The benefits of hiring an excellent SEO agency are high, which is why you have to exert all effort in choosing the right one.
Working with the wrong SEO agency can, unfortunately, do you more harm than good. With the right SEO agency, you can focus more on running your business smoothly. The agency takes care of all the “dirty” technical work to help your business rank well online, and all other matters associated with it.
To start with, it’s very important to try and find an SEO agency that truly lives and breathes it. This means that they have mastered everything about SEO from A to Z. To ensure that you have the best SEO agency to help your business, here are some tips to help lead you in the right direction:
Define Your SEO Goals Clearly
Search Engine Optimization is a very broad field. Depending on the needs of your business, you’re also going to have your respective SEO goals. As you work towards finding the best SEO agency for your business, first keep your eye out on the areas in your business that you know you need to improve on. Then, choose the agency that offers services related to the SEO goals that you wish to achieve.
Examples of common SEO goals are the following:
- Higher rankings
- Lead generation and direct marketing
- Increase traffic
- Increase e-commerce sales
- Higher conversions
Trust Word Of Mouth
If you’ve long been in the business industry, chances are, you’re also going to come across other businesses like yourself that have also hired an SEO agency. As you look for agencies to work with, it’s a good idea to trust word of mouth. This is one of the most reliable sources that you can ever have when you want to end up with the best agency. These businesses, especially when you’ve got a close working relationship with each other, will never recommend anyone to you that doesn’t meet the proper standards.
But, remember this very important tip. As you do it the old fashioned way by asking for recommendations, never ask for suggestions from any of your direct competitors. Because you’re directly competing in the same niche, you should also be a little bit more skeptical about whether or not they’re recommending a good one for you. Ask for tips from other people in the business industry, but skip your direct competitors.
Choose The Agency That Tracks Your Data
A good SEO agency is one that also tracks your data. By this, it means that they don’t just settle with receiving analytics data. A good SEO agency should be able to take it one step further by putting all the data that they gathered, all to good use. When the agency knows how to track and measure your data, it helps you make better-informed and data-driven decisions for your e-commerce site.
Examples of data that your agency should track include:
- Phone calls
- Click-through rates
- Site visits
Choose The Agency With Metrics That Work For You
Different agencies have their tactics and metrics as to what works best for them. Here, it’s imperative that you also ask about what are the metrics that the SEO agency intends on using for your business. This begins with first outlining your goals as enumerated early in this article. After enumerating your goals, choose the agency with the right metrics to track your progress.
In other words, ask about the agency’s Key Performance Indicators. These can apply universally to any business. But, they have different implications and usage, also depending on the kind of business that you are. For example, companies with new products will need different metrics from companies that already have a strong and established client base.
Here are some examples of the necessary metrics to remember:
- Keyword rankings. What keywords do you rank well in?
- Organic sessions. How many people visit your website through an organic search?
- Conversion rate. What is the percentage of visitors on your site that ends up buying your products or signing up for your services?
- Google crawling mistakes. This refers to the process by which Google’s bot indexes and skims through your website’s content. Here, the agency has to offer you with the techniques for better SEO crawl efficiency.
- Page loading speed. Remember this basic equation: your page loading speed equates directly to how quickly it is that people leave your site.
Conclusion
Of the many decisions that you need to ensure to be correct in your business, Search Engine Optimization is one of them. Making the right choices as to the SEO agency has significant consequences for your business that you can’t just overlook.
At the end of the day, your goals should go just beyond better rankings. You should also strive for more improved customer experience and satisfaction, then eventually to higher profits. As you select from among numerous SEO agencies, keep in mind these pointers enumerated above.
