There is a sea of SEO Agencies all of sudden – everywhere you look. In 2010 the market seems to have exploded and doing any search for any type of SEO activity reveals one expert or another. Dig a little deeper and in fact some are not really specialists at all in fact some are quite good at throwing an automated tool at your site or consider search engine optimisations to be just about getting your company name on Google. So whats the trick, and how do you find an agency that you can trust todo the work? - afterall its going to be a long haul. It can take months to get to number 1 for a competitive keyword so you need to know that whoever is doing it, is doing it correctly and doing the intelligent leg work. There is a lot of guidance around and Google will provide their own checklist. But here is one thats a lot simpler:
1) Do they perform an accurate keyword analysis. This should show you exactly what keywords are generating traffic for phrase and exact match searches. Don’t be fooled into choosing any keyword that they select. If it hasn’t got traffic, its not worth doing.
2) Are they realistic with you expectations. Lets face it – if you are a plumber and want to reach page 1 for that keyword. Its not going to happen unless you are really in it for the long term. However “London Plumber” and “UK Plumber” are much more realistic and with words that are more focused you will see benefits much sooner.
3) Will they report back every month with details about what they have done and where you stand in the search engine rankings (SERPS) together with real progress. (if you are not moving up every month – there is something wrong)
4) Are they building links intelligently and efficiently. One link a month is not going to cut it – and the links need to relevant. Most of the work in SEO is research into finding good quality websites that will allow you to publish good quality content.
5) Lastly – do you feel good about this relationship? You will be working with a partner who will be performing a great deal of work on your behalf and directly effecting your revenue. During this time your site will go up and down through the rankings, and eventually it will get to where you want it to be – so you need to feel confident that this is the right choice….and sometimes gut feel goes a long way.
If you want to more information on selecting a partner then call us for impartial straight talking advice on 0845 519 2144
