10 Questions Before Working with an SEO Agency
Working with SEO Agency; dissenting opinions can be a difficult task with the agency's commitments and quick resolutions. That's why we decided to take a look at the top 10 questions to help you distinguish between the good and the bad and choose the right SEO agency for you.
1. Do They Know Different Algorithm Updates?
It is important that your agency is ready for the future and does not have methods that will harm your site in the long run. Their knowledge of these algorithm updates should be comprehensive, and any expert should be able to at least warn you against Panda effects that will undermine the quality of content while Penguin updates affect sites with abnormal or paid links.
2. Are They Prepared for Algorithmic and Manual Penalties?
Being able to recover after algorithmic or manual penalties has become an essential part of SEO; therefore it is necessary to avoid penalties or understand the importance of recovering as soon as possible. These penalties are imposed on both small and multinational sites and often result in huge losses in the site's Organic search traffic. Ask the agency how it will recover after such a penalty, and make sure its response includes backlink analytics, link deletion and validation information.
Tip: As part of a site's long-term survival plan, it's best to stay away if they can't explain a strategy for increasing high-quality links.
3. What Criteria Do They Use for a Successful Campaign?
In the past, SEO experts focused on how many times you rank on a particular word, but things have changed. This results in the fact that search engines give user-specific results and that each user's search results are shaped differently. It can also reveal the situation that the term you want is not related to what you think it means.
Keyword rank is still as important as key performance indicators, but the agency should focus on goals and developments such as completed contact forms, brochure downloads, newsletter signups, completed purchases for shopping sites. For sites whose target is not easily explained, the agency should set comprehensible targets by reading users' stay times and return rates.
4. Can it Guarantee First Page for a Keyword?
If an agency offers any sort of guarantee about ranking, then run away. There is absolutely no certainty in search engine rankings, and targeting just one word is definitely not the best strategy.
If an agency offers a money-back guarantee, they are desperate to get their money at any cost, and they try to get it by redirecting thousands of poor quality links to your site, somehow trying to keep you on the first page for a day or a week; which in a short time will cause your site to receive a manual spam penalty and fall further behind than before. Stay away at all costs.
5. What Kind of Jobs Does He Normally Take and How Long Do They Maintain?
Determine what the agency will do in the average pay period. Some agencies are completely focused on site promotion and are not interested in page and technical issues that will affect the site. Check out these important topics and decide which one you need;
- Technical SEO Review – Site structure, repetition issues, navigational skill, site errors
- Page Optimization – Meta, page titles, content structure & quality, generated data
- Link Analysis – Risk reduction in external links, link deletion, approval, link updates
- Competitive Analysis – Understanding your competitors, their strengths and weaknesses
- Site & Content Promotion – Outsourcing, PR, social networks
6. How Much Does It Want For Content Marketing And How Does It Track If It Is Successful?
Producing regular content is great, but if that content is of poor quality, it will receive less attention. Since content and SEO are so closely linked, it is also necessary for the agency to be able to enter content. One of the biggest determinants of content quality is the pricing structure, if the content is charged per word or 100 words, what incentive allows the agency to produce quality and shareable content that will increase the value of the site?
Also check if topics such as social network sharing or external traffic generated by publishing content are being tracked.
7. How Satisfied are His Customers and How Much Can He Keep His Customers?
A simple but important question is how satisfied are the agency's clients? How high is the agency's client retention and does it have the resources to prove it? If customers are satisfied, it can easily be said that the agency can meet customer expectations.
8. Is It Well Recognized In The Industry? Can They Speak at Conferences?
Quality marketing agencies have clients who have given speeches at key industry organizations, and this is easily verifiable. The reason why this is important is that the agency has known customers, the service it provides to its customers is acceptable and it gives a clear impression of being known in the sector.
9. What are the Strategies for the Site?
They may not be able to provide a complete strategy for your site, but they should provide insight into how they will help you achieve your goals and achievements. For example, there are big differences in strategies depending on the state of the site:
- Local, national or multinational sites
- Small or larger sites
- Sector type
- Business-to-consumer commerce or Business-to-Business commerce
- What will their priorities be?
- Risk analysis of links or improving link quality
- Built-in repetition management / multilingual control
- Technical development or site promotion
10. Will they be able to complete or do I need to make changes to the site?
It is extremely important that you know that the SEO agency will make or need changes for your benefit.