Search engine optimisation is crucial if you want to improve your website and your brand’s online exposure. By utilising SEO strategies, you can drive lots of traffic to your website and increase your sales. SEO is one of those marketing strategies that is constantly evolving, so it is important to hire the right company that knows what it’s doing. Hiring an SEO company can be one of the most daunting tasks you ever do for your business, but if you do it right, it can change the course of your business forever. Below we have compiled a list of 10 questions that you need to ask SEO companies that you want to potentially work with in 2022.
What type of strategies does Your SEO company focus on?
For an SEO campaign to be successful, the company needs to work on all aspects of search engine optimisation. SEO is not just a bunch of code or high-volume keywords and involves much more. To achieve actual results from SEO, the company must work on:
- Technical SEO: Involves things like structuring your data, your URL, crawling, indexing and more.
- On-page SEO: Involves factors such as the quality of content, page speed optimisation, metadata and more.
- Off-page SEO: This focuses on external factors such as backlinks, social media marketing and being active on forums.
You should also make sure they do not use any black hat SEO tactics, and all their optimisations are done through white hat methods.
What is your pricing model?
For those of you who are working within a budget, this is the first question that you must ask SEO companies. Different SEO companies may price their SEO packages very differently from each other. You should make sure they can deliver what you are looking for with the budget you have. Some companies even let you pay for results achieved only, and this seems to be a preferred option for small businesses or people who don’t have a big budget.
How long will it take to see results?
Generally, it takes 3 to 6 months for SEO to give you any noticeable results. There are SEO strategies that can give you faster results, but they’re usually done through the manipulation of search engines and can do more harm than good to your site in the long run. Great SEO takes time, and it is not an overnight process. When asking this question from SEO companies, ensure they can deliver results in a similar amount of time. If a company promises significant results in a month, it’s a red flag, and it should not be trusted.
Can I know some of your current or past clients?
Before you pay thousands of dollars to an SEO company, it is smart to make sure they can actually deliver the results they are promising. One of the best ways to do this is by looking at their past performance. Make sure they have case studies and testimonials on their website but don’t just stop there. Talk to those clients and ask them about their experience of working with that company. It’s also important to check if the agency has experience within your industry, especially if you work in a complex niche.
How do you handle link building?
You should look for companies that get backlinks through organic link building, focusing on quality content and building good relationships. A legitimate link-building process involves balancing to avoid any link schemes or tactics that can negatively affect your website. Link schemes can include buying links, too many link exchanges and massive guest posting campaigns. Google may lower the ranking of sites that are involved in such activities, so it’s best to avoid working with companies that are suspicious of getting backlinks this way.
How is SEO success measured?
This is an important question because to truly determine how successful an SEO campaign is, we have to measure things we can control. For example, if you sell surfing equipment and hire an SEO agency at the beginning of summer, then you should not measure success by your organic traffic. Because it’s highly likely that even without the agency lifting a finger, your organic traffic and sales would increase just because more people go surfing during the summer. Many SEO companies will avoid this question because it gives them the flexibility of picking and choosing what they call successful later on.
Do you work with another SEO company?
Usually, if someone’s working with your competitor, that’s not a good thing, but not when it comes to SEO. Chances are, if an SEO company has worked with your competitors, they are familiar with your niche. This also allows you to find out whether the company was able to deliver successful results for your competitors and get an idea of what they are going to be able to do for you. Ask them about the things they learned about your industry from working with your competitor.
How often will you communicate with us?
An SEO company should contact you at least once a week to keep you updated with the current progress of the work. If you like to have more frequent communication, then make sure to let the company know in the beginning. If a company only contacts you once a month, it’s not a good sign. Companies like this usually want to hide the amount of work they are actually doing.
How do you choose which keywords to target?
The keywords used in your site’s content are crucial to delivering the desired results. A good SEO agency will use a combination of searcher intent, relevance, the keyword’s competition level and search traffic to find and target the right keywords for your business. If they are doing things right, your website will start showing improvement in terms of ranking for those targeted keywords.
What if you part away from your SEO company?
If you decide to stop working with your SEO company for any reason, you must make sure you have ownership of everything done to optimise your site and its content. Make sure that your agency will not delete the content they have created if you decide to part ways with them. This information should be specified in the contract before you sign it. Be thorough in the interview process and get all the answers you need. By going through these questions, you will feel more comfortable in your decision to trust another company with your SEO needs.
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