When choosing an SEO consultant to work with, there are several things you should consider before engaging their services. Other than word-of-mouth (the Holy Grail), quality search engine optimisation is still the most effective form of advertising in terms of return-on-investment. However, you are about to embark on a long term project and you will effectively be investing your children's inheritance so it is critical that you make the right choice. Below are a few key points that should help you decide.

Do they follow best practice?

A best-practice approach to search engine optimisation delivers long-term, stable results whilst protecting your brand. Search engines such as Google reward websites that display best practice because they only want the highest-quality websites in their index. If your website doesn't follow best practice, this could reflect negatively on your brand and your reputation, and business may suffer.

Are their strategies user friendly?

When considering design and usability, a good SEO consultant will optimise for users first and search engines second, because search engines want user-friendly web sites in their index and user-friendly web sites make more sales. Your SEO consultant needs to find the right balance of SEO and usability to ensure the experience of your website's visitors is never compromised. What is the point of getting visitors to your website if they find it difficult to use?

Do they focus on quality or quantity?

Any SEO consultant worth their salt understands that it's not just about how many visitors they get to your site, but the quality of visitors, too. Put another way, it's not how many people you invite to the party, but whom you invite. The consultant should focus on keywords that generate sales; not just more traffic. Through extensive keyword research and competitor analysis they should identify the keywords that will produce the highest possible return on your investment and, just as importantly, which keywords not to pursue.

What services do they cover?

This may seem like an obvious one, but you need to clarify up-front which tasks your SEO consultant will carry out. Around 90% of Google's algorithm is weighted towards the number and quality of links pointing to your website. As such, around 90% of SEO effort should be around building quality links. However, many SEO consultancies will brush over this and simply recommend that you need to build more links. This means you could end up spending 2-3 days per month building links in addition to the fee you pay your SEO consultant. Some SEO consultancies will implement their recommendations but the majority expect you or your web developer to do so. Again, this is an additional and substantial cost. Lastly, content is extremely important for both publishing on your website and for building links. Ask first if the cost for copy-writing is included.

How much do they charge?

This may seem like an obvious question, but you need to be wary of any SEO consultant who says they can increase your website rankings for as little as £50 - £100 per month. Ask yourself how much time they will be spending on your website for that fee. Then remind yourself that a good hair stylist charges £50 per hour. Nothing against hair stylists, but all but the smallest of SEO campaigns require at least 1 - 2 days per month in terms of man hours and campaigns in more competitive online sectors are likely to take 5 - 10 per month.