Hiring for SEO
-
so sorry if i offend anyone here ...but dang SEO Experts are the used car sale guy of 1999!
we have a small eCommerce company in Jacksonville, FL - and we are always looking for improve our SEO - we have been members of moz for almost 10 years now! We have learned alot with all the tools they offer,
We have tried at least 5 local and national SEO consultants, agencies and consultants - NONE HAVE WORKED.
The time has come for us to hire an in house SEO do you have any advise on how a small business that wants to grow our SEO can weed thru the thousands of SEO "GURU's" out there today - Everyone is an expert.
On a side not if you want to move to Florida and help us grow - www.HolmesStamp.com/team
-
The Local SEO test is at https://moz.com/blog/local-search-expert-quiz-2016. I would use it as a jumping off point for making your own test (and randomizing the questions), rather than simply having potential candidates take the Moz one.
-
awesoem answer .. thanks for the feedback and tips! - I will 100% incorporate this basic question " what are you looking for from this role?" as we dont have it in our stock questions, and its important!
And we will go Mortal Combat as well!
Cheers!
Bryan
-
The two round interview idea is great but in my personal opinion, it will work better for an agency. I have worked for years in different In-house companies and from the experience, I am telling you that success of in-house is depends upon multiple factors.
If you are hiring a single person to handle your complete SEO, than you are looking for a guy who can understand the ins and out of your business, can write about it, do competitor analysis, outreach, build links and build reports and present it to the CEO.
Unlike agency where they have a set culture relevant for SEO and digital marketing, In-house culture is more business orientated where the guy will be sitting around non-SEO people.
What I mean to say here is that when you search for in-house guy you should look for a person who know their game well plus they understand your business and have management skills unlike agency where all they need is a good writer and they give them on-the-job training.
Just a thought!
-
Hi Bryan,
No offence taken by any of us, I'm sure. It's an unfortunate fact that our industry has a number of... dodgy providers.
In any case, our process is quite similar to Danny in that we use a 2 stage interview process and a test.
Ours is broken into 2 parts. A very short phone interview to cover the boring old cliche questions like "why did you leave your last job?" and " what are you looking for from this role?" I'll also throw in a bit of a qualifying question that could raise some obvious red flags so I can filter out the ones that just aren't going to work out. This saves my time and, more importantly, saves their time and travel costs. If they're out of work, the last thing they need is to be travelling to an interview they just aren't right for.
For those that make it past this step, they're invited in for a face to face interview. This one is about getting to know who they are; no technical questions. This gives me a solid indication of whether or not they'll be a good cultural fit for our team (very important to us here!) and if this seems fine, they're asked to complete a 10-question test which should take about 5 - 10 minutes.
It asks basic questions that anyone with the experience required for the role will almost roll their eyes at because it's so easy - "what is the purpose of a page title and where is the average user likely to see it most?" - that type of thing.
All of this lets me know what sort of technical ability they have, how well they can communicate, what sort of person they are, what they're looking to achieve and whether or not they can articulate answers to basic questions under a bit of pressure.
Then, if we end up with 2 candidates who seem evenly matched in every way, we arrange a Mortal Kombat style fight to the death.
Seriously though, being ecommerce, if you do go this route make sure you include specific questions about SEO for ecommerce. They can fall under a few different rules as far as how they should be set out, how to deal with potential content duplication etc.
-
Local MOZ online test? Good idea. Where is it?
-
thanks for the reply - yes i need to get them to take some tests on moz ... that is something we have done in the past to screen out a few.
i hate assuming ... so just to triple check - this is the test your referring to ? right?
https://moz.com/seo-expert-quiz
are there others ?
the link is here www.HolmesStamp.com/team
-
Hi Bryan,
I run my own agency that is growing quite fast and we need skilfull and knowledgable SEOs on board quite often. We post job offerings on our site, on social media such as LinkedIn, Ineed, local HR magazine, Craigslist. We asked them to provide is with links of recent work along with resume. Once they come to the interview and we feel good about them. We have second sets of interviews which is longer interview with a test, last time I used local SEO moz online test and it worked well, also no hard feelings from applicants.
Thanks for invitation to move to Florida, I guess link is missing with employment opportunity, so potential seos experts can apply.
