You are tasked with outsourcing the company’s online marketing activities and efforts to a reliable SEO (search engine optimization) company. Sounds simple? Maybe so, but the task is not that simple. And this is because there are just too many of them offering a myriad of online marketing services that makes it quite difficult to pinpoint on a single entity that would best suit or respond to your requirements. Try searching for an SEO Agency via Google and localize your search. In all likelihood, you will be looking at more or less 300 SEO firms.
Each one of these SEO companies you find on the World Wide Web can lay claim to their capabilities in guaranteeing top page ranking on Google’s organic search. As to who can genuinely deliver the promise, it would take some serious analysis to identify that SEO agency.
What to Look For in an SEO Agency
Beautiful Website
Should you gauge their expertise with their visually-appealing websites? The answer to this question is “yes” if you are looking at hiring an SEO that can also handle website design issues. The answer is “no” if what you want is an SEO company that only focuses on optimizing the website with organic-based strategies. The best SEO company in the Philippines, for example would be one that can offer both services. Having a visually appealing website with quality and well-crafted and optimized contents will be a sure formula for improving business’ revenue-generating activities.
Top Ranking in Localized Search
This maybe a bit tricky. Of course, you would want an SEO company that ranks or appears on the top page of the organic search results. But not all SEO websites that you see on the SERPs are there because they are the experts in the field. There are SEO websites that consistently rank high in SERPs, mainly because they have been running their websites for a specific number of years. And search engines like Google, put a lot of weight on this. If you have identified a high-ranking SEO website from the results page, you must do some research or due diligence to find out other possible reasons why said site is ranking on the SERPs.
Determine What You Need for Your Website
It will make a difference if you know exactly what you want done on your website – link building or link removal, content marketing, PPC management, social media exposure, etc. Depending on your target online marketing goals, you should be able to narrow down your selection to the SEO agencies that cater to your specific requirements.
Check SEO’s References and Case Studies
Ask the SEO agency on how they can help you achieve your goals. Ask what tools they have used to track and analyze links and campaigns. Have they used tools such as Majestic SEO or the popular LinkResearchtools? If they don’t show you documented proofs of what they have accomplished with real customers, don’t bother calling them again. The best SEO agency will not have any problem or issue showing you what they have done for other clients like you. They may not have clients that are big brands like ebay.com or samsung, but their clients should have stuck with them for quite some time. If you are running a self-storage company, you should look for an SEO agency that has done work with 10 other self-storage companies, with good and acceptable results and recently – not ten years ago. Such would be a good fit for your SEO requirements.
Make the SEO Agency Tell You Stories
Some SEO firms approach the SEO task tactically and there’s nothing wrong about that. But there are SEO agencies that would use the same approach and sprinkle it with a lot of creativity. If an SEO agency can tell you more than what you have read on their social media profile, chances are they know what they are doing and should be good at it. But that’s not to say that they only tell the success stories. You would have a better insight of their strengths and weaknesses if they are able to account for their failures as well.
The selection process should include setting clear objectives, getting bids from multiple SEOs, doing due diligence and analyzing gathered information. These should be enough to lead you to the right and the best SEO agency that will help you achieve your specific online marketing goals.