Where do you find an individual/freelance SEO?

[ScottImageWorks]

I know Moz has a directory of recommended companies, and I've found that very useful.

However, we're really looking for an individual (who, of course, keeps up with the latest best practices and trends in SEO) to optimize our site while we put our time into client sites.

We've done Craigslist ads, but those seldom pan out. Have any of you had luck finding part-time SEOs? Where did you find them?

Thanks!

[Ray-pp]

Referrals tend to be a great source for effective SEOs. The low barrier to entry allows for a lot of individuals, many times inexperienced, to present themselves as an authority and word of mouth referrals help weed out the ineffective SEOs.

I can be contacted through my Moz profile, Moz PM or directly through the website listed.

Elance can be a good community, but the risk is high if you cannot identify the low quality profiles.

[MibuKotaro]

SEO community sources (Moz, DigitalPoint Forum), and LinkedIn. Those are likely your best choices. When you reach out to them make sure you are asking them for their strategies to SEO. Also if they promise quick rankings they are not the one for you.

ca.linkedin.com/in/seanjwilliams/

[RyanPurkey]

Since you're hiring part-time you might want to make the work more piecemeal in relation to your site, i.e. hire for specific tasks that are aiming to achieve your overall goals. When you're hiring full-time you have more options as you can compete with agencies for their talent. (Sorry for mentioning that agency friends!)  As Sean and Ray mentioned above, finding people here at Moz with a proven track record helps as does some out reach via PM.

[EGOL]

Every person who I have ever hired for consulting, SEO, or technical work on my websites has been a person who I have learned about in an SEO forum.  There you can see many things about a person.  These include:

1. their ability to communicate clearly

2. their areas of technical expertise (htaccess, CMS set-up, programming, etc.)

3. do others respect their work ("good answer" votes from members, "endorsed answer" votes from Moz staff, articles published in YouMoz or the main Moz Blog -- some people at moz have hundreds of "good" and dozens of "endorsed" answers)

4. their personal style (generous, thorough, etc.)

If someone can give great information here at Moz Q&A for free, imagine what you might get when you pay them.

For about 15 years, I have repeatedly gotten paid assistance from forum posters.  I have never been disappointed because I knew who I was hiring and seen their good and generous work repeatedly in advance.  In my opinion, people from forums are a lot lower risk than other sources of assistance.

Read the person's Moz profile, check out their website.  Most people say if they are available for work or not. (I am not, I only work on my own sites, so not hoping to find work here.)

In my experience it is pretty easy to find good help at a place like Moz Q&A.  Look at their endorsed and good answer counts on the right of this chart.

[EGOL]

...hire for specific tasks....

This is what I have always done.  I find someone who has demonstrated expertise for the work that I need.  I have gotten paid help from 10-20 people, each on different types of work.

[MaeWest]

I think LinkedIn is a good resource, because like MOZ it has a rankings and referrals system, but it showcases a broader range of individuals.

With SEO it really depends on what skill-set you are looking for. I find that the MOZ SEO scene is mostly populated by technical SEO mavens rather than content stars. Even in SEO people have specialties. Are you looking for Social Media Marketing? Someone who is really awesome with analytics? A writer, who can optimize your pages and text content using keywords, while creating stylish copy? These skills don't always come equally in the same package.

That's why LinkedIn might be a better bet, because you aren't limited only with the SEO pros who like MOZ. As much as I'm a Moz-er, there are other programs and forums, but there's only one LinkedIn. And yes, I do freelance SEO;)

[ScottImageWorks]

Thanks, Amanda!

I can handle content development and social marketing/engagement for the company without sacrificing our ability to get work done for clients, but nitty-gritty SEO tweaks end up taking up way more time than I have to give when I have many clients who deserve that attention on their own sites.

Someone who can optimize page titles, descriptions, schema, alt image text, etc. and then work on off-site SEO would be ideal. In this case, we need technical know-how more than creativity.

[ScottImageWorks]

Thanks, EGOL. You're always so helpful!

I think you're right - searching the forums (and possibly LinkedIn) for active, reputable posters is probably the best way to go. Time consuming, but in the long run, it should leave us with a good selection of freelancers to call on when we need them.

[ScottImageWorks]

Good suggestion - thank you!

[kwoolf]

Hi Jess,

You'll probably want to figure out what kind of SEO work you need done, technical or editorial. Technical optimization of a website deals with a site's code, user experience, and overall performance while editorial optimization deals with content, linking strategy, and conversion goals. Structured data fits right in the middle, with both technical and editorial expertise needed. Which one to prioritize depends on the resources you have and how fast you need to see results. It will also depend on how competitive your chosen keywords are for the pages you want to rank.

I recommend you offer to pay for ranking performance. Offer a certain amount of compensation commensurate with the number of pages that improve for selected keywords over a certain amount of time. You can get a good baseline right here on Moz.com, and then monitor progress every week or two. Insist on proper SEO strategies and put payment penalties in place for any black hat activity. I've work under this model with several clients and they all seem to be pretty happy being able to see what they're buying.

Before you do all this, make sure it's cost effective--advertising might give you more bang for your buck in a shorter amount of time, depending on your type of business.

Kevin