Good luck Bryan
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Find 28 pages (status code 200) on MOZ Pro but 8 on Screaming Frog SEO Spider 11.3
Hi, Does anybody have an idea about this please? I am a newbie, so I am must be doing something wrong. The website: vtcservice-plus.com Thanks
Moz Pro | | ethan30000 -
How long do changes in title tags take to affect SEO?
This is kind of a loaded question. I'm completely new to SEO. I think my boss signed up for Moz Pro sometime in February and started adding data to our Ecommerce site to help with rankings. Sometime before this, I changed some of the title tags on the site (trying to help with organic search and CTR). I did not do a site wide change.... just changed maybe 10-20 (just a guess). I did it with keywords in mind but did not make note of when I did it. I didn't really know better at the time, and I did not have access to Google Analytics or Moz Pro. I was looking through the ranking data/graph for February and March. It won't let me look before February 29th (so that's why I think my boss started the Mos Pro subscription around at that time). On that day it said we ranked 12 keywords in the 1-3 spot, and then the following week (march 7) it went down to 6. I don't think or know if any major site changes were implemented, so I'm not sure why that happened and if it has anything to do with my title tag changes I did maybe a week or two before (again I am not sure when I did this unfortunately). Since then the keyword ranking numbers stayed about the same with organic traffic slowly going down (it could be because we are getting out of season for our industry though). The second week of March the site was upgraded and since then the menu has been completely changed around. Last week I did a site wide title tag change. So the minor changes I made in February are no longer in effect anyway. I added more keywords to Moz earlier this week and the number for 1-3 spot keywords went up from 6 to 20. It also says my ranking moved up 4 keywords and down 13 keywords. Anyway, I am wondering how seriously I should take these changes and if I'm damaging the site. I am new to Moz Pro also so all the data you can access is kind of confusing/overwhelming.
Moz Pro | | AliMac260 -
Need Good Idea for my new site SEO strategy.
Hello, I register new domain and i research on keywords and got 16 keywords for 16 pages one keyword for every page.
Moz Pro | | wildcat143
now i want SEO of my site please give me some good idea how to do my white hat SEO of my website? 16 pages + 16 keywords
How many backlinks submission i can do daily base? Directory submission?
Social bookmarking submission?
Blog comment?
Articles submission?
any more..................... Hope you will give me positive response. Thanks0 -
SEO Moz Bug? Universal Placements
Had a quick look around and can't find anything relating to this. We are doing really well with our universal placements, google places etc. SEOMoz used to recognise them, but now I have no universal placements according to SEOMoz, though they are clearly all still doing well. But in the program, or problem with the data? Thanks Marc
Moz Pro | | mmch0 -
Why does SEO Moz say we are ranked lower than appears on Google Searches?
We are currently ranked 18th for the Sydney Vet keyword in SEO Moz ranking tools, however in organic Google search we are ranked third. This search was conducted without Googles personalised results feature. Is this just an error? Or does it have something to do with Google Places not being counted in SEO Moz ranking tools? Any help would be much appreciated.
Moz Pro | | Peter.Huxley590 -
Dilema in hiring SEO company services
Hi My question is one that most startups face. No large budgets for online SEO marketing and lack of quality SEO consultants willing to work for peanuts. To the point: 1. Where can I read reviews of SEO consultants before giving a contract? 2. Is it naieve to expect an SEO contract based on real ROI i.e. increase in qualified enquiries? All I spoke to over last 12 months refuse to commit, even in part, to this requirement. My take is what good is an SEO contract if all I get is loads of reports of work done? I do not have the capability to analyse the reports hence I employ someone! 3. I have SEOMoz pro memership. Can I do my SEO myself by using the tools in the dashboard? thanks to all for reading my post.
Moz Pro | | dp910 -
Hello I am new to SEO. Does SEOMoz have a to do list or can you send me one.
I just need to know what steps I should take to improve my site. My website url is : http://nuscopemed.com Thanks
Moz Pro | | NinaGraham0 -
302 (Temporary Redirect) & HTTPS - how to improve for SEO?
Hello, I have a crawl diagnostic warning that says 302 (temporary Redirect). My site is set up with HTTPS - is that the main reason I am getting this warning? I don't have a strong need for higher security SSL on my site, which is what I understand the main purpose of HTTPS to be so, to improve SEO, would I be better off getting rid of this and going with HTTP? Or would 301 redirects be a better option? Thanks for your help! Niall
Moz Pro | | NiallTom0