I was recently interviewing some SEOs on behalf of a client for an in-house position.  Let’s start by saying, getting someone in-house that is reliable certainly isn’t that easy.  If you have a couple prospects that you have in mind, please don’t forget to refer to our previous blog entitled “In or Out: The Dilemma of Hiring an SEO” for some good ways of interviewing an SEO and determining if they’re the right fit.  Basically, the issue is figuring out if the potential client read up on SEO for 3 days and is good at answering questions, or if they really have been doing it consistently for a long time.  Unfortunately, if you don’t ask some of the right questions, you simply won’t know.  And if they do give an answer, will you know if their answer is accurate?

This isn’t an advertisement for having someone interview on your behalf (though in some situations it could work), but more of a guideline.  Basically, someone that isn’t qualified to do in-house work will typically fail to answer analytic and technical questions.  These questions are going to work whether you hire in-house, a freelancer, a contractor, and often times even another SEO company.

Let’s give a couple examples of what would be an incorrect and correct approach to asking a question about “how do you determine your online marketing campaign is working”.

Weak

Business Owner: So, how would you measure if your X campaign is working?
SEO: Well, I would notice that we were getting a lot more traffic, and after a while the calls and emails started coming in more frequently.
Business Owner: OK, that’s good.  What were some ways you were tracking the traffic?
SEO: Google Analytics was a big tool.  Google Webmaster Tools too.
Business Owner: Oh, and so there was an increase of traffic that led to an increase in sales?
SEO: Yes that was the correlation that eventually led to the success of the campaign.
Business Owner: How much did you end up spending on the campaign?
SEO: About 500 dollars.  The business owner of that campaign said he ended up making about 3000.  So that would be a 6:1 return on investment.
Business Owner:  That sounds pretty solid.
SEO: It is solid.
Business Owner:  Hmmm…I guess I don’t have many other questions about that.
SEO: Sure.  Feel free to ask me about other campaigns I worked on.

Seems like a normal question you may ask, with a response you wouldn’t really question.  The tough part is that this isn’t nearly the best approach to take in a question like this, during an interview that potentially has a million different questions.

Strong

Business Owner: So, how would you measure if your X campaign is working?
SEO: Well, I would notice that we were getting a lot more traffic, and after a while the calls and emails started coming in more frequently.
Business Owner: OK, that’s good.  What were some ways you were tracking the traffic?
SEO: Google Analytics was a big tool.  Google Webmaster Tools too.
Business Owner: In my business, traffic doesn’t lead to more business. Leads lead to more business.  How did you track the leads themselves?
SEO: Well as I mentioned, we did use Analytics.
Business Owner:  Yes I realize that, but was there a dedicated landing page?  A tracking number?  Was there a pixel used to track where the lead actually came from
and then distinguish between other forms of traffic?
SEO: Ahh…well no.  The only attribution to the campaign was the fact that we had X amount of traffic before and now we have Y which is a 30% increase.
Business Owner:  From my standpoint, the traffic could have very well come from any other number of factors.  Since there’s no distinction, it isn’t really
fair to say all new traffic is a result of your marketing campaign.  You know where I’m coming from?
SEO:  Yes, that is a good point.
Business Owner:  Measuring is the only way I know you’re doing a good job.

If you’re going to undertake the job of successfully interviewing a prospective SEO, know where the BS stops! Refer to the following blogs to understand more about this kind of scenario! (Some of these questions are great for individuals too)

In the next part of this topic, I will discuss some great questions I asked that made the true distinction between inexperienced and experienced. As always, don’t be afraid to contact us for more information!