So you are new to SEO, what do you need to know?
Successful SEO will put your business in front of people you want to reach; new customers, repeat customers, partners, and peers. Outsourcing to an SEO agency is often a better choice for companies, especially when just starting out.
But how do you get started?
If you are just beginning to consider using an SEO agency, it can seem a daunting prospect. Outsourcing demands that you put a lot of trust and faith in an external company, but it does offer huge benefits, and allows you to focus on what you do best - running your business.
The benefits of using an SEO agency:
SEO specialists will help and advise you on your website structure, content strategy and usability. They know how to make your website work harder and perform better for you, attracting new and repeat audiences for your services, products and information.
SEO is an ongoing process, not a one-off project, it requires constant activity to secure and maintain good organic rankings. A reputable SEO agency will manage your SEO as your business grows and develops.
You tap into the collective expertise and knowledge of an established group of experts, not just one person’s experience and training.
It is your SEO agency’s responsibility to keep up with the latest developments in the industry, that’s a large part of what you pay them for.
So what should you look out for when choosing an SEO agency?
Bad: Beware the Bronze, Silver and Gold packages!
Many SEO agencies operate by making your business fit into a pre-determined pricing package.
This makes it simple for them, but does not take into account your specific needs. If you fall ‘between’ packages, you can expect to be quoted separately for all kinds of ‘extras’, such as additional link building, directory submissions, content and social media. This can make it difficult to keep track of your marketing spend.
Good: Fixed price, all inclusive SEO
When we talk to prospective customers, we take the time to find out about their business, understand their goals, and review their website.
This is before we provide a quote, because we know that each business is unique, and we only quote for the work we know you need. We never sell services unless they will benefit the customer.
Any proposal we prepare will contain everything your business needs - SEO, content and social media - to maximise visibility, rankings and visitors through the search engines and social media channels.
Bad: Guaranteed rankings, no problem
If we had £1 for every time we’ve had this conversation, we’d be sipping margaritas on some far-flung beach.
Please steer clear of choosing an SEO agency that promises to deliver top rankings.
Question which of your keywords they can achieve this for, how they intend to secure the ranking, and how it will be maintained. It may be possible to get ‘quick wins’ on some keywords, but in our experience these are gained using techniques and tricks that will only result in the penalisation of your website by the search engines, and ALL your rankings can disappear. These penalties can be very hard to come back from and the risk to your website is just too great.
Good: Realistic expectations, outstanding results.
We always establish a realistic set of objectives for an SEO campaign before we start work.
This means that our customers know what processes we follow to improve their rankings and increase traffic. It can take some time to deliver high organic rankings, depending on how competitive your market is and whether you are targeting local, national or international audiences. This is why we assess your needs with our first conversation.
We don’t make false promises, and we don’t guarantee rankings. We do guarantee the quality of our work and your experience as our customer. Our 98% customer retention and case studies back us up!
Bad: Set and forget SEO
As mentioned earlier, good SEO is an ongoing process. Any company that offers to do piecemeal work for your website is not committed to you as a customer.
You can be sure that if you make progress with your search engine rankings, your competitors will be right behind you, ready to snatch those top positions. If you only engage an SEO agency periodically, it will be practically impossible to maintain the good positions you need to get people to your website.
Good: Content-driven SEO, an ongoing commitment to your success
If you want to achieve and maintain high visibility in the search engines and social media channels, you need to continually refine, improve and test your campaign: keywords, site architecture, on-page and off-page content, frequency of content publication, social media presence etc…
Bad: Oh yeah, we can do social media too, it’ll cost £……
For many companies, social media is an extra (see above) that does not factor as part of their regular activities. We think this is wrong, because since Google confirmed that social media signals are a ranking factor, it must become part of how SEO is carried out. Don’t accept social media as an optional extra.
Good: Content-driven SEO is SEO, content and social media as standard
We call our approach Content-driven search marketing, because we know that SEO and Paid search MUST integrate content and social media these days. Traditional SEO is simply not enough alone to deliver results.
Our SEO services are fully inclusive of content and social media.
Find out more
We’ve published Guides and Whitepapers to offer more advice and help on SEO:
Guides:
Content-driven SEO; what does it really mean?
Why content marketing is integral to SEO
Whitepapers (takes a minute to register then we’ll email you the paper)
An introduction to location-based SEO
Contact us today if you’d like to discuss your SEO