Nowadays SEO seems to be something that everyone has heard about, some know a bit about it, but you can hardly find an expert who can really help you get ranked well on search engines. How can you differentiate SEO experts from the agencies that are just dabbling in it while calling themselves ‘SEO experts’. There are a few simple steps you should follow when deciding how to choose the right SEO company. But before that, you need to focus on your SEO goals and on making sure these are realistic.
Define your goals and expectations
So, what is your current SEO ranking and what do you want to achieve? Depending on what you’d like to work on – whether it is the website traffic you’d like to improve or just to be ranked X for the selected keywords, you can choose to focus on actual results (increase daily search traffic) or on getting ranked number 1 for the selected keywords; you can define your goals and expectations.
Find top 10 companies
This step is simple. Find the top 10 candidates. Ask a friend or a business partner for a recommendation. The list will initially be longer, but you can check company’s portfolio and when you narrow down the list to the top 10, you are ready for the next step.
Check their own SEO rankings
This is an important step as it will show the results of their work. How are they ranked for the relevant keywords? Is their website SEO compliant? You can run it through a website checker (it is free and simple) and also check out their meta descriptions, tags or SEO techniques too. This should help you narrow down the list further and get to the top 5 companies you might want to get in touch with.
Ask for case studies
If the case studies are not available on the website, you might want to ask them to send these over. If they are an experienced company, I am sure they will have something to share with you. Check the case studies – they should provide important figures and numbers that should show the results they’ve achieved with the existing clients. Check how their client’s rankings have improved in time, on a monthly basis. Compare the results with the other companies you are in touch with and see what makes most sense. Remember this: if you see that a company has brought their client’s rankings from 100 to 1 in a month, chances are the numbers you are looking at are fake!
Discuss your goals with the short-listed companies
An experienced SEO expert will be able to discuss your expectations and goals with you. Ask the right questions. Ask them to confirm the goals are realistic, encourage them to set the wrong goals right and explain why something is unrealistic and discuss the goals with them. This should help them understand your goals better and it should help you trust them.
Ask yourself if you could trust the company
Finally, in this phase, your list should contain top 3 candidates. The results from their case studies may vary and that is fine. If you are not sure what company you want to hire, ask yourself which company you can trust. The one who you think you could trust the most is the right choice! Good luck!
In Summary
This is the selection process we have gone through with the majority of our clients who have taken this SEO work seriously. This was the case with our client, J3 Building Solutions, a leading commercial, industrial a residential construction company based in Newcastle and we are so proud to have been selected in the process.