Tips for Hiring a Freelance SEO Specialist

By: Troy McKinley

2018-08-10 9 minute read

A Freelance search engine optimization (SEO) specialist has the expertise to increase traffic to your website and in today’s digital world of online marketing is a key component for your business.

That’s not all………………

A SEO specialist will help drive traffic to your website, it doesn’t matter what industry you are in, be it currency trading, affiliate, sporting, child care, food industry or any other industry their speciality is understated.

In our article we will share with you everything there is to know about sourcing an SEO specialist with tips and guidelines on how to go about it.

Here’s the deal……

Have a strategy

Have a strategy beforehand by identifying the expertise and skills you are looking for so that you can describe it in your job posting. As an example add key words that will describe your business in your job post e.g. banking, sporting etc.

Advertise the job

There are a number of avenues you can pursue when searching for a SEO specialist. You can Google it “SEO Specialists” which will result in a list of hundreds of applicants, amongst the list you will also find agencies.

You might consider ‘sponsoring’ which requires a payment from as little as $6.25 a day up to $219 a month. By choosing to sponsor your post or project will rise to the top of searches, giving you more exposure.

The result is that you will get a lot more applicants, whereas if you don’t sponsor you can expect to get only a handful.

Whether you choose to post a job on a job board, or on a freelancer website, or choose an agency, you can maximize the SEO Specialist job posting by following some of the tips below.

What to include in your job posting

SEO freelancers job

SEO freelancers job

Make sure to include keywords at the beginning of your post like SEO, Adwords, HTML, SEM, PPC MOZ, CMS. Using bullets, describe any benefits, like ‘free lunches’, ‘free parking’, ‘modern offices’ etc.

Ask questions

  • Do you have experience in (state your industry), if so for how many years?
  • Have you got your own blog or website?
  • List your favourite SEO analytics tools and explain why you use them
  • In the largest website that you have optimized, how many pages of content were there?

Why does this matter?

By asking these questions it will screen out unqualified applicants and help you determine whether they are qualified or not.

Interviewing and short listing candidates

It is recommended to have a team of people during the interviewing process, one that can verify the applicants SEO experience, another that can assess if they are really qualified and not just trying to impress you with their SEO jargon. Also consider including someone from HR who can access whether they are a cultural fit.

An SEO should have writing, strategy data, technology, back linking and people skills in order to get the job done.

Prepare samples of projects for them to do

At the interview ask them to:

  • To prepare an organic search result from your homepage by finding top ranked keywords, together with any recommendations on how they would improve the rankings
  • Recommend ways they would improve organic search traffic
  • List three recommendations for improving user experience
hiring SEO Freelancers

hiring SEO Freelancers

Negotiating Pay

Based on their expertise and talents how much to pay an SEO Specialist is on a variety of variables.  For instance take into consideration the following factors:

  • Experience, a freelancer who has completed many projects is likely to charge more
  • Payment by project or hours worked-paying by project can be more cost effective for your company
  • Flexible working hours, an applicant who asks for flexi hours may charge a lower rate
  • Working remotely or from the office- working remotely they are more likely to consider a lower rate
  • If your company is in the city, you can expect to pay higher wages, compared to working in less robust urban areas

Prepare a Contract

Prepare a written contract that will clarify how the SEO specialist will be compensated together with their duties and what work they will do. The contract should also have non-disclosure to protect your business interest.



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