Claims by SEO agencies that they can rocket you to first place in search engine results pages (SERPs) in a month should be an instant red flag. It’s not a mechanical process, and there are no guarantees. Furthermore, subversive tactics can land your domain in trouble, undermining the investments you’ve already made.
This guide lists tips and tricks to help you choose a technical SEO agency that can make a difference in your enterprise. You can take a safer route using the information below even if expectations are lower and more realistic.
Table of Contents
Finding a Reputable SEO Agency
Ask What You Want the Agency to Do
First, ask yourself what you want the agency to do. Articulate your goals. For example, you might need outside technical help to:- Generate more leads.
- Undo the damage done by another agency.
- Improve awareness of your startup brand.
- Drive more organic traffic to your pages to rely less on PPC meaning there’s potentially savings to be made on your running costs.
Do Your Research
You also want to do plenty of research when exploring technical SEO services. You should have an idea about the practices they employ and the satisfaction of their customers.
For this reason, we suggest:
- Checking out their website (exactly like you are doing on ours).
- Looking at case studies they list.
- Reading testimonials and reviews.
For example, we love to showcase our customer reviews regularly. Clients love sharing their experiences with us and how we help them thrive. One reviewer called us “experts in [our] field”, while another said we gave their website “a new lease of life.” You can’t fake the funk when it comes to public perception and being able to quote what people have said about you in a positive light. It’s a massive authoritative flex that lets you know the Agency won’t cut corners when promising outcomes for your website.
Look for Red Flags
While you are probing, you will also want to look out for so-called “red flags” – signs you should avoid the agency like the plague. The most common red flags are:- Promising to deliver specific results (such as top ten rankings on Google SERPs in the first six months)
- Dangerous or black hat SEO techniques, like stuffing keywords or using cloaking (showing users different content from what search engines see)
- Opaque pricing.
Ask If The Culture Is A Good Fit
While searching for an SEO agency, it also helps to ask if the culture is a match. You want a partner who “clicks” with you.
We’re not saying you need to get on like a house on fire. But it helps if you feel comfortable communicating with them openly and honestly. Talking to them should be free and easy.
Look at Reviews
If they are available, scouring the agency’s reviews to see what other people think of them is another option. Testimonials should be available on their website and third-party review platforms.
VOiD Applications, that’s us, publishes reviews publicly on our website and shines the spotlight on our Google Business Profile where these reviews are. We also provide case studies explaining how we’ve worked with clients and delivered results.
[photo by Growtika on Unsplash]
Check the Agency’s SEO
Another cheeky tactic you can try is checking the agency’s SEO performance. If they can rank their website well using technical SEO, they can probably help you, too. Granted, the competition is stiffer because of the industry and Google, the trendsetter is always throwing a curveball into the mix. But even so, the agency should be able to hold its own.
If you want to really investigate the agency, you can also use third-party services like SERanking, SEMrush and Ahrefs. These tools offer competitor analysis that provides detailed information about their keyword ranking metrics, indexing, and more. You can see how their sites are performing across numerous metrics, but at this point, are you in need of an SEO agency if you can read this data and tell what’s going on? 👀
Probe Their Tools
Finally, it helps to ask the agency about the tools they use. This question provides you with a measure of their sophistication, because there are few barriers to entry, you can sometimes get cowboys. The best agencies use industry-established tools, that can sometimes require expensive subscriptions priced for competing businesses and have a high level of expertise or dedicated disciplines to one or many of the analytical tools available. A quick Google can reveal the top used not so secret ‘Industry Analytics and Asssessment tools for SEO’, so you’ll want to see these names being kicked around more often than not when researching.
Furthermore, top agencies often develop in-house tools to enhance services further. For example, they may now have AI content generators or Google indexation tools. You don’t always need these apps for technical SEO, but they can be a proxy for overall competence.
Comparing SEO Company Services
You may find more than one SEO agency you like as you search. If you do, what should you do?
The best approach is to create a table to compare various factors and then score them. In general, you should compare:
- Technical and SEO expertise – what specific technical services do they offer or are they just a generic SEO company with the technical stuff tacked on?
