To hire a local SEO expert, or not to hire a local SEO expert? That is the question.

Whether you’re an up and coming business in Omaha or have been a classic business in the area for decades, local SEO is a great way to be seen in front of your local, target audience.

Local SEO and organic SEO are two services every business needs to hire out. Not only for the sake of freeing up time for someone in your office, but because it’s safer for your web presence in the long run.

Time and time again, we’ve seen amature SEO techniques getting businesses penalized on major search engines.

Local SEO best practices follow guidelines established by “the king”, Google. When techniques are used to work around Google’s guidelines, websites are penalized online, and oftentimes, indefinitely.

Honestly, saving a couple bucks on “a guy you know” instead of a local SEO expert, simply isn’t worth it.

SEO is evolving every day. Having a professional keep up with it is worth every penny.

Identify bad SEO.

When looking to hire a local SEO expert, it’s important to know what to look for. Bad SEO is oftentimes referred to as “Black Hat” SEO.

A bad SEO promotes keyword stuffing and working to rank for keywords that are irrelevant to your business.

Sure, keywords are an important part of SEO, but not so much in a way that stuffing your content is beneficial to your ranking.

Good, relevant and readable content will always favor your SEO ranking.

Other signs of bad SEO include:
Promising specific rankings.
Not providing monthly reports.
It just seems too good to be true.

Identify good SEO.

No surprise here…good, local SEO best practices are considered “White Hat” SEO techniques. These techniques play by Google’s SEO guidelines, are trustworthy and help a business rank well.

A reputable, local SEO expert specializes in high-quality content relevant to your industry and benefits the audience you serve.

Good SEO focuses on making regular improvements to website content, customer experience online and behind-the-scenes descriptions. They also promote SEO as a marathon, not a sprint.

If the local SEO expert you’re researching isn’t proud of the good experience you’re bringing to their client’s audience, it might be time to look elsewhere.

We will always and forever promote good, local SEO best practices. For professionals like us, it’s simply not worth risking your online presence in a digital world. The greatest success we’ll ever have is the success our clients have.