Many companies fail to use the Internet because the SEO experts they hire lack the experience or knowledge to identify new markets and explore new opportunities.
The importance of reliability in SEO
I am insisting on reliability and trustworthiness because after talking with a couple of our latest clients, I realized that they experienced a sudden drop in traffic after they hired an ‘SEO company’ that played all sorts of tricks on their account.
So, choosing a reliable SEO firm is important for progress and necessary to avoid losing traffic potential due to bad SEO practices.
1. Decide why you need to hire an SEO Company
Before choosing which SEO firm to trust, it is important to decide and clearly understand the reasons you need to hire one.
In my opinion, you should consider hiring an SEO or digital marketing firm when:
You don’t have a website, and you need to build a proper Internet presence from the beginning (It may be a surprising figure, but according to Google, 58% of US businesses do not have a website)
- You have a website, but you are not getting any traffic
- You have a website; you are getting traffic but not customers (i.e., conversions)
- You have a website, but it is not optimized for search engines, social media, or users
- You want to improve your internet presence
- You want to find new customers in other digital markets, i.e., mobile
2. Where can you find a good SEO firm?
SEO firms live online; they are not companies that need to be in your neighborhood.
In most cases, all communication is carried out via email or Skype, and there is no reason for a site visit.
This method is faster and costs less.
So, where can you find good SEO Companies?
1) Word of mouth – Ask your friends (either your real friends or your friends on FB, Twitter, or LinkedIn) if they have a recommendation.
Knowing that a company did good work on someone else’s web property is very positive.
2) Click on the ads—When you search for terms like ‘reliable SEO company’ or ‘SEO services, ’ you will see several ads at the top of the search results.
These are PPC ads, and the companies where they are displayed have invested a significant amount of money to secure one of the top positions.
To get a good ROI, they have to provide a good service; otherwise, they will not be able to survive in the long term.
3) Organic rankings—The same rules apply for organic rankings. Companies that appear in the first positions of the SERPs have already invested a considerable amount of time and money, which is another signal that they take their business seriously.
In addition, if they can find customers online for their own needs, they can do the same for you.
3. How to assess the reliability of an SEO company?
Regardless of how you will find the company to hire, assessing before making your final decision is always advisable.
I have talked about this before (read this article for more details: what to look for when hiring an SEO company), but in general, a quick way to assess the reliability of a company is by looking at the services they offer and making sure that:
They are not making unreal promises. Don’t trust anyone promising first-page rankings (either in Google or other search engines).
If you see something like ‘We can get you to the top of Google Search’, in simple words, it means that they don’t know what they are doing.
Too good-to-be-true promises are equivalent to fake promises, and you must stay away.
They can explain what actions they will take – Although your goal is to hire a professional firm to handle your Internet presence without having to worry about SEO or digital marketing, this does not mean that you shouldn’t know what methods they will use to increase your website rankings or get more traffic.
If they can’t explain exactly what they will do and all they tell you is about ‘building links’ then forget about them, they can do more harm to your website than good.
They have a clear pricing scheme – The most appropriate pricing scheme for SEO services is per day or hour.
It is best to ask for this in advance to know how much you will have to pay. I
also suggest you read how to outsource SEO without paying a fortune to get the highest possible return from your SEO investment.
Ask them to do an SEO Audit first—Another way to evaluate an SEO's work is to ask them to do an audit of your website. An SEO Audit does not cost much but is a quick way to evaluate the company's effectiveness.
If you are happy about their work, you can continue buying more services.
Talk to them—Don’t forget about the traditional methods, i.e., making a meeting. In this case, it can be a virtual Skype meeting, but you can still ask questions and interview prospective partners.
4. What you should know about SEO?
Knowledge about a subject (even basic) makes it easier to negotiate or challenge a method proposed by your SEO.
It is very difficult to cover everything you need to know in a single post, but for starters, you can look at this article: What is search engine optimization, and why is it important?
Besides understanding the terminology, it is advisable to:
Go for a long-term plan – It may take more than a couple of months to get results from your SEO efforts.
The competition is huge, and search engines need time to process the data they capture from websites.
Therefore, hiring an SEO for several months rather than a couple of months without any return is more appropriate.
The duration of their work is something that you need to discuss with them and agree on before signing any contract.
SEO is not about building links (and never was) – True SEO has nothing to do with link building.
In the past, many ‘companies’ associated SEO with cheap link-building techniques, and many people still believe that SEO's work is to build links, but this is far from true.
The job of an SEO is to ensure that a website is secure, fast, user-friendly, and has good ranking positions on all major search engines.
It’s not about SEO anymore. A successful SEO campaign incorporates actions from digital marketing, such as social media marketing, mobile marketing, email marketing, etc.
The main focus is still on the website and how to optimize it for search engines, but for optimum results, you need to look for areas outside the website's boundaries as well.
5. It’s all in the results
One of the most interesting things about the internet is that everything is measurable.
Some metrics and reports can help you measure and monitor the activity of your website in terms of incoming visits, time users spend on the site, pages they visit, and many more.
You can start looking at these metrics. If, after 6-7 months, the SEO Company you hired does not manage to bring in more traffic, then you may need to consider changing your contract.
The best way is to discuss it with them first and hear what they have to say, always keeping in mind that changes to a website may take time to generate positive or negative results.
As a rule of thumb, 6-7 months is a good period to judge the effectiveness of any SEO techniques.
Conclusion
Even if you are a small business owner, a blogger, or an online shop owner, you must ensure that you have the best possible Internet presence and are taking advantage of all digital channels.
If you cannot do this because you lack the time or knowledge, then hiring a professional, reliable, and trustworthy SEO firm to do it for you is preferable.
Before hiring an SEO, ensure you know what they will do, how much you will have to pay, and what to expect.
Don’t believe in too good-to-be-true promises, and if they don’t produce decent results after 6-7 months, consider terminating your contract.
