Are you looking to hire an agency but unsure how to choose an SEO company?
In today’s age, having a strong online presence is more important than ever for businesses.
But choosing an agency for B2B SEO services or organic SEO services can be challenging — there are so many options and you can feel overwhelmed.
In this guide, we’ll break down what to look for when choosing an SEO company so you can make a quick, educated decision.
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Why SEO is Important?
As mentioned above, SEO is essential for businesses that want to be found online.
Here are some of the benefits of SEO:
- Increased website traffic: When your website ranks higher in SERPs, it will receive more traffic from organic search. Organic traffic is free traffic, meaning you don’t have to pay for advertising.
- More leads and sales: Increased website traffic can lead to more leads and sales. When potential customers find your website through organic search, they’re more likely to be interested in what you offer.
- Improved brand reputation: When your website is visible in SERPs, it helps build trust and credibility with potential customers, increasing brand awareness and loyalty.
- Cost-effectiveness: SEO is a long-term investment but can be very cost-effective in the long run. Once you’ve optimized your website for SEO, you can expect steady traffic and leads for years.
Role of an SEO Company in Driving Business Growth
So, how do SEO companies help with business growth?
Here are 4 ways they help you meet your goals:
1. Improve Search Engine Rankings
An SEO partner can help you to improve your ranking in organic search results.
They optimize your website with relevant keywords, create quality content, and utilize effective on-page strategies, making your content relevant to users and search engines.
2. Boost Your Online Visibility
SEO companies help you improve your online brand visibility and help potential customers find you.
By implementing several SEO tactics, your business can appear on top search queries and you’ll gain more visibility.
3. Generate Qualified Leads From Search Engines
Typically, an SEO firm starts with identifying your ideal customer, analyzing your competitors, and finding keywords that your target audience is searching for.
They then create a well-designed SEO strategy to help you target the right audience likely to convert to paying customers.
4. Helps You Convert Leads From the Site
An SEO partner doesn’t just help you get on top of search results.
They can combine high-quality content with other tactics, such as improving the user experience (UX) and creating clear call-to-action buttons. Ultimately, these tactics help your audience feel comfortable, increasing conversions.
Want to leverage all the SEO benefits?
Partner with us to take your content strategy to the next level and help drive website traffic, increase visibility, and boost conversions.
Schedule a free audit and start the journey to accelerate your business growth.
Common Challenges When Selecting an SEO Partner
Below, we’ll explore the challenges and disappointments businesses have when finding an SEO partner:
- Lack of Clear Goals: Without clear goals and objectives, expectations can be mismatched between you and an SEO agency. If you don’t provide the agency with a clear direction, you might be disappointed with the results your agency delivers.
- Falling for Guarantees: Google expressly warns about SEO companies that guarantee your website will rank in the search engines for specific keywords in a certain amount of time. For example, claims to “achieve #1 ranking in one week” or “have a special relationship with Google or Bing.”
- Lack of Transparency: Another mistake is settling for an SEO agency that provides vague answers to your questions, uses jargon to deflect your inquiries, and is reluctant to share their methods and tactics for optimizing your website.
- Choosing Solely on Low Prices: While it’s crucial to get quality SEO services without overspending, it’s a mistake to prioritize costs over quality. A company with low prices might damage your SEO efforts and lack the expertise and resources to deliver the best results.
- Overemphasis on Quantity Over Quality: Most businesses are often impressed by agencies that promise to publish hundreds of content. While on the surface, it looks like an excellent idea, these agencies might use spammy tactics, harming your website rankings and reputation in the long run.
What to Look for in an SEO Company
There are a few key things to look for when choosing an SEO company:
- Experience: The SEO agency you select must have a proven track record of success. While industry knowledge can be beneficial, a history of delivering results speaks volumes. They should have expertise in identifying and optimizing keywords that resonate with your target audience.
- Reputation: Be sure to research them and see what other businesses have said about the company you’re considering. Look for reviews on websites like Google Business Profile, Yelp, and Trustpilot.
- Transparency: The agency you choose should be transparent about its services and pricing. They should explain how they will improve your website’s ranking and what results you can expect.
- Communication: It’s also essential to communicate effectively with them. They should be responsive to your questions and concerns and keep you updated on the progress of your project.
- Commitment: The agency you choose should be committed to your success. They should be willing to work with you to develop a customized SEO strategy that meets your specific needs.
How to Choose the Right Technical SEO Agency
What to look for in an SEO company?
We’ve shared the 3 key factors you should consider when evaluating technical SEO agencies:
- Review their Experience and Expertise. Ideally, the agency should have at least five years of experience and plenty of case studies highlighting its expertise working with companies similar to yours.
