Somewhere along the way with all the Google algorithm updates SEO companies started to get a bad rep. Companies were left wondering why their $200 a month outsourced SEO service wasn't getting them to the top of first page in Google in the first month, or why their hard spent money left them with a Google penalty.
If you are looking for an SEO company and don't want to get burned
1. Cheaper is definitely not better. Sure, you want to spend less. But anything too low just seems fishy. They could be outsourcing all the work to India or the Philippines, so do you really want to put your business in the hands of someone you never met (and can barely speak English)?
2. You can't expect to barely spend any money and get the world from it. It is harder than ever before to rank in Google, and it can take a lot of time for it to happen. Depending on the keywords and competitiveness, sometimes you may never reach the top.
3. You need to ask them the basic SEO questions about what they do. Transparency is key, and it proves they know what they're doing.
4. Ask for case studies or see if they have client testimonials to see what their customers are saying about them.
5. If they offer guaranteed results just run. In a Forbes article by Joshua Steimle, he shows this screenshot of the kind of companies that offer such results.
No one can guarantee 1st page results in Google, unless they are Google. And we're pretty sure they don't and never will offer SEO services.
6. Lastly, and most important, just because you got penalized after working with an SEO company, or they didn't live up to the expectations, it doesn't mean that every SEO company is just as bad.
Rand Fishkin from Moz credits Ruth Burr in this whiteboard video about avoiding unrealistic expectations in from SEO marketing.
Disclaimer: Don't let Rand's hair alarm you. He is brilliant and a leading educational authority in SEO.
Ruth's point was that if you hire a plumber and they don't fix your pipes, you don't assume that plumbing is a dead industry and every plumber out there is bad at what they do. When an SEO company doesn't live up to the expectations you were hoping for, than most companies tend to think that SEO is dead and all of them are bad.
What should you look for in an SEO company?
There are a lot of things to ask and look for when you are searching for an SEO company. In no typical order, here are a few to keep an eye out for:
1. Look for an SEO company that can be a "partner" in your business, not ones that just see you as another client.
2. Do they ask questions about your goals, your past experiments in SEO, and try to get an idea of what you want to accomplish?
3. Did they ask for access to your Google analytics as a part of your campaign so they can track progress?
4. They should ask about your website, who created it, who controls it, and who monitors it.
5. Do they ask about your competition, or provide you with what they believe to be your main competitors online?
6. They should ask what you are currently doing online, whether it is SEO, social media, public relations or whatever it may be.
7. They shouldn't just focus on search engine rankings. Rankings, among targeted traffic, leads, conversions, goals, and revenue are metrics they should pay attention to.
8. Before starting any campaigns, they should check your site for any errors and speed issues.
9. If your website design hasn't been optimized you may need to have your copy rewritten. This goes along with 8, that before starting anything you should have the right call-to-actions or your leads and conversions won't be what you want them to be.
10. They should have on-going analysis to make sure your site is running properly.
11. Fresh and resourceful content should be regularly posted to your site so that when search engine crawlers come back they see something new. Plus, it expands your website as the more unique pages you have the more authoritative your website looks.
If you ask all the right questions and look the time to find the right partner for your business, you will begin to trust SEO marketing again.
If your SEO company isn't asking you these questions, they claim to have guaranteed results, or you're just tired of going from one agency to the next then drop us a line and let's see what we can do for you.
