How To Find The Right Malaysia SEO Consultant in 2023?

Looking for an SEO Consultant in Malaysia to grow your business in 2020?

This article is written for you.

What is an SEO Consultant?

An SEO consultant is a professional advisor who helps businesses improve their search engine rankings for relevant keywords and phrases. This includes helping you get ranked on Google, Yahoo, Bing, YouTube, and even Amazon.

The right SEO consultant can help your business generate quality search traffic and increase your revenue for the long term.

So how can an SEO consultant help you?

SEO Advice and Guidelines
Analyze and Generate Reports for Existing SEO Campaign
Develop an Effective SEO Strategy
Provide Training For In-House Marketing Team

SEO Advice and Guidelines

SEO consultants can be approached to answer any questions related to Search Engine Optimization. Sometimes you don’t need a full SEO plan or road map. Sometimes you just need answers to specific SEO questions from an SEO expert’s point of view.

Analyze and Generate Report For Existing SEO Campaign

One of the main tasks of an SEO consultant is to analyze existing search campaigns and generate reports on the identified errors. Then, the consultant will develop a strategic SEO plan to get rid of the errors and improve the search campaigns.

Commonly a consultant will perform an extensive SEO Audit and then create an action plan to improve the performance of the SEO campaign.

All you need to do is follow the action plan, keep track of your website’s performance in terms of search traffic and contact the consultant with your questions if any issues arise.

The main reason to approach an SEO Consultant ( the ones with years of experience in the industry and faced challenges you’re having) is to take your site’s SEO performance to the next level.

Develop An Effective SEO Strategy

You can search for SEO guides and checklists online to develop an SEO strategy. But, you won’t be able to justify that your strategy will work.

That’s when you need to bring in an experienced SEO consultant.

The consultant can effectively develop quarterly or yearly SEO plans to drive targeted search traffic to your website. They actually know what kind of SEO activities you should implement to improve your search engine performance.

Provide Training For In-House Marketing Team

Most companies already have a digital marketing team in place and they need guidelines from the experts for the team to work effectively.

An SEO consultant will assist you in analyzing your search campaigns(s), and provide proper guidelines for your team members to generate better results.

This often happens in digital marketing agencies. The agency wants to improve the team’s performance and help its clients get better results.

Now you know what a professional and experienced SEO consultant can contribute to your company.

But, how you can identify the right SEO consultant and what you’re looking to accomplish by hiring an SEO consultant?

Some questions you should consider asking yourself:

Is your website getting targeted search traffic?
How does your company’s revenue look like? Is it growing, declining, or remains stagnant?
Are your visitors from search engines converting?

So, how do identify the right SEO consultant in Malaysia?

I’ve come up with a 10-step qualification process for hiring the perfect Malaysia SEO consultant for your company.

Make sure to read all the qualifications listed to avoid hiring the wrong person and destroy your site’s SEO performance.

How To Hire an SEO Consultant in Malaysia ( 9 easy steps)

Check their online reputation
Identify and understand your needs
Is the consultant a good fit for your organization?
Ask for their SEO process
Can the consultant provide achievable expectations?
Can you trust them?
Are you action-oriented?
Are you ready to get started?
Do you have the budget to hire the best SEO Consultant?

Hiring the right SEO consultant can exponentially grow your company. But, if you hire the wrong one, it can damage your company’s performance and reputation. That’s why you should ask the following questions if you’re looking to hire an SEO consultant.

Let’s get started.

Check their Online Reputation

Anyone can talk about SEO and proudly claim themselves to be an “Expert”. But, the right SEO consultant should be able to produce results and demonstrate their expertise. We are not talking about the results achieved a few years back. All that matters are the results produced TODAY.

For example, I focus on educating my readers about SEO. So, I rank for keywords with informational intents. I want to provide them with the knowledge they’re looking for.

When you search for the following keywords or phrases, you can see that my content is ranking on the first page of Google.

As my focus is to educate my readers, I write and optimize content that is highly valuable for people to read and consume.

I often hear that “SEO Experts” tend to claim that there is no worth ranking for “SEO” related keywords. If those keywords are not worth it, it should be extremely easy for them to rank on search engines right?

Some of these experts tend to argue that ranking for their client sites is more important to them. But you should not ignore ranking for your industry keywords to provide proof that you’re doing the right thing.

And some of them tend to use results they’ve achieved a few years back. Over the last 10 years, search engines have changed with various algorithm updates to provide the best results for their users. The SEO strategy that worked a few months back might not work today. And that’s how search engines are improving their search quality.

You want to hire an SEO consultant who can help you generate more search traffic, leads and paying customers.

How can you work with someone who is unable to justify the results they’ve achieved?

If you’re looking to hire the right SEO consultant, just make sure to see the real results with your own eyes.

Identify and understand your needs

Are you sure about what you actually want from the SEO consultant you’re about to hire?

You need to identify the reasons and keep your objectives clear. This will help you to utilize the consultant’s expertise for a specific SEO task.

For example, you’re good with on-page SEO and want the consultant to guide you on link building strategies. So you can specifically request the consultant to provide guidelines for effective link building strategies that work for businesses like yours.

Is the consultant a good fit for your organization?

I understand that you’re not recruiting employees for your organization.

But, it is important for you to enjoy talking to the consultant to avoid any conflicts and to make the business relationship work out. Sometimes you might have realized how your personal principles actually influence your business.

Do you want to work with someone you don’t like? Despite their expertise, you want to work with someone you enjoy working with.

When I was actively looking for money, I said “Yes” to everyone. It was a great mistake!

Over the years, I’ve learned that you need to make sure the person you’re dealing with is a good fit for your business or organization. That’s why I often have lengthy conversations with people before engaging in a business relationship.

