Ways to Know If You Should Hire (or Fire) an SEO Company

Venturing in an online business is not an easy task. Many start-up businesses are struggling to find the best SEO companies out there. Despite the negative echoes about SEO, most of them still place their trust on an SEO company because they do not have time to expertise for it. Unfortunately, there are those who fall victims to black hat techniques.

Without the right knowledge, it’s difficult to tell whether your company is doing you good or just doing harm on your site. If you are not confident with your current SEO company and have the slightest inkling that they are not as good as they say they are, we have enumerated below multiple things you might want to take into consideration. This will help you avoid ruining your site or waste your money on the wrong company.

Stop wondering whether you have outsourced a reliable company or not. Whether you are planning to hire or preparing to fire a specialised company, this post will go over everything from major red flags to reassuring signs.

What Is an SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is a simple activity which ensures that a website can be found in search engines for certain words and phrases which are relevant to what the website offers. While it is not rocket science, it is an industry that is little understood by many.

There are two types of SEO – the White Hat SEO and Black Hat SEO. A White Hat SEO makes use of manual research, high quality content and outreach as part of their link acquisition campaigns. Meanwhile, a Black Hat SEO uses unethical techniques such as hidden texts and links, link spamming and keyword stuffing exploiting weaknesses in search engine algorithms. White Hat SEO offers lasting ranking growths while Black Hat SEO only provides quick and unpredictable rankings.

Both types of SEO have their own different approach and proponents. Most of the online businesses with stable and sustainable goals go for the long-term. Even though the dark-colored variety tends to stain the SEO’s reputation, they are still appealing to a particular market.

How to Know If They’re Doing It Wrong

1 – No Interaction

Your chosen SEO company should be transparent with their results. They must be willing to show you their practices and make you understand what they are trying to do to your site. Any company should provide you with deliverables. A good company provides their clients with features such as site audit, link profile analysis, optimized content and published articles which have embedded links of your site. Make sure that the company really is contributing something positive for your site. Always require them for proof.

A company that’s doing well will require your CMS, Google Analytics, Webmaster Tools for Google, and social accounts admin access. They may also need to account all target keywords and past audits and penalties. If they do not require you any of these information, chances are, they may be performing actions that are potentially harmful to your site.

2 – Manual Penalties

These penalties can be the nastiest thing that can happen to a website. A GWT email or notification means you have been given a penalty. It is suspicious to get a penalty after your first two months working with a company. However, you cannot instantly fire them. Getting a manual penalty is not necessarily their fault and careful questioning and thinking is needed to figure out why your website was penalized.

3 – Traffic and Rankings Drop

Like a rank loss, a traffic drop may be a sign of algorithmic penalty. There are various reasons behind a drop in ranking. Rankings that continue to decline may suggest that your SEO is performing activities that might get your site penalized algorithmically. This can be the fault of your SEO but not all the time. Determine whether your SEO made offsite actions to your website that might cause the decline in traffic.

4 – Wrong Keywords and Linkbacks

Have a list of keywords that you target and get an idea from Google Analytics how longtail keywords drive traffic and rank in SERPs. Traffic produced by the wrong keywords are not accidental. Beware of significant changes in your organic keywords. You must grow your traffic to earn what type of traffic you are really targeting. If traffic originates from suspicious queries, it may be a result of your SEO’s carelessness.

If there’s an uptick in linkbacks which are suspicious, you must keep an eye on your profile. These linkbacks will mess up your profiles and devalue your site. There are rare cases where this technique is used to create a temporary traffic spike. However, it will begin to drop resulting in penalties.

How to Know If What They Are Doing Is Right

1 – Deliverables

A dependable SEO company will demonstrate to you what they are doing. They will give you proof of what they have done. They’ll show you sites with real backlinks to your website. They may also audit your site, content, link profile and homepage. They may suggest fresh content for your site or edit an existing one. A monthly report may also be provided.

The right company sees you as a partner. This partnership will only be successful if you work with them. They will make suggestions and recommendations. Unreliable SEO’s will just point a couple of linkbacks to your website, making you think that this low effort will produce high results.

2 – Recommendations

Let your SEO help you. You’ll most likely achieve the results you want this way. Your SEO may recommend starting social channels and integrating this with your site. They may also suggest putting up a blog, optimizing site content, adding alt tags to your images, creating sitemap.xml, add plug-ins and reject spammy links.

Suggestions such as the following mentioned above do not necessarily mean that they’re trying to scam or upsell you. Extra services comes with an additional cost but these services are meant to help your site.

3 – Improved Rankings and Revenue

An improvement in rank means you are with a good SEO. Signs such as ranking for target keywords, being on Google’s first page, ranking for various longtail keywords and consistency in rankings are positive signs. Achieving a targeted traffic may increase your revenue.

Expectations

You have to be patient when you figure out if you are working with a legit agency or wasting money on a scam SEO company. SEO will take time so wait for at least 2-3 months. Research on everything you can learn about SEO. It will easily help you identify red flags that should be avoided. It won’t hurt monitoring the industry changes.

SEOs won’t be able to offer a refund or a guarantee. They are always in a flux and works with Google’s power which is outside their control. Always understand what you want your SEO to do for you.

Always have an understanding of your expectations for your SEO. You cannot fire them if they are not doing something which they were not supposed to execute. Any process that is outsourced should be monitored. Always keep tabs. Research on how they get things done thru reports. Don’t be afraid to ask questions.

Do Not Underestimate Their Importance

The success of your business online greatly depends on your SEO. It’s not something you just entrust to anyone. If your priority is the success of your business, you will invest in an SEO and give it the attention it deserves.

Don’t let the wrong SEO company bombard you with technicalities of SEO that will leave you confused. The right company will make sure that you understand what you are getting yourself into. They will make sure that money invested on them will be put to good use.

Also, a good SEO company executes tactically. Ask them about their best client experience.  Surely, they have an extensive list of satisfied clients and good stories to tell. Look out for their previous clients who became successful and let them share to you how they did it. It is also important to know what their worst client experience was and how they were able to handle it. Keep an eye on whether they have improved over the years.

Let them tell you what their company is all about. Ask them for a brief history of their company and how they were founded. These questions will help you make up your mind. However, you might want to let the SEO company answer all of these questions first because you never know if their answer might change your mind.

Do your homework too and try to understand the kind of content your target customers are looking. Focus on creating great content and making it easy for people to share. This will definitely help you increase website traffic. Remember that there are still some good SEOs out there.

Do you want to hire a company that offers the best services for SEO? Go to CrowdReviews.com and read their reviews of SEO companies