How to Find a Good SEO Company for Your Business
How to Find a Good SEO Company for Your Business
What happens to your digital marketing goals and strategies will greatly depend on what the SEO company you are working with can do for you. There are major consequences of what SEO companies do for businesses.
If you aim for a boost in traffic, sales, and ROI, a good SEO company will be able to support you with this goal. The right SEO partnership can define where your business is going in the digital marketing landscape.
How Do Companies Choose an SEO Company?
The first step in choosing an SEO company is often based on word of mouth.
Many people that work within the industry or have a friend who does will recommend one particular company to you.
- 45% of companies use referrals or from companies they’ve established relationships with.
- More than 40% of companies prefer getting their SEO experts via company knowledge and processes.
- 15% of companies look for an SEO firm’s past performances.
How to Choose an SEO Company
Before locking into a contract with your chosen SEO company from the potential SEO companies on your list, follow these useful tips for finding the right SEO company for your business:
1. Study how the SEO company performed in the past
Performance is always the key to knowing what an SEO company can do for your business. Ask if they have done SEO services for companies similar to yours.
Learn about what they did and the changes that happened to businesses because of what they did in their SEO strategies. Past performance should include:
- Portfolio examples
- Case studies
- Industry awards
- Client testimonials
You can easily be drawn to an SEO company because of the nice things they say about their performance. But the real measure is if they are able to show you evidence of what they do.
They should be able to be proud of specific, proven, and verifiable results that they can let you see. This is what you call proven performance, and it should be what you should ask for from SEO companies.
What they were able to do is evidence of meaningful results that they can bring to your company.
2. Ask experiences from past and current clients of the SEO company
Research the clients you can interview about how the SEO company performed and what they did for them.
Connect with these clients and read their testimonials. You can call and email a few of them to get real and more personal feedback about the SEO company.
You can learn as much as you can about important aspects, like:
- The SEO company’s strengths and weaknesses
- The SEO company’s SEO process
- The SEO company’s reporting process
You can also find answers to common questions, like:
- How fast does the agency return calls or emails?
- Do clients receive a dedicated point-of-contact or different ones?
- How much time do clients have to set aside to review reports and strategy decisions?
When you get answers to these important questions in learning more about an SEO company, you can narrow down your options and choose which SEO company can deliver results for your business.
3. Meet the SEO company personally and ask questions
When you are down to just 2 or 3 SEO companies to choose from, meet with each of these SEO companies virtually or in person.
You can schedule a video conference or a face-to-face meeting, so you will finally know which one is the perfect fit for your business.
Make sure that you prepare a list of specific questions that will help you determine how they perform and how they deal with clients like you.
Ask them personally about their past performance, so you get a clear picture of how they are able to perform.
Some questions you will want to include asking an SEO company before hiring them are:
- What types of SEO strategies do you implement for your clients?
- How do you know this will work for me?
- What monthly deliverables can I expect if I retain your agency?
- Will that really move the needle as I compete with (Competitor Name)?
- How do you measure the success of your campaigns?
- What tools do you use?
- Can I see the results from some of your other clients?
- What pricing model do you use?
- How will I be involved in the process?
- Who will be in contact with, and how will you keep me updated?
- How will I know progress is being made?
- What happens if I choose to terminate our contract?
4. Know your specific goals and know how the SEO company will help you achieve those goals
When you ask the questions listed above, see how the SEO company responds to them.
Do they have specific answers that signify how they deliver specific results? A vague answer will most likely deliver vague results.
You should know specifically what you would want to achieve with an SEO company. What is your company hoping to accomplish with SEO?
You can know your specific goals related to SEO by answering these questions:
- Are you looking to boost product sales by ranking for certain keywords?
- Are you struggling to reduce your website’s bounce rate or increase your conversion rate?
- If you are looking to increase ad revenue, would you prefer to have a wide audience or a smaller audience that spends more time, on average, on your site?
- Are you looking for help building a social media following, creating sponsored content, or other white label SEO services that go beyond SEO?
5. Choose an SEO Company that provides metrics aligned with your business goals
Not all businesses are created equal and not all SEO companies can provide results that are meaningful for a business.
How your chosen SEO company can perform will be determined by the metrics they use. However, these metrics should be aligned with your business goals.
It is no use to be measuring something that will not drive the results you desire for your business. Specific metrics that will work for your business will help chart your progress in the right direction.
A good SEO company should understand which metrics are most important to your business and help you understand how they will be measured.
Related: What You Should Know Before Hiring an SEO Agency
These are just a few of the tips that will help you choose the best SEO company. You can include other factors such as:
- Client communication
- Competitive pricing
- Strong transparency and reporting
- Customer services and attention
- Thought leadership and knowledge transfer
- And specialization in the service you need for your industry
3 Mistakes Smart Businesses Make When Choosing an SEO Company
1. Choosing a “cheap” SEO agency
It is important to set realistic budgets when it comes to SEO services and agencies.
Setting an ultra-low rate can lead you in the wrong direction if they don’t deliver on their promise of higher rankings, improved traffic or better conversion rates for your business’s website.
Setting fair prices will get businesses what they really need. Educate your company on the price range of services as well, and making sure they know how much they should be spending each month so that there are no discrepancies between what was expected (from both parties).
2. Browsing only local SEO companies
When choosing an appropriate company to work with in this industry, it’s important that you prioritize experience and performance over where they’re located.
Limiting yourself to a small area can prevent your business from achieving the kind of results you want.
If, for example, one competitor partners with an experienced agency several states away and another chooses local but inexperienced representation then it may keep them at bay as their website and revenue streams decline due in part to being ranked lower than expected on valuable search engine result pages.
3. Selecting a black-hat SEO agency
Black-hat SEO is a dirty word in the world of search engine optimization.
It’s unscrupulous and doesn’t deliver immediate results, but you can use it to rank on page one quickly if need be. Which may lead some companies down an expensive rabbit hole as they try desperately for that “first glimpse” at their target audience before being banned by Google again.
The key to ranking on search engines like Google is using best practices and ethical strategies.
In most cases, low-cost SEO services go hand in with black hat tactics for those who don’t have the finances or time; however this isn’t always true as there are some providers that offer both types of programs which can be costly but will guarantee you top placement if done correctly.
Call Your SEO Experts Today
Infintech Designs is an SEO agency and digital marketing company that helps different companies become more visible on search engine results.
Talk to us to know more about our SEO services.
