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You are here, which means you’re already on the right path towards not only understanding that SEO is a whole function in its own right but also that you need specialists in the field if you truly want to get ahead in the online presence of your business.
In the current times, whether your business is brick and mortar or purely online, making your mark online has become essential regardless. A good SEO agency is equipped with the right knowledge, tools and insight to help you get more leads and convert those leads to customers.
That said, what parameters should you look for to shortlist the right SEO agency for you? Let’s find out.
1. Be clear on what your SEO goals are.
No two businesses are alike, even if they belong to the same sector. SEO agencies are no exception. First check the services on offer. How many of them are on the same lines as your goals? This way you can handpick agencies most suited to your needs.
Do you need a brand new website made from scratch? Or do you want great pieces of content for your website or social media? Do you already have everything in place but want to increase your engagement? Figure this out and choose the appropriate agency.
2. What techniques do the SEO agencies implement?
Request a report on the key performance indicators from the agencies you’re interested in. It’s understandable that they wouldn’t be able to provide everything, owing to non-disclosure agreements with their clients and confidentiality, but the information that they do end up giving would be enough to give you an idea on whether they live up to their promises or not. Here are some indicators to give you a headstart:
- Leads and conversion
- Keyword ranking
- Bounce rate
- Page load time
- Click-through Rate (CTR)
3. Do you need technical SEO?
SEO in itself is a vast field that includes a few specialisations in it. Before you begin searching for the right SEO agency for you, it would be a good idea to check whether you need help with technical SEO, off-page SEO, or both. But first things first, let’s understand what technical SEO means.
What is technical SEO?
Technical SEO is nothing but optimising your website by improving its technical aspects. It’s one of the facets of on-page SEO, which as the name suggests, is optimisation of the elements that are on your website–with the aim of boosting the website ranking on Google. On the other hand, off-page SEO is where you improve your website’s search ranking off the website, through other means.
Example of technical SEO
One of the key examples of implementing technical SEO is building structured data. This sounds a little too technical but it isn’t that complicated. When you build structured data for your website, you are writing it in a language that’s easy for search engines to understand. The most commonly known type of structured data is schema markup. The data of your website is structured in an orderly fashion so that the search engines can present information that’s the most relevant to the user who is looking for it.
If you’re wondering why you would need technical SEO for your website, here are some of several reasons for implementing it:
Benefits of technical SEO
- Makes your website fast
Google says that 53% of mobile internet users will abandon a site if it does not load within 3 seconds. Nowadays people don’t have the time or patience to wait even for 5 seconds for a website to load. They will switch to something else long before that happens. Hence, it is paramount that you ensure that your website is user-friendly and it opens within a few seconds of opening it.
Moreover, page experience has become one of the key factors in 2021 that Google looks into while ranking a website in its search results. The good news is there are several ways in which you can analyse and then improve your page load time. Check this blog for the details.
- Makes your website crawlable for search engines
You should have a good internal linking structure to your website so that the robots that the search engines send crawl your website and easily discover the relevant content in there.
- Secures your website
Technical SEO also consists of techniques that make your website secure. The most essential as well as common method is executing HTTPS. By implementing HTTPS you assure your website visitors that their credentials are safe. Furthermore, Google has also made HTTPS as a ranking signal, which means if your website is secure, it would be ranked higher than its unsecure counterparts.
In addition, there are many more benefits of implementing technical SEO on your website, including no duplicated content in your website to puzzle search engines, removal of dead links, and inclusion of an XML sitemap, which acts like a roadmap for search engines by listing all the pages of your website.
Now that you’ve got some idea on technical SEO, let’s move on to the next factor in choosing the right SEO agency for your business.
4. What’s your budget?
If you want to run campaigns, whether it’s Google Ads, Facebook, or Instagram, you can get tailored campaigns that can cost from hundreds of dollars and can easily go up to thousands. Hence, it’s important that you have a clarity on not only your needs but also how much you’re able to or willing to spend for those needs.
Of course there are many SEO agencies that are “low budget” or “cost-effective”, but that doesn’t ensure that they are good and worth onboarding. Remember, spending less on nothing is expensive but spending more on quality is wise.
5. Steer clear of unreal promises
It’s realistic to aim for positive outcomes, but keep an eye out for promises that are too specific and too good to be true. No-one can guarantee that you’ll be ranked first on Google within ten days of optimisation. Google’s algorithms are constantly changing, and even if that were not the case, this promise is not grounded. It’s unreal to expect that you’ll get a thousand followers in 2 days if you’ve just started out. If an SEO agency is promising you these kinds of results, run away, fast.
6. Don’t limit yourself to basic SEO
SEO is not just about stuffing your blog with relevant keywords. It’s a whole function in itself that has several branches. Hence, it’s important that you understand that just covering the basics of SEO is not enough. Take that extra mile and consider advanced SEO campaigns to garner even better quality traction. When choosing an SEO agency for this, ask them about AB testing and conversation rating optimisation.
7. Check whether they’ve lock-in contracts
Lock-in contracts, as the name suggests, are binding agreements between you and the SEO agency that “lock you in” with them for a certain period of time, which can be months and even years. Though it’s completely your choice to go with an agency that works after signing a contract, do keep in mind that in doing so you are obliged to work with them for the given number of months or years regardless whether your circumstances or needs change later on.
If an agency’s track record has been good and it doesn’t offer any binding contracts, needless to say this hints at them being confident in what they’re doing. Their clients are staying or coming back not because of the agreements signed with them, but because they prefer to work with those agencies, owing to transparent results driven marketing. This is the principle that we at Monster Rose abide by as well.
Wrapping up
If you have enough time allocated for SEO, then hiring a good SEO agency that knows what it’s doing is the next step. It’s high time that SEO not be left off as some far-off idea that is at the bottom of your to-do list. It’s one of the key things that any business should implement and be serious about if they want their presence known in the online space, especially given the fact that in the 21st century, every business, whether online or offline needs to up their online game not only to prosper but to survive.
If you want to be successful at SEO, onboarding a good SEO agency that cares for your business is crucial as well as difficult to do. Hence, we hope that the factors we have listed above help you in making this process a little easier and you get some insight into what your needs are and how you can shortlist a suitable agency for them. Need help in SEO? Or are you looking for website development? Monster Rose can help you with these and a lot more. Send us a message here and we will be more than happy to advise you on your needs, free of cost. Let’s build something great together.