Which SEO Company Should you Choose?

Which SEO company should you choose?

Which SEO company should you choose? That’s a question we’ve heard more than once. Here is a quick guide to choosing your SEO company. You may wonder why a company that offers SEO would write this. Well, we understand that not everyone wishes to put all their eggs in one basket and use the company that developed their website for marketing.

When choosing the right SEO company for your business, there’s a right way and a wrong way around the hiring process. We often inherit poorly optimised sites and have heard many SEO horror stories. So, without further adieu, please find below my guide to choosing the right SEO company.

Don’t make the following mistakes!

• Hiring the first SEO company you come across. Even if that’s us!
• Using Google as your only reference.
• Choosing your SEO company from “best SEO company” lists.
• Using the cheapest SEO agency.

Hiring the wrong SEO company can cost your business more than money – it can often lead to a loss of time and energy.No matter what your SEO budget is, it’s vital the correct company is chosen for your business.

1. Hiring the first SEO company you come across

One of the worst things you can do when hiring an SEO agency is to go with the first one you talk to. We advise you speak to at least 3 or 4 different agencies – even if you speak to us first. Why? Sometimes an SEO agency just isn’t the right fit for your business, and yours might not be to theirs.

2. Using Google as your reference

You might think whoever ranks top for “SEO company + your area” is the best SEO company or SEO consultant or SEO agency for you. The thinking behind this is simple if they rank top, then surely they’re the best, right? Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. This is because, most of the very good SEO companies, the ones that are in high demand, the ones that do consistently great work and get great referrals, they don’t actually need to rank here or simply don’t bother with these terms. We often rank first for the term SEO Mansfield, but our SEO team barely work on that term. In fact, they barely work on optimising the Dijitul website for new clients. Why? They’re too busy with clients and helping them rank highly, which makes our clients very happy, they spread the word and we often get new clients that way.

3. Choosing your SEO company from “best SEO company” lists

Many people are guilty of this, and it’s know-ones fault. It’s natural for people when searching for an SEO agency to search for terms like “best SEO company” or “best SEO agency”. You’ll often click on a link where you’ll see a list of the top 10, 20, 50 or 100 agencies in a certain town, city or country. Often the list is not based on how good their service actually is, and companies are often featured there because they have paid to be on that list. Rule number one when it comes to SEO, don’t pay for links!

4. Using the cheapest SEO agency

Using the cheapest SEO agency you find can be tempting, and can sometimes work. However, the majority of the time, the cheap SEO agencies out there will not take the time to understand what is best for you or your business. You might pay X amount per month to rank for 10 keywords. What kind of business model is that? You might get a list of keywords you rank for at the end of every month, but what are those rankings actually doing for your business? Are they leading to increased revenue or profits? If this is the type of SEO agency you’re with, then the probability is that you’re just chucking money out the window.

Now we’ve identified 4 mistakes you need to avoid when choosing an SEO company, I’m now going to show you what our recommended process for choosing your next SEO agency.

How to choose an SEO company

Before you speak to any SEO company, you need to know why you want SEO and what you want to achieve from this service? Set out some goals for your business. These can be any of the following:

• Get online traffic to my website from my target audience to try and boost revenue.
• Identify new opportunities for our brand online.
• Increase conversions from our organic search traffic.

These are all good goals to have. However, many businesses come to us with bad goals. Such as:

• I want to rank high. Well of course, but do you know what or why you think you need to be ranking higher? Ranking high for a keyword is a vanity metric that too many people are obsessed with. Too many so-called “SEO professionals” pride themselves on getting a keyword to rank high. Why is this a bad thing? The majority of the time, the keywords they get ranking high have no data behind them. They either get low to 0 searches, don’t lead to an increase in sales or benefit your business at all. This is not a good goal.
• Beating your competitor for specific keywords. Similar to the bad goal above. Your competitor might rank high for a keyword, and you want to beat them. That’s natural. But, what if that keyword doesn’t increase revenue or to your goals. It’s wasted time and effort.
• I want to increase website traffic. Increased traffic sounds great, but what’s the point in increasing traffic if it’s not going to directly drive revenue. You can get all the traffic you want, but if it’s irrelevant to your business then all that traffic could actually harm your SEO.

If you know you need SEO, but are unsure what your goals should be. Book a free 15-minute discovery session with our SEO team and we will identify where your efforts should lie.

Below are some other factors to consider when choosing your next SEO company.

Have the SEO company analysed your website?

If the SEO company are experienced in getting good results then the first stage is for them to thoroughly scan your website checking page titles, descriptions, the density of keywords and a number of other factors which determine your sites position in search engines.
A free website review is crucial and will determine exactly what work needs carrying out and just how much it will cost you. This review is something any SEO company should provide you with at no cost.

Have they looked at your competitors taking note of their linking strategies?

If you are working with a reputable SEO company then you should expect to receive a competitors report which shows you exactly what your competition is doing and helps the company to achieve a much better rank for your website.

Does your SEO company have their own in-house link builders?

Good quality links are crucial when it comes to search engine optimisation so you have to ensure that you choose the right SEO company. Finding high ranking, valuable and resourceful links can sometimes be a long process as each one needs to be individually researched and placed. Unfortunately, in the SEO industry there are companies who bulk buy links, use link farms and some don’t actually do anything other than taking your money, avoid these at all costs.

Which SEO company will give you a return on your investment?

Companies invest time and money into their SEO as the ROI tends to be quite high, once you get onto page one for your chosen terms you should expect to see an increase in traffic and even sales. If you would like to join one of the many successful online businesses then we strongly recommend you invest some serious time into search engine optimisation. A small investment of a few hundred pounds will not give you the results you need nor will bulk buying seventy-five links from that offshore SEO company that called you seven times last week, think about it this way, you could not rent a shop on a busy high street for a few hundred pounds a month could you?

Still confused about which SEO company to choose?

Why not give us a call and arrange a free, informal chat about your current website and let’s see if we can help turn your online business into an online success story. Alternatively, you can click here, for a free website review from our digital marketing team.

Although there is no quick, overnight solution to achieving high rankings on the search engines it is possible and you can get a good return on your investment, if you work with the right SEO company, of course!