There is a lot of information floating around about search engine optimization (SEO) and how to know if you are getting the services and results you really need. It can be a confusing and overwhelming at times, but there are some simple things you can do to choose an SEO company and feel confident about your choice.
Make no mistake, this is a pretty big decision – but it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Start the process with some simple questions and you’ll soon have the foundation you need to make your decision an informed one.
What Questions Should You Ask an SEO Company?
As you go through the discovery process and start to learn more about your potential SEO provider, there are some questions that really need to be answered before you make any final decisions. Start with the following:
- Do you have any case studies or specific references that you can share?
- What special client wins can you share that required special actions or a unique approach to an SEO campaign?
- What are your current SEO tactics and how they differ from the tactics you used 2 years ago?
- Do you strictly follow search engine guidelines or do you think it’s okay to push those lines (or jump clear past them)?
- In what time frame do you expect to see results? (While you should be very suspicious of anyone who promises results in days or weeks, you can expect a reasonable timeframe based on their past results.)
- Do you have any experience working in my industry?
- Do you specialize in a specific facet of SEO or online marketing? Why or how has that type of focus provided better results?
- How long have you been in business?
- What communications and reports I can expect during the campaign?
Do I Need to Know Something about SEO before Starting the Conversation?
Many people are hesitant to begin seeking out an SEO company because they don’t feel they have enough base knowledge on the subject. They have a legitimate concern that their lack of information and experience will leave them with services or contracts they don’t actually need.
It’s important to have some basic understanding of SEO before you begin talking to different companies, but you don’t have to be a master of the subject.
There are several good sources for this kind of information, and your friends, family, and former employees do not fall into that category. Instead, go to the source: Google offers some basics on the subject and there are some good blogs that can act as a good primer. Do a little reading, but you don’t need to know everything before you contact an agency.
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Have a Specific Goal in Mind
You should set some specific goals before you start looking at SEO companies. When you can express these goals clearly, it will be easier to know if the agency is the right fit for you.
Ask yourself what you really need and want to accomplish with an SEO campaign. Goals that are too general, like “get more traffic” or “get better rankings,” won’t be very effective. More specific goals might include:
- Starting a new website on the right foot
- Expanding your reach through paid search or social media
- Getting out of a Google penalty
- Cleaning up an older website and getting it in line with modern best practices
- Grow sales by a specific amount
These types of goals will help you be clear with your SEO agency so you can work together more effectively.
Set your goals, know your success metrics, and you can get a lot more out of your talks with SEO companies.
When Do You Need an SEO Company?
According to Google: “If you’re thinking about hiring an SEO, the earlier the better. A great time to hire is when you’re considering a site redesign, or planning to launch a new site. That way, you and your SEO can ensure that your site is designed to be search engine-friendly from the bottom up.”
While you may see immediate value from an SEO company during those suggested times, that doesn’t mean your long-established website is out of luck. It just means that the SEO company will have to change their tactics a little bit.
You may also want to seek help when you experience a sudden and detrimental drop in website traffic. This is most often due to Google’s regular algorithm changes, and when it happens, you’ll need to refocus your strategy to restore your traffic levels.
Getting and Understanding an SEO Proposal
Unless you have an entire legal department on standby to read over proposals and contracts, there’s a good chance that these types of documents are not exactly your idea of a relaxing, weekend read. Still, it’s important to make sure you understand what the proposal is saying so nothing slips by you.
The process of getting a proposal is pretty simple. After your initial conversation (or after filling out a request for proposal form on the website), someone will take some time to examine your website and your current standings in the search engines. They’ll gather some important data and come back in a day or so with an outline of the services and the pricing structure that they believe will provide the best return on investment.
Now that you have a proposal in hand, how do you know that it covers what you really need? Are you sure you’re seeing what you think you’re seeing?
Never make assumptions about what you’re seeing, and never limit yourself to a single proposal. Take the time to look at different offers, but you have to go beyond simple price matching. Look at the types of services they recommend. Are they the same? Are they recommending completely different strategies? When you see the similarities and the differences, you can go into your next conversations with some very specific questions.
What Are Common Misconceptions about SEO Companies?
There is a lot of misinformation floating around out there about SEO and SEO companies, and making decisions based on these misconceptions could potentially lead to poor results and serious business ramifications. Some of the most common misconceptions include:
- SEO campaigns can be fully automated – Generic, one-size-fits-all campaigns may take care of some foundational elements of an SEO campaign, but every company has different needs. While it is possible to automate some elements, you need strategies and tactics that are designed specifically for you.
- The size of the SEO company proves it is successful – Well, it does prove that the SEO company has had some success, but that won’t tell you how much success its clients have had.
- You can “SEO a website” and be done – SEO is not a one-time activity. There are no magic switches and no formulas set in stone. SEO is a strategy that must be implemented, tested, modified, and tested again.
- A pretty website is an indicator of success – A lone person working out of their basement can have a gorgeous, modern website. It doesn’t mean they’ll be able to deliver a great campaign.
- If something doesn’t happen in the first month, then something is wrong – SEO takes time. While it is possible (and sometimes probable) to see some initial movement in that first month, you have to be ready to play the long game. The first month is the time to build a foundation. From there, you can continue with the strategy and start to see some major improvements.
Making the Final Decision
Choosing an SEO company is not something you should do on a whim or without examining all your options. At the same time, it’s not a decision you should put off for too long. The longer you wait to start building your online presence, the more time your competition will have to establish themselves at the top of the search engine rankings.
