Choosing the right SEO company can make or break a business in today’s highly competitive market. As a savvy business owner, you’re always looking to get an edge over your competition. To help you with that, we’ve compiled a list of five signs that an SEO company could be a good fit for your business. Look for these when hiring an SEO company and you are sure to make the right choice.
They Use a Holistic SEO Approach
There are three main approaches when it comes to building SEO rankings:
- Technical SEO considers the technical side of your website, such as code, site architecture, speed, and other such metrics. While working on this aspect of SEO, an expert will generally focus on making it as easy as possible for search engine crawlers to access and index your website.
- User experience, or on-page SEO, will focus on making it as easy as possible for users to use and navigate your website. Using this approach, an SEO expert will try to optimize content, navigation, and keywords.
- Off-page SEO is often referred to as link building since it usually involves getting backlinks to your site from well-known and reputable websites and blogs. Improving off-page SEO will have an SEO agency trying to increase your domain authority and build relations with other website owners.
While most SEO companies will focus on only one of the areas discussed above, you should try and find one that will take a more holistic approach. Ideally, they should focus on all three aspects of SEO in equal measure, and use them to build a comprehensive, long-term SEO strategy.
They Provide a Clear Overview of Their Services
It is unfortunate but common for many SEO companies to try and hide their methods or insist on having a secret technique that will bring great results. This is mostly so they can obscure the fact that the work they are putting in isn’t proportional to how much they are charging for their services.
A good SEO company will be completely transparent, offering an itemized list of services they provide. Furthermore, they will provide you with a detailed overview of the services that will be a part of the SEO strategy they’ve developed to improve SEO for your website.
Keep in mind that these services will change and evolve over the course of implementing the SEO strategy. Even so, the company you hired should let you know of any changes well in advance and update their rates accordingly.
They Are Realistic When it Comes to Results
A competent SEO company will always focus on delivering the best possible results in the long term. You should avoid any company that promises you heaven and Earth in no time at all.
For starters, this means they probably don’t know what they’re doing and therefore can’t be realistic when predicting results (in fact, a good SEO company won’t really be able to guarantee results of any kind). Even worse, this can mean that they either intend to overcharge for their services or are willing to use black-hat techniques to achieve fast results.
Good SEO takes time, and real results can only be achieved incrementally over a long-term period. As your SEO rankings start to rise, a good SEO company will continue to tweak their approach so they could yield positive results month after month.
They Fit Within Your Budget
Good SEO is not cheap, so prepare to pay accordingly. A year-long SEO project for a medium-to-large business can cost as much as $100K. This should always cover a three-pronged approach of technical, on-site and off-site SEO, deployed by a dedicated team with a well-developed strategy and clearly defined goals.
If for whatever reason you’re not able to stretch your budget to cover the services of an SEO company, you should still consider hiring an individual expert. Giving control of your SEO to a competent consultant can give your rankings a boost, and the added business could very well allow you to later hire the services of a full SEO company.
They Are Willing to Share Information About Past Clients
As we covered above, good SEO isn’t cheap. As with any other service, you want to shop around and make sure you’re getting your money’s worth. In the case of SEO companies, this can often mean reading case studies, testimonials, and lists of previous clients.
While it wouldn’t be reasonable to expect an SEO company to divulge their entire address book, they should be ready to point to at least two to three big clients that have been with them for a while.
You should avoid companies that are unable or unwilling to give you a list of previous clients, as well as those who provide clients that don’t look like legitimate businesses. This usually means they were either unable to deliver or even attain big clients.
You should also look into how long the clients have stayed with the SEO company in question. Since good SEO can help a business grow as much as 5-15% per month, it’s highly unlikely a satisfied client would be willing to give up a good SEO company, unless they decide to build an in-house team to take care of their SEO needs.
Conclusion
With all of the above in mind, it’s important to remember that SEO should be considered a long-term investment. It can take months for the results (or lack thereof) to become apparent, and many sub-par SEO companies stay in business solely thanks to this. But if you are patient and keep in mind the tips we’ve laid out in this list, you are sure to find an SEO company that will fit your business and will provide you with significant long-term results.
Nickey Piclorita is a Founder & CEO at NPointSEO. He is very passionate about WordPress and Search Engine Optimization. In free time, Nickey enjoys reading good books, going to the gym and spending time with friends. @nickeypickorita
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