What To Look For When Choosing An SEO Agency
In 2019, an increasing number of businesses have a better understanding of SEO, how it can leverage their business and help them sell their product or service.
Once upon a time, SEO was an enigma that was misunderstood by the SEO marketer layman, who would expect tangible results immediately. Now, the concept is omnipresent and has never been more important, but how do you go about choosing an agency to whom you will assign the long-term online success of your business?
In this piece, we will cover:
- How To Spot Who Isn’t Worth Trusting
- Identifying An Agency Who Will Deliver
- Questions To Ask Before Committing
#1 How To Spot Who Isn’t Worth Trusting
Initially, it can sometimes be easier to use process of elimination to narrow you down to a few credible agencies. One of the ways to do this is to filter out the ‘no’ options first. A couple of alarm bells that an agency is poor include:
Poor content on their blog and website – If a company can’t manage their own website, it’s rational to assume that they probably won’t be up to the job of maintaining high standards for clients. Do your own audit of an agency’s website, checking their blog and landing pages to inspect whether they know what they’re talking about, checking the spelling and grammar along the way.
Agencies promising permanent high rankings – As a good SEO agency will know, rankings move like shifting sands due to the endless changes websites make all the time. For this reason, never trust an agency who promise they can get you the no.1 spot forever.
#2 Identifying An Agency Who Will Deliver
Now that you know how to discern who isn’t worth your time, you can move on to looking at what makes a great SEO agency.
Case studies – A good agency should display examples of their previous work and be keen to show you how they’ve delivered for others. They might give you a breakdown and analysis document of how they’ve done this in the past.
They want to explain their practices to you – They won’t shy away from laying out how they go about their job and they are passionate about White-Hat practices. They’ll go out of their way to explain them in language potential clients will understand.
Bespoke campaigns – Your chosen agency should be keen to create a campaign that is tailor-made for your strategic goals.
#3 Questions To Ask Before Committing
Once you’ve shortlisted a couple of possible options, you can separate the good from the great by asking questions that will expose weaknesses and accentuate strengths. These might include:
Asking them about their reporting process – Asking how often they send reports and what date this is each month or quarter is important when it comes to fitting in with your own internal reports; it might be useful to make sure you receive your SEO report around the same time you analyse other types of overview within your company. Requesting a breakdown of how it is laid out and what means what will also help keep everything transparent.
How will you optimise content? – When choosing an SEO agency, be sure that they are planning to enhance your content and ask how they’ll go about it. As part of this question, you might also want to ask whether they will work with your existing content or create new pieces, whether new landing pages will be created and what the importance of optimising is in the context of your SEO strategy.
Is there a leaving clause? – As mentioned above, SEO return takes time and you should aim to give an agency six to nine months to prove themselves before abandoning ship. Make sure you’re covered with a leaving clause (thirty days for example) so that you don’t have any messy ties to sever should you go your separate ways.
By approaching your chosen SEO agency with questions such as those listed above and being ready with the right information to offer them regarding your business, you will kick-start a promising business relationship. Contact HookedOnMedia today if you’re looking for an agency who value and practice the qualities outlined in this article.
