How to hire the "Right" SEO?

Question

Search Engine Optimization

Hello!
Tomorrow you will need to participate in the interview of several people for the position of SEO (outsourcing).
I only found out about this today. Zero SEO myself.
I have heard a lot about the "high" quality of most of the personnel in this area of ​​promotion.
Therefore, it will be necessary to separate the wheat from the chaff.
I believe that in the evening I will not be able to pump my seo-skill to the required level. So I'm turning to the community for help.
What is:

• There is an online store of large household appliances.
  
• We work only for our area.
  
• Products under 1000.
  
• Group in vk ~ 1000 people.
  
• SEO optimization has never been done and no.
  
• From internal optimization - unique texts on each product. ~1500 characters
  
• Pictures of goods - stock.
  
• Domain year. No bans and no bullshit.
  
• Links were never purchased. There are only 3 normal referring sites.
  
• Main traffic Market, Torg Mail, banner advertising on AVITO (very little)
  
• Search phrases for which they now come are low-frequency speakers of the type BUY MODEL, PRICE MODEL. But there are few of them and traffic is very small.
  
• Average viewing depth - 7.5
  
• Average time on site - 7 minutes (Yes. Visitors are very active and interested)
  
• Failures ~20%
  

 
What do you need:

1. ONLY white hat SEO.
   
2. Hire the right SEO tomorrow. So that from his actions the site does not go to the bathhouse and does not grab links from low-quality sites.
   
3. New orders and calls from the search (by these criteria, I believe, SEO performance will be evaluated).
   

 
What I want to know from you:

1. How to determine that you have a normal person in front of you, who understands what he is doing and will not stupidly waste budgets on what?
   
2. Maybe there is a set of seo-questions, by asking which you can get an idea about a person as a specialist? If there is, please remove it. Only with answers
   
3. What should you pay attention to and what should you not?
   
4. In what price range do the guys work and item number 1 on this list?
   

Answer 1

Remark: White SEO does not exist, when you start active SEO promotion, it is no longer white ))
1. What methods of site promotion do you think are white, which are gray, which are black
2. What methods of promotion do you propose to use (if it says it’s a secret, send nafig)
3. Will you buy links (if so, which ones and how many)
4. How you can quickly get the result (the correct answer is after a complete reindexing, i.e. 1-3 months)
5. Our director wants to allocate money for a run through the catalogs, do you agree (the correct answer is no or with manual selection)
6. What guarantees do you give (correct answer: none)
7. What does a SEO do all day
8. Do you write texts for clients yourself (correct answer: no, a SEO should not write texts)
It is worth paying attention to whether there is experience in promoting commercial sites, and not just informational, forums and blogs, and ask questions about past achievements - what have you achieved and how much it cost.
From 20 thousand rubles per month, excluding the cost of links, texts and their placement

Answer 2

Without experience in this topic, it is realistic to hire such a person only on the recommendation of people you trust. Any candidate at the interview can splurge, hang noodles on their ears and show leftist/foreign projects as a portfolio.
What to ask - it already depends on what you are interested in. It would be logical to ask for an example of a monthly report and agree in advance what should be in it.
Many clients like to immediately request a work plan - in this case, the answer is most often sent a "generalized" list of actions, because. in order to draw up a specific plan, it is necessary to familiarize yourself with the project and carry out some work on the analysis. If your store is “zero” in terms of SEO, it’s really better for you to spend more time looking for a good experienced specialist than to ruin it by giving it to yesterday’s schoolboy with no experience.
You can ask for cases, paying more attention to those specialists who worked with online stores and will show you a good position/traffic dynamics for projects in the portfolio.
ps Perhaps some of my answers to similar questions will help you - What is included in the monthly work of an SEO optimizer? andWhat specifically needs to be done to bypass existing sites in the issuance?

Answer 3

Yes, just ask them to outline a strategy for working with the project. Not a specific plan, because he does not know the project, but the mandatory stages of work.
We often tormented us with technical questions, for example, what are duplicates, how to search, how to fight; an example of a technical task for a copywriter, how you analyze competitors, by what metrics. Sometimes they asked trivial things, such as "How does VK differ from VCh?", "How to determine whether to move the request M and N by one landing?" Often seemingly experienced guys did not answer.
And if his strategy does not start with a technical and search and marketing audit, I would not risk it. These guys like to buy direct anchors on SAP in automatic mode.
What tools does he own? Does he know how to put TK on a proger? Because you will most likely need to finish at least filtering pages, implement micro-markup, etc., if you have not optimized the resource. How to promote a commercial site in the era of Minusinsk?))
Write down the answers, then check them on the toaster for adequacy.

Answer 4

A good seo specialist works in the range of 200k. If he talks to you, then slag. Good specialists are like snipers, everything is counted and worth its weight in gold (they bring live cash to companies, they pay them accordingly)
Answer = nothing.
Any decision made in haste is a failure. No matter how the situation develops, delay making a decision.
How to choose is a very big topic. It's easier to act on the contrary