- Experience – how long have they been going? Setting up an SEO agency is relatively inexpensive and doesn’t require any qualifications.
- Tools and technology – does the company use the proper tools to deliver a decent service? Some entrepreneurs decide to go “lite” to save money, but it can also lead to poor performance.
- Processes – does the agency offer ongoing reporting and customer service? Sometimes, companies will omit these peace-of-mind and quality-of-life services to reduce expenses.
- Pricing – how expensive is the agency and will they provide you with a transparent appraisal of what you must pay? Agencies are sometimes black boxes and you don’t always know what you’re paying for.
- Reviews and testimonials – Do previous clients say the agency is the right choice for technical SEO?
- Honesty – Is the agency honest about its approach to SEO? Some brands hide behind a veil of language to hide the use of “black hat” tactics.
- Location – Are they in a convenient area and can you meet them in person if necessary? While an agency in Bangladesh offers discount pricing, it might not be able to partner with you directly to solve your unique problems.
Questions to Ask When Choosing an SEO Expert
If you decide to contact an SEO agency, don’t be shy. Asking a lot of questions is what’s needed to find out if their methods are kosher and they have the know-how to deliver on their promises.
Here are some questions you might want to ask:
“How quickly can you deliver results?”
Be careful of companies that promise quick or instant rankings. SEO doesn’t work like that – factors outside agencies’ control can determine search rankings.
The best answers usually revolve around measuring improvements, seeing what works by troubleshooting errors and essentially making sure all components of SEO criteria are accounted for over a period of time to see how these additions impact on your search rankings. Roadmaps to success and what success looks like should be determined early on so a goal is worked towards. This goal is subjective and can change as more and more about your website and the users visiting is learned about.
SEO Agencies should always use language that expresses the probabilities of success – not a guarantee of it.
“How can you track my progress?”
Agencies should have dashboards, tools, or reporting systems to keep you apprised of progress like the ones mentioned earlier. Data should reveal whether your SEO expenses are worthwhile.
When tackling SEO, it’s easy to fall into the trap of expecting results quickly, so your ROI rises unfathomably. This tends to be the low-level promise of the everyday SEO agency. However, the reports carried out by the SEO Agency in question, should raise points to address that need to be attended to so actions can take place that make your website more appealing for Search Engines.
An SEO Agency that can decipher the data at hand and give a list of actionable items for that week or month is one that can track progress and see how these actions are impacting your progress.
Ask Agencies how they track progress and how they communicate this with you. Telling you the why and when shouldn’t be the complicated part, so seek straightforward answers. An SEO Agency should be there to make this process simple and not hard to understand.
“What processes do you use for technical SEO?”
Asking agencies what processes they use for technical SEO sheds even more light on the work they will do if you become a paying client. Cross-check their techniques with accepted practices. Don’t work with agencies using “black-hat” techniques as these can cause more harm than good.
For example, a great and very telling way of understanding the processes an Agency might undertake when looking at your website from a technical aspect is whether or not they offer any auditing services, be it free or paid.
A Website Audit is something we offer for free, with no obligation to continue to work with us afterwards unless you want to. Our Website Audit looks at the stuff that search engines make use of, and so whilst we grade your website performance we get to see where your website is potentially lacking or performing when it comes to the technical aspect of your SEO.
Whether an Agency openly offers a Website Audit or not, it’s in the Agency’s best interest to do some sort of audit or full website report internally when work begins so they can then present the findings and roadmap of actions to you, to achieve clarity for both parties regarding what happens next.
“Who can I contact at the agency if I have a problem?”
In most cases agencies should provide you with a single point of contact and/or an account manager. This person should know your needs and requirements.
In other cases, having more than one contact within reason shouldn’t be seen as an issue either. It’s always helpful to have an alternate route to query if your initial contact isn’t available or can’t be reached if there’s an urgent matter at hand.
However, be vigilant if anytime you contact said Agency you are passed from pillar to post or find it difficult to be given the opportunity to speak with your appointed point of contact. Your business, organisation or website, is as deserved as time as anoybody else that pays for their services.
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