- Fully staffed Team: Look for an SEO company with a technical team that is experts in analytics, coding, and other technical areas.
- A Holistic SEO Process: Check if an agency takes a complete approach to SEO, going beyond fixing individual issues. They should analyze your website and consider all aspects of SEO, including keyword research, content optimization, and page speed.
Questions to Ask an SEO Company
If you’re like most people with little SEO knowledge, you’ll probably wonder what questions you should ask an SEO agency.
We’ve compiled a series of questions you should ask:
What is your experience working with businesses in my industry?
Determine the agency’s experience working with businesses in an industry similar to yours. The SEO experts will have invaluable knowledge in creating customized strategies that address your unique challenges.
Can you provide case studies of successful SEO campaigns for similar clients?
Ask the SEO agency to provide proof of previous clients they’ve worked with. This could be case studies explaining how they achieved the results.
Is your agency’s strategy optimized to generate traffic or conversions?
It’s essential to ask this question and determine whether your SEO budget will generate actual conversions (demos, signups, paying customers, and leads) and ROI. Unfortunately, most agencies prioritize traffic-focused keywords with high search volume but have low buying intent, hoping that conversions will follow.
Which facet of SEO — keyword research and content, technical SEO, link building — do you do?
The right agency should prioritize offering keyword research services and creating quality content. They can provide technical SEO, on-page SEO, and link-building as complementary services.
Do you provide content briefs?
If you prefer working with your in-house team, ask the agency if they can perform keyword research, categorize the keywords by buying intent, and provide content briefs to help your team strategically write articles to rank for the suggested keywords.
How to Work With an SEO Company
Once you’ve decided, setting clear expectations and establishing a good working relationship is important.
Here are a few tips for working with an SEO company:
- Set clear goals: Before you start, set clear goals. What do you want to achieve with SEO? Do you want to increase website traffic? Generate more leads? Increase sales?
- Provide the necessary information: Your agency will need access to your website and other marketing materials to optimize it for search engines. Ensure you provide them with all the information they need to get started.
- Be patient: SEO is a long-term process. It takes time to see results from SEO. Don’t expect to see overnight success.
- Communicate regularly: It’s essential to communicate with them periodically. Staying in touch with them will help you stay informed about the progress of your campaign and address any concerns you may have.
- Be willing to make changes: As your business grows and changes, your SEO strategy may also need to change. Be ready to work with them to make the necessary changes to your strategy to achieve your goals.
Best Practices for Onboarding an SEO Partner
A lot goes into hiring an SEO agency beyond signing a contract.
Check our quick checklist to have an effective SEO partner onboarding:
- Educate Your Agency about Your Business: Give your agency information about your target audience, primary competitors, and the key differentiators of your offerings. Also, let the agency meet the key people they’ll be actively involved with.
- Define Your Goals: Hold a kickoff call to let the SEO experts know what you hope to accomplish from their activities.
- Share Your SEO Knowledge Level: Agree on communication mediums and let the agency know your level of SEO expertise so they can decide how to share reports with you.
- Brand and Messaging: Share your internal brand guidelines that showcase your brand tone, writing style, and messaging to help the SEO company maintain that across your website.
Check out our process of working with us to execute a content-focused SEO strategy.
Top 5 SEO Services to Outsource
When venturing into the world of SEO, sometimes it’s best to leave certain tasks to the experts.
Here are the top 5 SEO services you should consider outsourcing for optimal results:
- Keyword Research: While it might seem straightforward, understanding the intricacies of keyword intent and volume requires tools and expertise. An SEO agency will find the most effective keywords for your business.
- Link Building: Establishing high-quality backlinks from reputable sources is crucial for SEO but can be time-consuming. Expert services will help you gain these authoritative links.
- Content Creation: You must regularly publish high-quality content. Outsource to professionals who can create SEO-optimized content that resonates with your audience.
- Technical SEO Audits: Audits delve deep into your website’s backend to ensure optimal performance. From site speed to crawl errors, an agency can spot and rectify issues you might overlook.
- Local SEO Optimization: Being found in local searches is crucial if you’re a local business. Experts can optimize your online presence for your geographic area, from Google Business Profile to local backlinks.
Outsourcing these services ensures allows you to focus on other core business activities and off loads it to an expert who you can almost consider as your fractional SEO.
Best SEO Company for B2B Businesses – TrioSEO
At TrioSEO, we’ve worked with dozens of B2B businesses from financial, tech, and ecommerce to SaaS (and more).
