61% of marketers state that improving SEO is a priority for them. If you belong to this group, you’re probably interested in using the services of an SEO agency.
But hiring an SEO agency is not without its difficulties. How do you know if the SEO agency can be trusted? How do you know if an SEO quote is worth the money?
Below are some tips that’ll help you tackle some of the common questions you’ll face, when looking for a trustworthy SEO company. If hiring an SEO agency is the right decision for your business, these tips will help you find an agency that’s worth investing in.
Let’s begin!
Learn How SEO Works
You may think that there’s no point in learning about SEO if you’re going to hire an SEO agency to take care of things. But if you take this approach, you make it easier for rogue agencies to take advantage of you.
By understanding the basics of SEO, you’ll be able to spot when an agency is promising something they can’t deliver. You can also judge whether the methods used by an SEO agency are sustainable and in line with the guidelines provided by Google.
If you head over to Udemy, you should find courses that lay out the basics of SEO. Or you can check out websites like Moz to read some blog posts on the SEO.
Once you understand the basics of SEO, invest in an SEO tool. You can use this tool to figure out why your competitors have high rankings. You can then provide this knowledge to an SEO agency and tell them to do the same for your website.
Find a Firm That Has Relevant Experience
The SEO strategy for one industry is going to be different to the SEO strategy for another industry. Thus, if you want to shortcut your success, find an SEO company that has experience in your niche.
Your ability to do this is going to depend on the kind of business you run. If you run a national or even international company, this approach may not be possible. That’s because SEO companies may only work with one specific industry at a time, to prevent a conflict of interests. But if you run a local business, you’re less likely to run into this problem.
If you can’t find a firm with relevant experience that’s fine. You just want to make sure that they understand the fundamentals of SEO and the dangers of taking shortcuts. If you’d like to see an example of an SEO agency that takes this approach, this service is worth checking out.
Are There Any Reviews You Can Read?
Sometimes an agency will host the reviews on their website and other times they might use Trustpilot to showcase reviews.
Try to identify the website that’s associated with a specific review. Use an SEO tool to find out what they’re ranking for and how long they’ve had these rankings. In doing so, you’ll be able to judge how ‘valid’ a positive review is. If a past client doesn’t rank for any challenging terms, it can be a sign that the SEO agency isn’t that good.
Is It Something You Should Outsource?
The great thing about hiring an agency is that your website will be in the hands of experts.
The agency will understand the latest developments in the world of SEO, and they’ll be able to use this knowledge to push your website up the listings. But hiring an agency does have its downsides, and you should consider the alternative of hiring an in-house SEO specialist.
After all, with an SEO agency, you’re going to belong to a potentially long list of clients.
This can mean that your website is not going to get the attention it deserves. If you’re one of their low-paying clients, this might be especially true. Plus if their offices aren’t local, you won’t be able to have face-to-face conversations with them about your SEO strategy.
If you hire an in-house specialist, you’ll have someone that’s purely focused on your website. Because they’re only working on your site, they’ll have time to study every aspect of your SEO strategy. Thus they’re more likely to develop an insight that’ll help propel your website up the search listings.
It’s also worth noting that this person will have a lot more knowledge about your industry and the kinds of products/services you sell. Following this, they’ll be able to write better content for your website. This content will likely rank well because search engines generally prioritize high-quality content.
Should You Pay a Lot of Money for Seo Services?
If you come across an SEO agency that’s charging under $500, you probably won’t see good results with them. That’s because ‘good’ SEO takes a lot of work and it can take many hours to write high-quality content. Building valuable, white hat links, can take even more time.
Thus, if someone is only charging you $500 per month, they’re probably not going through the effort to do all that.
In fact, there’s a chance they may be taking shortcuts (such as buying links) to make the job more profitable. You need to avoid companies like this as their strategies could lead to Google deindexing your website.
That said, just because a company quotes you a high price, doesn’t mean that they’re good at SEO. You need to view their quote in relation to the results past clients have experienced. If past clients have achieved difficult rankings, then the high price is probably worth paying.
Do You Know How to Find a Trustworthy SEO Company?
Even though SEO is an amazing marketing strategy, you might not have the time to work on the SEO side of your business. Because of this, you might want to bring an SEO agency on board.
This post has provided you with some tips on how you can find a trustworthy SEO company. You need learn the fundamentals of SEO, so that you can identify the agencies that are making false claims. You should also judge the rankings of past clients and decide if such results are worth the money.
It’s also vital that you question whether hiring an SEO agency is the right decision for your business. For some businesses, it can be a better option to hire an in-house expert. Though this can be more expensive, in the long-term it may produce better results.
Want to learn more about the different kinds of links and how they impact SEO? Check out this post to find out more.