1 – Hesitation

Good SEO consultants will not change their mind according to things you tell them e.g. “I don’t have the budget for this now”.
A bad SEO consultant will end up saying “Okay, let’s do another thing or let’s switch the plan to match your budget”.
A good consultant will always stick with his opinion and will say things like “I still believe this is the plan, if it is hard for you to do it all at once, we can reach this goal over time” or “I still believe this is the right way to go but with let’s select the more crucial things since this is all we can work with”.

2 – Blackhat Tactics

Blackhat tactics such as: Duplicate Content, Doorway Pages & Keyword Stuffing should not be offered to a real business by any SEO consultant since they do not last for a long period of time before Google finds out and penalize the site

3 – Versatility

SEO Consultants should care about all SEO aspects of your site, not “ONLY CONTENT”, “ONLY LINKS”, “ONLY SOCIAL MEDIA” etc…

4 – Traffic, not Rankings!

The fact that we are trying to rank on the SERPs is just a stepping stone towards traffic, don’t be blinded by 1^st page placements with no traffic or by going after very competitive keywords only, neglecting the converting long tail keywords.
The best SEO consultants will try to rank for both the long terms and the highly search terms.

5 – Conflicting Advice

Bad SEO consultants will tell you an advice today and conflicting advice tomorrow – those are the first signs that a consultant that is untrustworthy; of course SEO consultants will change their mind according to changes in the site.

6 – There Are No Guarantees

No one besides the search engine companies (e.g. Google Inc.) can control the SERP – we can all try but no SEO consultant can actually make a guarantee that he will rank in a certain placement or page because not only is it uncontrollable – it is always changing, and usually if they do give you a guarantee then it is for very non-competitive keywords and they know that those keywords are a safe bet; since they get no traffic so no one is trying to actively rank for them.

7 – Proof

As I said no guarantees, BUT -> you need to see how the tactics that you are paying for (and sometimes spending an arm and a leg on) are working for other clients and sites, ask to see rankings, plans of action, reports, traffic analytics, etc…

8 – Out Dated Knowledge

Some SEO consultants are very smart, experienced and educated but they are practicing the same SEO tactics for years and don’t make the effort to learn new tactics and methods. The search engines are not according to anyone; they keep renewing and improving themselves that is why SEO consultants must keep on learning non-stop as search engine updates come along.

9 – The Exception of the Rule

There are exceptions essentially for every theory, you see a site that is ranking with no links another is ranking with no content, a good SEO consultant will know that, and will not follow blindly after 1 or 2 cases as a rule.

10 – SEO Consultants will Research

Experts have many answers to many questions, but not to all, SEO consultants will often tell you that they cannot answer your question without further research… THIS IS GOOD. You do not want to put you trust in a guy that answers you without knowing, just for you to get a quick answer. You would rather put your trust in SEO consultants that will analyze well before an answer is given.

Tom Light,
SEO Consultant.