfy ALL of the below: 1)No Website 2)Never worked at an SEO Agency 3)No Case studies to show of previous work done
Your potential SEO Consultant has to have at least some experience to show for, at the very least on their website. The above was retweeted by Bill Slawski an SEO pioneer and expert, best known for writing about Google patents.

Full details on Twitter: Twitter discussion on how to choose an SEO

How Can You Know That Your SEO Is Working?

SEO takes quite a long time to show results. If you want to know if your SEO consultant or company is proceeding in the correct direction, the search impressions (in Google search console) will show an upward trend within 1 to 3 months of making changes.
   In this client website technical changes started in February 2018, whereas on-page and content changes were made starting August 2018 and you can clearly see the tremendous increase in search impressions.

Video by Google On How To Select a SEO

Watch the video by Maile Ohye of Google which gives further tips on the process.

About The Author

Joseph de Souza is a leading Freelance SEO consultant and Web developer in Goa, India with more than 15 years of experience in internet marketing.
He has a proven track record and has has helped several companies increase their traffic many times over and thereby increase their revenue and profits.
Besides English, Joseph has also successfully optimized two German language websites and a Danish language website and obtained outstanding results.
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