When you hire an SEO services company, you’re also placing your trust in their hands, so it’s important they’re able to deliver results and keep your company’s best interests at heart. Even nowadays, there are still some digital marketing agencies that practice outdated black-hat techniques to try and generate quick results for clients. But these same techniques can also ruin a website and get it banned from Google altogether.
So how can you determine whether you’re employing the best SEO services company for your needs? Paying close attention to some of the following tips will get you off to a great start.
Staying on top of digital marketing trends and implementing new tactics requires teamwork. Agencies will need to collaborate with you, meaning they should be asking for access to your social media accounts, admin pages, and other back-end tools to create a successful campaign. If the team you’ve hired doesn’t ever ask for a thing, it’s likely because they’re not the best SEO firm to have on board.
One of the very first things a reliable marketing agency will do when hired is perform an audit of your current site and content. They’ll also likely do some keyword research to determine what work’s best for your industry. If the SEO provider you’ve hired doesn’t have anything to show you after a few weeks, begin looking elsewhere. A successful SEO strategy relies on data collection, optimizing content, and performing a competitive analysis.
Any reputable search engine marketing firm will be more than happy to share their techniques with you and explain how they provide proven and measurable results. If you ask your SEO company to explain what they’re doing and they avoid the question or hesitate, this should be a big red flag. Often, a refusal to share their techniques means that they’re performing black-hat SEO tricks or other tactics that could damage your company in the long term.
Being penalized by Google with a manual penalty is often caused by two things: an update in Google’s algorithms that your site has yet to implement or black-hat SEO techniques. If you’ve recently received a manual penalty, it might not be reason enough to fire your marketing firm but it certainly demands their attention and calls for keeping a closer eye on what they’re doing.
Another thing to watch out for is a sudden drop in traffic to your site. This could be caused by a recent change in algorithms, but it should be taken seriously either way. When traffic drops, ask your marketing firm what types of changes they’ve made over the past few weeks and determine if any offsite actions were made that could have affected web traffic.
One clear sign that your search engine marketing firm has your best interests at heart is when they have something to show for their work. Some of these examples are quality sites that link back to your website, optimized content for your pages, regular ranking reports, and suggestions for improvements based on research and analytics.
Ultimately, the primary goal of any SEO firm will be to significantly improve the rankings of their clients, so if your company is rising in the rankings that’s a great sign. If your company is ranking for your target and long-tail keywords and appears on the first page of Google search results, they’re doing something right.
There’s always room for improvement, especially where search engine marketing services are concerned. A good SEO services provider should be able to offer up a list of recommendations to help you improve your site and rankings. This will often include suggestions to optimize all on-site content, add alt tags to images you’re hosting, create a sitemap and increase loading speed. These are just a few to keep in mind.
A drop in web traffic is certainly a cause for concern, but it isn’t always necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes with the right search engine tactics in place, you may see a slight drop in traffic. But if your revenue is spiking, this likely means that your SEO strategy is working. Ultimately, your goal is targeted traffic that results in conversions.
Another way to determine whether your search engine marketing service is helping or hurting your business is by paying close attention to your interactions online. Is your company getting involved in conversations with clients on social media sites or making positive connections with industry influencers? If so, you’re definitely on the right track.
WSI ALM has helped hundreds of businesses realize their goals for increasing web traffic and revenue. Through targeted PPC campaigns and integrated digital marketing services, you can realize your brand’s full potential
If you want to choose the best SEO service company for your business, contact the team from WSIALM today to start developing your personalized marketing plan. You can also visit them online to learn more about the company and take a look at some of the business’ past success stories and case studies.
