If you’ve been searching for an SEO agency, you’ll quickly come to find that the world isn’t short of them.
There are thousands, maybe even millions, of options to choose between.
Not all, however, are built the same. Some cater to different budgets, locations, industries, microservices, and much, much more.
What you need to do is learn how to choose the best SEO agency for your specific needs, and that’s what we’ll get into today.
How to Choose the Best SEO Agency for Your Company
Finding the RIGHT SEO agency can significantly affect your online visibility and business growth. This process requires careful evaluation, considering factors like their expertise, your budget, and their track record of success.
Evaluate Their Specialty and Expertise
Before undergoing this first step, you need to have a basic understanding of what you need/want.
You can’t go into the evaluation step blindfolded. Therefore, know what type of service (full-service or microservice), specialisation (industry, local, etc.), and costs (more about this below) you need.
Once you have this information, the next thing to do is simply search.
The best thing to do is ask businesses around you for specific agency you want as a referral. The more specific, the better.
You've got an endorsement from a business that has seen success, that's a great place to start.
Now you’ve found an agency offering you want, write it down and look for more.
After a while, you’ll have a list of top SEO agencies for your specific project.
Consider Your SEO Budget
While researching, you’ll find that a lot of SEO agencies offer different prices.
Some offer a revenue share model, while others offer a fixed contract or another type of flexible agreement.
Because of this, you’ll want to;
- Think of the payment plan you’re interested in.
- Think about how much you’re willing to pay per lead, conversion, or month.
You can then use this information to create a budget. This budget can then help eliminate some agencies as well as negotiate with them.
Review Their Case Studies and Results
After you have set a reasonable budget, the next big thing is the performance history check.
Case studies are a great starting point since they reveal methods and the success rates of the agency.
More often than not, you’ll find these “Case Studies” on the SEO agency's website. It’ll be labelled as “Case Studies”, “Projects”, or something similar.
And last but not least, ask for client testimonials. Testimonials of previous clients will give insight into the agency's reliability, communication, and more.
Decide Your Level of Outsourcing
When choosing an SEO strategy, you can have your own in-house team, fully outsource and a hybrid approach.
For the sake of this guide, we’ll assume that you are looking into outsourcing or having a mix of in-house and external collaboration.
Benefits of Outsourcing and Hybrid SEO
|
Full Outsourcing Benefits |
Hybrid Approach Benefits |
|
Access to high-level expertise and a dedicated team. |
Combines in-house expertise with agency support for specific tasks. |
|
Cost-effective for businesses with limited in-house resources. |
Allows for better control over strategy and execution. |
|
You will be able to focus on core business activities. |
More understanding of SEO within your organisation. |
Cons of Outsourcing and Hybrid SEO
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Cons of Full Outsourcing |
Cons of Hybrid Approach |
|
Potential for gaps in communication and lack of control over day-to-day operations. |
Requires a good level of coordination and communication between the in-house team and agency. |
|
Dependent on the capabilities and availability of the agency. |
Can be more complex to manage than full outsourcing. |
|
More difficulty maintaining a consistent brand voice. |
Conflicts arise when two different teams push updates without communicating with each other. |
Due Diligence: References & Reviews
After going this far into the process, you should have a few prospects left. The idea for you as a business owner is to narrow the choice after each step.
This is one of the more crucial steps, as it can differentiate between brand-new agencies with little experience and more established ones.
Before committing to a deal, take the time to contact previous clients to inquire about their experiences with the agency.
An experienced SEO agency should have a proven track record, case studies and many references.
If you got referred to the agency by a past business partner, ask them about the process before booking your first discovery meeting with the agency.
Be Prepared, Learn the Basics
If you hop on a meeting with an SEO agency, you might get overwhelmed as they start mentioning or using industry terminology.
Therefore, reading up on the basics can ensure you don’t waste time and focus on the crucial questions to vet the agency.
For example, Google ranked backlinks as one of the top three factors, so it's a good idea to do some thorough research on the topic. This will also help you ask quality questions such as: “What is your agency's approach to backlinks?”
Red Flags to Watch Out For
Knowing what to look for in an SEO is great, but the red flags, even better.
1. Beware of Marketing Hype
Beware of those agencies that promise fast results using "black hat" techniques, including link schemes and keyword stuffing.
Some other common low-integrity techniques include comment spamming, buying backlinks or even fake third-party review posts.
These are techniques that may harm your website rankings and could also incur penalties from search engines.
Including this, if any SEO agency promises or guarantees any type of ranking or results, forget about them. Google even mentioned this in a blog post.
At the end of the day, nobody, repeat nobody, can guarantee anything with SEO as it’s always changing. They can offer a money-back guarantee; however, guaranteeing rankings or certain results, no.
2. Overly Aggressive Sales Tactics
If an agency pressures you to make a quick decision or guarantees unrealistic results, proceed with caution.
Agencies that already have proven success will be careful about onboarding clients and will also look to vet you as a business.
If you see any signs of pressure to sign a deal, it's best to walk away. Chances are there’s a reason for the rush.
3. Carefully Assess Your Provider
A growing trend among some agencies or solo providers wanting to cut corners by automating their reporting and doing meaningless SEO tasks.
In this case, you are neither getting the skills you paid for nor the expertise that comes with seasoned agencies.
Working with SEO agencies without vetting them can put you at risk.
To avoid this, ask the right questions, and don’t commit if there is a lack of clarity on who or how your campaigns will be managed.
Questions to Ask When Interviewing an SEO Agency
The quality of the questions you ask in your business is directly proportional to the quality of answers you receive.
Here are some quality questions you’ll want to ask your SEO agency:
- How do you stay updated on Google algorithm changes?
- Can you share an example of a challenging SEO project and how you approached it?
- How do you measure success for different types of businesses (Be careful with vanity metrics)?
- What types of SEO optimisation do you perform, and why?
- What results have other clients of yours experienced that share a similar business niche?
- What kind of data access and permission requirements will be needed if we collaborate?
- How do you measure the performance of campaigns, and what metrics do you use?
Final Word
When choosing an SEO agency, think of it as choosing a life partner - a wife or husband.
Yes, that may sound extreme, and maybe it is. However, they can both have the same impact, indirectly or directly.
A bad partner or SEO agency could impact your business negatively. In fact, it could ruin it, and that’s not a joke.
Because of this, when learning how to choose the right SEO agency, choose slowly and very carefully.
Don’t rush into things. Take your time. Understand what you need, what they offer, and how they’ll offer it. This way, you’ll choose a partner that’ll generally help you, not ruin you.
Or, you know, you could just skip the headache and work with us instead. 😉
