[AshleyRussell]

Backlinks are probably where I would be most careful. There are freelancers who advertise huge numbers of links at very cheap prices, but quantity doesn't automatically mean quality. I would rather have a smaller number of genuinely relevant links from legitimate websites than thousands of unrelated links created simply to increase a backlink count.

 

[MichelleBrown14]

I hired an SEO freelancer once and initially focused too much on their ranking screenshots. Later I realized that screenshots don't tell the whole story. Some of the keywords had very little commercial value. Now I look more closely at organic traffic, keyword intent, conversions, the actual pages ranking, and whether the strategy makes sense for the business.

 

[psmith]

Another thing people should ask about is ownership. Make sure you know what happens to the content, accounts, reports, backlinks, and other assets if you stop working with the freelancer. You don't want your entire SEO setup depending on accounts or tools that only the freelancer can access.

 

[SueArcher]

I agree with the point about looking at the website as a whole. Sometimes the problem isn't a lack of backlinks at all. It could be poor site architecture, pages competing with each other, indexing problems, thin content, weak internal links, or simply targeting keywords that don't match what users are searching for. A good audit should uncover that before link building begins.

 

[BrittanyPatterson]

I agree. I would first check if the freelancer really understands SEO instead of choosing someone based only on a cheap price.