When you’re approaching a prospective SEO consultant, you need to consider a few things:

Do you like this person personally? The first impression is the best impression. But, not all the time. Sometimes impressions prioritize physical attributes. You need to decide whether you enjoy talking to the person. Is the person carefully listening to you or constantly interrupting the conversation?
Would you enjoy getting advice from this person several times? Or would you just get irritated when the person starts talking

Please don’t underestimate this step. It’s extremely important.

It can make or break your business. You don’t want to regret it in the end.

I’ve met a number of potential clients when I was actively providing consultations. I’ve passed on 70% of them as there is a lack of engagement in the conversation.

Do you believe that I’ve passed on a potential client that was willing to pay me RM6,000/mo (USD$1,500)?

For me, the relationship in a business is far more important than money. I don’t want to deal with a client that I hate to work with just for the sake of money. I’m sure that I won’t be giving my 100%.

Ask for their SEO Process

In some niches like gambling and pharmaceuticals, you need to implement slightly unethical SEO strategies to dominate the search engines. However, 90% of the companies don’t have to worry about being penalized by search engines like Google as long you’re implementing white-hat SEO methods.

You don’t have to wait for the consultant to tell you that they only use ethical “white-hat” methods for SEO. You can simply analyze what they’re saying and find out whether they are genuinely using ethical methods.

The right SEO consultant will include the following during the initial conversation about the SEO process:

On-Page SEO
Technical SEO
SEO Audit
User Experience (UX)
Keyword Research
Content Development
Site Architecture
Link Building

You need to be cautious with the link building strategies they’ll be using. You should question them on how they will acquire links for their websites.

If they talk about web 2.0, profile creations, forum commenting, blog commenting, private blog networks (PBN), and public blog networks, they are most likely to implement “grey hat” SEO methods. Grey-hat SEO is the combination of both white-hat and blackhat.

I agree that these link building methods can work but only for the short term. In the worst-case scenario, there is a high possibility for your site to get penalized when Google rolls out its new algorithm updates. You don’t want your site to become a big mess. So it’s better to know it earlier so that you don’t have to worry about the consequences you might face.

The professional SEO consultants that focus on getting you results will be transparent with their SEO process.

Can the consultant provide achievable expectations?

Some SEO consultants tend to over-promise their deliverables. When they are unable to meet the expectations, they will start giving reasons that do not make sense. It’s for the SEO consultant to set achievable expectations.

You can easily find out whether the SEO consultant will be able to achieve the expectations by comparing it with their SEO process.

If they are working on your SEO from scratch, it usually takes 6-12 months depending on your niche and the level of search engine marketing competition. But remember, you need the necessary action to meet the expectations.

Always remember to be realistic with the expectations. I’ve seen some SEO consultants offering a money-back guarantee.

Come on people.

In SEO you can’t offer guarantees as the growth of your business on search engines heavily depends on the implementation of SEO tasks.

SEO is for people who believe in long-term growth. The important factor of SEO is the time factor. You need to have the patience to see the long-term results.

Can you trust them?

You’re hiring an SEO consultant because you have little knowledge about SEO or don’t have sufficient time to learn and make the implementations. A qualified SEO consultant can offer you expertise in exchange for money. You can trust them if you’re convinced.

If you follow the previous steps, you can tell whether the SEO consultant is suitable for your company.

There is one big mistake business owners tend to do over and over. I understand that you have 100% ownership over your business but micromanaging your SEO consultant can backfire. You need to provide them with the freedom they need to make things work. If you still insist on interrupting, then you will not have a healthy relationship.

You should treat them as your partner.

Try to put yourself in their shoes.

Would you like the SEO consultant to tell you how you should handle your client’s accounts?

I’m sure you know the answer!

Are you action-oriented?

You can hire the best SEO Consultant in Malaysia. But if you’re not ready to take action on the strategies they’ve recommended, you’ll fail.

If you’re not serious about taking action there is no point in hiring the best SEO consultant and blaming them if you don’t get the desired results.

Are you ready to get started?

We are human and we exhibit a certain level of procrastination in life.

Although research studies found that budding entrepreneurs and successful companies are on the low end of procrastination, still it happens.

But, when it comes to SEO it’s better to force yourself to avoid procrastination. If you’re not doing it, your competitors will be doing it.

You don’t want to give away your market share to your competitors.

Just follow all the steps I’ve mentioned and get started right away. It’s a matter of time. You don’t want to look back and regret your actions.

Do you have the budget to hire the best SEO Consultant?

If your business is important to you and you’re hungry to grow your business, you’ll be ready to do what it takes.

You need to find out your marketing budget and the amount you’re spending on other channels. SEO does not get you instant ROI like other channels like Google Ads and Facebook Paid Ads. However, in the long run, you’ll be getting results superior to paid ads. And the drawback of paid ads is that the traffic becomes zero once you stop spending.

As for SEO, when you implement the right strategies, you’ll be getting consistent traffic for years. These are the visitors that will be keener to purchase your products or services.

So, the average budget for hiring an SEO consultant in Malaysia is about RM4,000-RM10,000 (US$1,000 to US$2,500)

Conclusion

Getting results from SEO campaigns takes time. Your competitors might have already started to implement SEO strategies.

Whether you’re going to start from scratch or looking into levelling up your SEO game, today is the day for you to get started.

If you’re not ready to take action, remember that your competitors are getting ahead of you. Don’t procrastinate.

Did I miss any crucial points in finding the best SEO Consultant in Malaysia?

Please share your thoughts by commenting below.

How To Find The Right Malaysia SEO Consultant in 2023?