Set your goals, gather your proposals, and compare their offerings to your needs. In the end, you’ll feel great about your final decision and be confident that it will deliver the best long-term results.
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Good ideas and perfect tips. Thanks a lot! There are a lot of proposals in this sphere and it makes more difficult to make a right decision.
Agreed. It can be tough to know which proposal makes the most sense for your company, which is why it’s so important to always ask for more details if you ever have any questions.
I think the important thing is to prove himself a very nice article
I really think your best bet is to get references from friends and people you trust. There are way too many “SEO companies” out there who will more than gladly lie to your face just to make a sale.
That’s a good point. But you also need to be sure that your friends aren’t recommending someone who just happens to be their nephew who “I promise is great at this.” Make sure if they’re giving you a reference it’s from personal experience with the company.
great article. the write up about the need of seo was very interesting.
Hiring a Search Engine Optimization Agency can make or break your company. A good SEO Expert can lead you to be successful , but a bad one can paralyze any existing search traffic you get. It is important to choose carefully, as new Digital Marketing Agencies are popping out every day and you can be overwhelmed, tempting you to simply hire the first company you contact or the one that sends in a cheap proposal. But if you do so you may not hire the right firm to meet the needs of your business.These tips will help you hire the Best SEO Agency
Really informative article. I make similar recommendations to my own clients. It is definitely a good idea to see a companies case studies before jumping in.
The cheapest proposal is definitely not always the best option. And while you really need to stay within a set budget, it’s also important that you get the exact services you need. Focusing on those needs instead of just the prices will help you be more successful. That might mean prioritizing which services you start with, but you can always add more.
Definitly agree Andy!
Really informative article. I make similar recommendations to my own clients. There are way too many “SEO companies” out there who will more than gladly lie to your face just to make a sale.
I personally like to ask the SEO company what websites they have worked with to see were it stands. Ask if it would be ok to contact the person in charge of the company and if you get good feedback I’d say there good.
That is a good way to learn more about a potential SEO company. It can often be a little tricky, though, because some clients will have specific agreements in place that won’t allow the company to talk about them. But they hopefully have good enough relationships with at least one or clients that will make this possible.
It is a very helpful article about choosing the SEO company for any project. Now a day, every business website need to do SEO for website for getting popularity, effective search engine result, etc. For choosing a right SEO company for your website, this article helps you a lot..
Great article for business owners looking work with an SEO company on their business. I tell business owners this every time, choose a company that has proven they’ve done the work before, not just the first company you have a meeting with.
First of all, congrats for the great article and especially to focus much on specific goals. The latter will definitely give an idea of the inner understandings of the SEO company. I also think that the right company should prove at least their own results especially if they are new. If a company can rank its own website among all the other seo companies, it just means that they are up to date with the industries best guidelines and Google algorithms. Its also important to see if the SEO companies can rank their other properties like You Tube Video, Facebook, Twitter, etc. This way you know that they can do the same to your business.
A very interesting article, and I really liked what you said about setting goals. It’s very important that companies do their research beforing hiring an SEO Company.
True, as long as they don’t get too bogged down in the research phase. It’s important to know a little about the industry, and it’s really important to know more about your chosen company, but you should also be able to work with that company to develop those realistic and measurable goals.
Great article. Every company out there needs to read this because google is changing and seo companies are using the same tactics that no longer work.
Perhaps someone on this site could reverse roles and also write about “How To Pick The Right SEO Clients For Your Business”.
Haha! That is an extremely tempting topic to take on… but if it were me writing it, it might wind up a little bit too much of a rant. Maybe I’ll take a more positive spin, like “How to Build a Great Relationship Between SEO Clients and SEO Companies”.
Great article..yeah its true. SEO is not a easy work it need so many resource to improve its service.Really need to know about company before hire company. I tell you some impotent tips about if any one wants SEO service.
1)SEO company must have Product training before it start work.
2)Proper plan for work flow.
3)Quality service.
4)Well known about service and how it imply.
5)Current updates about search engines.
6)Clients requirement. Etc..
Thank you for such a heplful article..
Loved the part about asking what kind of tactics are used. Certain tactics can lead to a penalty, which can be a pain in the neck.
Great article. I agree that you should always request case studies and references.
I also feel that’s it’s important to review online reviews. If possible I think it’s worthwhile to visit the company’s office so that you can assess their operations first hand as well.
Hey Larry,
That’s an interesting thought about visiting the company’s office. Obviously, that’s not always in the cards, since your SEO company can be on the other side of the country. But we have definitely had good experiences when clients (or potential clients) have made it in to our office here. It’s always good to be able to put a face to the voice.
Great post. Personally, I’d look at the following qualities when it comes to choosing a company to optimize my site –
1. How well they understand my business
2. Their track record
3. How transparent they are with me regarding their progress with my project.
4. Should be confident about their time frames of delivering results
Thanks and cheers
That’s a great list of qualities and I agree with them all. #1 is often one of the biggest challenges, I think, because it can be hard to really get to know a business until you can really get into the campaign and put in the time and discover things about their company and their industry. So, maybe sometimes it’s about showing how many different businesses you’ve been successful with so that you can show how adaptable you are and how quickly you can get to understand their business.
Thank you for explaining that SEO services are more effective if you utilize them early on. My wife and I are interested in launching a fashion website this summer and want to ensure that people in our city will be able to easily find our store’s location since we may have multiple competitors in our area. We’ll find a professional that will help us make sure that our website thrives once it is launched.
Really nice topic, as most people have no idea when and why they need an SEO company. We can understand, as we are also an SEO company. Looking forward to more content like this from you. All the best for the future.