7 Essential Questions Your SEO Specialist Needs To Ask You

Search engine optimization is an art form. Building brand awareness through strategically placed keywords, phrases, and sentences makes up the brunt of an SEO specialist’s workload. 

But what should you know about an SEO specialist’s keyword mastery? Their specific talent for increasing site traffic and overall outreach? 

Any SEO specialist worth their salt should, by default, be asking their clients the following questions. These seven questions set the foundation for great SEO. And in general, they’re great SEO fundamentals in general. 

We’ve already covered the essential questions that anyone with a major project needs to ask an SEO specialist. Now it’s time for the same specialist to enter the hot seat.

Let’s see what questions your SEO needs to be asking you before any major project. After all, it could affect the entire branding process.

What Is Your Primary Business Objective? (Optimize For The Right Keywords)

Knowing a client’s business goals is the first, and arguably the most important, step in the entire process. Building a comprehensive, sound SEO strategy for your business starts here. 

An SEO specialist should ask you the ins and outs of your specific business goals. Do you want to simply build brand awareness? 

Afterward, this gives the SEO specialist a base from which to work. From here, they can conduct quality keyword research and subsequently start building your online presence in your industry space. After all, optimizing for the right keywords should come second nature to an SEO specialist.

What Are Your Target Customer Personas? (Optimize for the Right People)

When customizing and building your brand, one of the most important questions to ask yourself is, ‘who’s my audience?’ Likewise, your potential SEO specialist should ask the same thing. Whose eyes are they trying to pull in? 

You need to divulge all of the necessary demographic information to your SEO specialist to understand the customer better. This will significantly help the keyword research process.

How Often Are You Unknowingly Improving Your Own SEO? 

SEO is all about creation and improvement. 

And you can unintentionally be improving your own SEO simply by uploading new blogs, pages, and more. 

This, it turns out, can be a great start to crafting an SEO strategy. And as such, an SEO specialist can and should check out any existing frameworks from which to work in. 

Do You Know the Difference Between Black Hat and White Hat SEO?

Black hat vs. white hat SEO is a big deal. As such, your SEO specialist should be well aware of both concepts. 

Briefly, black hat SEO is a form of SEO that doesn’t play by the rules. This means that a black hat SEO practitioner will disregard search engine rules, manipulate SERP rankings and page viewers, and essentially just look for quick returns. It’s all loopholes and short-term results.

Think of black hat hackers who similarly engage in less-than-ethical practices.

White hat SEO is the opposite. This is essentially what all SEO specialists should engage in. And that plays an integral role in building your brand. An SEO specialist can and should outline these concepts to ensure that you don’t unintentionally engage in black hat SEO. Although quick SEO results sound good in the short term, it creates a massive headache later on.

Have You Done Any Black Hat SEO? 

You can admit it. Many sites and brands have engaged in black hat SEO practices. It’s okay; let it all out. 

This is an excellent question, as it can help determine if there are any nasty surprises later on down the road. Again, quick SEO results sound good at the moment. But overall, they’re just not worth it. 

In that vein, being open and honest with your SEO specialist about potential black hat SEO practices is crucial. Since black hat SEO can negatively affect your brand, you need to examine past practices and clue them in. 

This way, an SEO specialist can prepare for any potential future problems and fix any unethical SEO practices. 

How Often Are You Making Changes to the Site? (so We Can Make Sure to Optimize Them Too)

As a business owner, making changes to the site is much more than choosing a new color palette or font. 

An SEO expert should ask you about your past site changes, as well as any planned revamps. This way, they can prepare a new, comprehensive SEO strategy to complement your new site and content structures. Making changes ties back into improving and creating old SEO content. 

Are We on the Same Page With Strategy and Expectations? 

This is an important final question to start on the right foot. If you’re not on the same page, completing specific projects can be a pain. That’s why communication with your SEO expert is vital to success, especially if you’re working under a tight deadline.

What are your expectations for the project? Does the keyword strategy from your SEO specialist make sense to you? This is where dialogue, a meaningful back and forth between your team and the SEO expert, needs to occur. 

Conclusion 

After speaking with your SEO specialist and hearing these questions, you’ll have a much clearer view of both SEO and the potential success of your projects. 

Remember to keep an open channel of communication between you and your SEO hire, as it makes everything run more smoothly and keeps everyone on the same page.