Search Engine Optimization is the key to take your business to incredible heights. However, SEO can be a minefield as well if you do not pick up the right SEO agency. A right SEO agency can help you in the following ways:
- Rank your website prominently on Search Engine Result Pages(SERPs).
- Offer more visibility to your website.
- Ensure more number of visitors and proper business leads
What is Customized SEO?
Every business is different with unique goals and objectives. A customized SEO plan needs to evaluate your business goals and objectives and map a plan strategically to optimize your business.
So hiring an SEO agency for your business is a critical decision. It would help if you asked several questions to help you arrive at the best choice.
1. What is your experience in the SEO business?
Google changes its criterion on how it ranks a website, search results continuously. SEO Companies that have been around for ten or more years are better prepared to deal with the complexities of the constantly changing Google algorithms.
2. Does your website rank for the most searched keywords in the industry?
If the website of an SEO agency in question does not rank for the most searched keywords in the industry, then ask- “how will they rank my website if they can’t rank their own?”
3. How do your customers view the quality of your service?
It is natural for salespersons to rave about their services. But the best way is to gauge reviews online. See what their previous clients have said about their services.
4. Does your company make any promises or ranking guarantees?
Any company making promises and offering ranking guarantees is simply a bluff. Google continually changes its ranking algorithms. An honest SEO company should provide case studies and examples to prove its methodologies. If they work for other clients, they should work for you too.
5. What is your core SEO strategy?
If a company tells you that they’ve got a magic formula, be very careful. The only legal document on SEO – Search Engine Starter Guide and Graphics, is published by Google and is available to the public.
6. What is your inbound Link Building Strategy?
Because of the importance of the success of SEO, many SEO companies resort to unethical link building methods to boost the number of backlinks to a website. These may lead to an increase in ranking in the short run. Such practices are against Google’s terms and conditions and will lead to a site being banned from the search index.
7. What is the price of your SEO services?
When it comes to SEO, there is no one-size-fits-all strategy. Hence a reputable and honest SEO company will take time to understand your business objectives, revenue models, and timelines. Only then will they make appropriate strategy recommendations. Any SEO pricing will be based on the strategy- how much work is involved in achieving the keyword ranking objectives and revenue goals.
The two most common mistakes committed while picking up an agency for customized SEO are:
- One of the most common mistakes business owners make while picking up an SEO agency is that most of them only focus on rankings and traffic and not on keywords. Rankings and traffic are significant, but if this traffic does not convert into sales, it doesn’t matter. As a business entrepreneur, your main goal is to increase your revenue. Keyword research is a major issue with most of the SEO companies. They usually don’t even bother about picking up the right keywords. They ask the clients which terms they want to rank for. Now the clients do not know the right keywords. It is not even their business because that’s why they are paying the agency. So you might end up with keywords with very little market research done on them. The search volume of a phrase determines the amount of traffic. So ask the SEO agencies what keywords they would suggest and also why they would recommend those keywords. If the answer sounds satisfactory, you then stick with those keywords.
- The second most common mistake business owners make while picking up an SEO company is that they make the cost of SEO the most important criterion. If you are serious about SEO, you need to be aware of two things:
- SEO is like paid traffic. You get traffic as long as you pay for it.
SEO takes a little time until you get to the top of the search engines, and once you’ve got there, you need to continue doing SEO because otherwise, your rankings will drop. That’s not what you want to happen. - Secondly, to rank your website, the agency needs to create backlinks on others’ sites pointing to your site. The sites they are building these links on should be relevant to your website, and they also need to carry some authority in the eyes of Google.These links have to be purchased. These links can cost you 300$ per month or even more.
- SEO is like paid traffic. You get traffic as long as you pay for it.
An SEO agency providing customized SEO should offer the following services:
On-page SEO
On-page SEO means optimizing all the elements visible on a webpage. These elements include your technical set-up, visual and textual content, your code quality, and how user friendly your site is. Commonly used on-page SEO practices are optimizing title tags, meta tags, content, internal links, and URLs. So an SEO agency should be catering to all the aspects of on-page optimization for custom SEO.
Off-page SEO
Ask the SEO agency about its off-page SEO services. It should direct its organic search marketing efforts towards getting backlinks from authoritative sites that are deemed respectful from Google’s perspective. This will make your content more potent and will amplify your brand.
Local SEO
Your SEO agency must incorporate local SEO as part of its customized SEO strategy. Local SEO means optimizing your website for an audience located in the same geographical area. This is particularly important for small businesses that have a local clientele.
Content development
A good SEO agency should help you build relevant and authoritative, high-quality content with its effective customized SEO strategy. Your content should be in sync with your specific business objectives.
Search marketing
An SEO agency should have expertise in digital marketing strategies to increase the visibility of your website in the SERP’s. It is a very crucial marketing strategy to expand your company’s reach, with the ever-increasing number of online consumers.
Conversion optimization
Conversion Optimization techniques are vital to your business. A good SEO company should employ all such methods that are useful to convert your website traffic into sales. All activities that refine the experience of your users should form part of the company’s SEO strategy.
Social media
An SEO agency should incorporate social media strategy into its customized SEO plan. Social media marketing fortifies your SEO efforts in entirety and helps you expand your reach across multiple channels.
Mobile Optimization
The SEO agency you decide to work with should implement mobile optimization at all levels of its customized SEO plan. Your website should be responsive. A site that provides an excellent experience to its users viewing on mobile will yield fruitful results for your business.
On a concluding note:
Search Engines are the new Yellow Pages. People find all their answers on search engines. Billions of searches are made each day. You have to show up on the results page else; you will miss out on the vast untapped potential.
