Search Engine Optimization is one of the best digital marketing strategies that can help you find more clients for your business. Working with a professional SEO company like IT Only is proven to help your brand and sales growth while maintaining one of the best ROI (Return On Investment) in the digital marketing industry. Be wary that not every SEO company can provide you with these benefits, and it is important to know how to identify the right SEO partner for your business. Make sure to follow the following tips before you make any decision about your future collaboration.
1. Go Through Their Case Studies
There are plenty of Search Engine Optimization companies on the market which makes it difficult for business owners to make a decision on which of them they should contact. Many of those companies advertise themselves as the best on the market, so it is usually hard to pick one. Some may have a professional-looking website, and some may have photos of a big team on their description page. Some even go as far as establishing a strong social media presence in order to attract more customers. However, there is one clear indicator of how good their services actually are, and that is the success they brought to their clients.
A professional SEO company doesn’t have to own a flashy website or have a huge following on social media. The only thing they need to prove their efficiency is to showcase case studies on their previous or current clients. Nothing proves an SEO company’s success more than how well they performed for their clients. Most of them will have a page on their website dedicated to case studies on their clients. This page usually has actual numbers and statistics on the benefits they brought to their customers.
Don’t look for companies with lots of case studies but rather do a check on the numbers. It doesn’t matter if they had one hundred clients before you if they didn’t provide quality services to those clients. An agency with ten successful case studies is worth more than an agency with one hundred decent case studies. If an agency looks promising but they don’t have any case studies provided on their website, you shouldn’t forget about them so quickly. Give them a call and have them present you with the work they’ve done in the past. You can also ask them to mail you this information. Having a look on these case studies will help you determine if you should work with them or not.
There are some indicators to look for when going through their case studies to help you understand the value of their work:
- What their client’s website standing was before they started to work together.
- How much work time they invest in the client’s website.
- Whether they have managed to get first-page search results for their client.
- How many keywords their client’s website ranks for.
- What ROI they manage to get for the services they provided.
- What their client’s website standing currently is.
2. Find a Professional SEO Company With the Right Expertise
Many SEO agencies like to focus on certain niches and industries in order to gain notoriety and help them establish themselves as top service providers for that industry. Their specialization may help you figure out if they are the right choice or not. A professional SEO company that has only been active in the medical industry may not provide so many benefits to a restaurant business. That is not because the Search Engine Optimization methods will be so different between the industries but because of the difference in the content. Their writers may be able to create high-quality content on the medical industry but they may have limited knowledge of the food industry and how to create interest for the readers.
Another problem may be the niche itself. While the agency might have in-depth knowledge of the competition in the medical industry and how to outclass competitors there, another industry means more time to accommodate, research, test, and figure out the best possible strategies to help a client get to that first page of search. SEO companies tend to pick a few favorite industries where they can provide the best quality services for their clients. You can figure out what industries they specialize in by looking over their case studies to see what clients they had.
3. Read Their Online Testimonials
You might have found an SEO company that specializes in your industry and claims to have brought amazing benefits to their clients. You might’ve contacted them and established a partnership, and a few months down the road you realize that you are not, in fact, getting any of the promised results and the content they provide is not that great. That is not an uncommon situation today, and many business owners realize too late that they have made a mistake in choosing their SEO partner.
This scenario is usually caused by fake claims of success by the SEO agency which the business owner initially believes are real. Even if there are no results in the first months of working together, the business owner accredits them to the fact that SEO is a long-term investment and requires some time before results start to pour in. A few more months pass by, and the business owner finally decides to bring a halt to their collaboration. Having already invested money and time in the process, the business owner might decide that SEO is not right for his business and abolish the idea of ever trying SEO for his business again.
The situation presented is something that can happen nowadays. While there aren’t make fake SEO agencies, there are plenty of agencies that claim to be professional even if they are amateurs or new in the SEO industry. All this can be avoided by simply checking online testimonials about the company before deciding to start working together. The best place to check for testimonials are third-party websites, and not the agency’s website. For extra safety, you can contact their clients directly and ask them if they are happy with the results they got from the SEO company.
4. See How the SEO Company Communicates with You
Communication is an important aspect of any business collaboration. Being able to provide accurate information about the work process, and set the right expectations is essential for an SEO company. This ensures the collaboration sets off on the right course. Your SEO partner should be able to answer all your questions in the right manner so that you can feel safe working with them. Search Engine Optimization is a long-term process, and having good communication between the business and the agency will only bring better results. SEO companies know this, which is why you should pay attention to how the communication goes when you first contact them.
While the first contact will most likely be accompanied by a warm and professional attitude from the SEO company, you should evaluate only the next couple of calls between you and them. That is because the first contact tends to be more sales-oriented, and many SEO agencies will try their best to look as good as possible here. After you’ve shown your interest, you should make sure you ask your SEO partner several questions to see how serious and committed they are:
- What information will they provide on their SEO audit?
- How many clients similar to you did they have?
- How many milestones will they set for your company’s progress?
- When can you expect to see first page search results?
- How many companies did they manage to help get to the first position on search results?
- Do they ask for a constant service fee or does the fee increase with each milestone you get past?
- Will they provide monthly reports of their work?
- What will the monthly reports provide in terms of information?
- What happens if the milestones are not passed in the set timeframe?
All this information is very important from your point of view. You should see how they react to each question and how their initial interest in working with you has changed after each discussion. Many amateur SEO companies start to lose interest in collaborations when they see the clients ask for reassurance on the quality of their services. They also tend to diminish their interest and response time when faced with questions that make the business owner look like he knows what he’s talking about.
When looking for a professional SEO company the first thing you should look for is their proven experience. Looking over the case studies of their past clients might give you a good indication of whether they are good at what they do or not. Furthermore, you should also make sure the SEO company has been active in your industry as well. Having experience in a certain niche makes it easier to help future clients who operate in the same industry. Don’t forget to check reviews about your future SEO partner to see if other business owners were happy with the results they brought in. Finally, having a few discussions with your potential SEO partner might reveal many things, and might prove if it could be a productive collaboration or not.
