Who to Talk to When Looking for an SEO Agency

        

        By Tom Kitson

There are as many companies out there saying 'we're the best SEO agency in the world' as there are SEO agencies in the world! How are you going to know which one is truly the best qualified and suited to your needs with all of these claims out on the internet?

As with all things in the business world, what your business needs is going to be different from what another one will need. It can even vary between competitors in the same industry. Your first task for selecting a great SEO agency is to look at yourself.

Looking at your company to determine your SEO needs

Your first task is to think about what it is you want to accomplish with your SEO campaign. If you don't have a clear goal, with measurable successes, your campaign is more likely to fail. This responsibility is on you, not who you hire, so be sure that you are ready to hire on an SEO company before you do so.

Your next task is to think beyond just those three words - search engine optimization. Yes, you want to bring more visitors to your site by getting a higher search rank, but how will this happen? Does the company you are looking at offer other services such as social media consultation, link building, design and copywriting? Having a company on hand that can handle all of this eases your needs to have to go searching for web related companies over and over again.

Talk to your business associates

OK, you know what you want to do with your website and you know what services you want to have provided to you. Now you should start getting real data and information from people who really matter: your business contacts.

If you know anyone who has already hired an SEO agency, and gotten great results, you need to talk to them and find out what worked, what didn't and any challenges they faced. This first hand data is more important than any claim you'll find randomly online.

Get examples of past success

Once you have found a great SEO agency you should get a quote from them and see what they have actually accomplished. A portfolio of past clients, who you can contact if you wish, is the most valuable thing that any reputable SEO firm will have to offer you.

The last point I want to bring up is to be wary of outrageous claims made at any stage of the process such as:

"We guarantee a number one ranking" - this is impossible to guarantee, no matter how good an SEO agency it is.
"We won't alter your website" - then how will they improve SEO? This claim is too good to be true and likely only involves some link building of questionable intent.
"We'll submit your website to hundreds of search engines." Who cares? Everyone uses Google anyway! Being put on a few core directories is important, but hundreds? You're just creating spam.

Tom works for Square Social. Square Social are a Social Media Marketing company, SEO and content marketing company. In his spare time Tom enjoy blogging and sports.