Here’s why we are the go-to company for B2B SEO services:
Execute a Complete Content Marketing Process
Forget the SEO firms that do an audit, give you recommendations to implement, and leave you to create the content. Instead, we will execute a complete marketing strategy for you, from planning to publishing and optimizing for on-page SEO elements.
Precision and Thorough Keyword Research
We will conduct extensive keyword research to find the most searched keywords in your niche. We’ll also compare your website against your rivals to identify the keywords they are ranking for and you’re not.
High-Quality Content Created for You
All our content is 100% human, written and edited, and informed by detailed briefs from your company. We create content that matches the keywords your target audience is searching for and discuss your services or products in extreme detail. We don’t stop there — we refresh your existing site pages and optimize the content to rank for new keywords.
High-Quality On-Page SEO
We don’t just publish content and hope it ranks. At TrioSEO, we follow our on-page SEO checklist that involves optimizing the content for all devices, adding optimized images, and incorporating external and internal links.
Regular Reporting Month Over Month
We share weekly performance reports and content updates via email, helping you make strategic decisions anytime and keeping you in the loop with the SEO progress. We also include DIY SEO tips, educating you along the way and helping you become a better SEO expert.
Want to get started on our B2B SEO services? Let’s run a free SEO audit and partner with us to develop a customized content strategy to leverage untapped SEO opportunities.
FAQs on Choosing an SEO Company
Below are a few frequently asked questions about hiring an SEO strategist or company:
How Much Does SEO Cost?
The cost of SEO can vary depending on the size of your website, the complexity of your industry, and the goals of your campaign.
However, you should expect to pay between $500 and $5,000 for monthly SEO services. If you want to learn more about budgeting, check out our guide, which has an SEO cost calculator.
How Long Does it Take to See Results from SEO?
It can take several months to see results from SEO. However, if you’re working with a reputable SEO company, you should see some positive movement in the SERPs within 3-6 months.
What are the Benefits of Working with an SEO Agency?
There are several benefits to working with an SEO agency, including:
- They possess expertise and experience
- They offer progress reports regularly
- They can avoid costly errors
- They can save time
Why is an SEO Audit Important When Selecting a Company?
An SEO audit is essential when selecting an SEO partner to help you assess if an agency:
- Prioritizes quick fixes or have a long-term approach to SEO
- Can communicate complex concepts clearly and provide detailed reporting
- Understands technical SEO concepts and their capabilities for creating and optimizing content
Pro Tip: We start every client engagement with a free consultation and website audit, which includes checking for keyword opportunities and analyzing your competitors in depth.
How Do SEO Companies Measure ROI for Campaigns?
Here are 3 ways SEO companies measure the ROI for campaigns:
- Use multiple tools like Google Analytics, Search Console, and Semrush to get insights on the website performance, monitor organic traffic, track keyword rankings and conversions.
- Analyze the costs related to SEO campaigns and subtract these costs from SEO revenue to determine the net profit.
- Use tools like CrazyEgg to analyze user behavior, such as heat maps and recording users’ sessions.
Why Should I Avoid Companies That Offer Guaranteed Rankings?
Here are significant reasons you should avoid companies that guarantee specific rankings or traffic numbers:
- They often use manipulative (black hat SEO) tactics that violate search engine policies.
- The tricks may result in temporary fixes but lead to your site penalties and bans from search engines in the long run.
- You might waste time and money on guaranteed SEO, which you would have used to achieve sustainable, long-lasting SEO results.
- Google has issued an official warning about it.
How Does an SEO Company Stay Updated on Algorithm Changes?
Check out some of the strategies an SEO company might use to stay updated on algorithm changes and ensure their clients’ sites are competitive and visible on the SERPs:
- Attend webinars, participate in forums, and take courses to ensure their knowledge is current and they can quickly adapt to new algorithm changes.
- Use tools like Moz, SEMrush, and Google Search Console to monitor algorithms and their impact on SEO strategies.
- Consistently auditing the clients’ sites performance and monitoring the keyword ranking.
- Set up Google alerts to get notified on time.
Conclusion
Choosing the right SEO company can be daunting, but it’s vital to research and choose an experienced, reputable, and transparent.
By following the tips in this guide, you’ll be well on your way to finding the perfect SEO company for your business.
Here are some additional tips for choosing an SEO company:
- Make sure the agency understands your business and audience.
- Get everything in writing, including services, timeline, and cost.
- Remember: SEO is a long-term but rewarding process.
- Get multiple quotes from different SEO companies.
- Be clear about your budget and expectations.
- Ask for references from past clients.
