Keys to choose the right SEO positioning agency
We can tell you that finding a suitable SEO positioning agency for your business will be very easy for you. But here at Chili we don’t like to sugarcoat things.
The truth is that there are hundreds and even thousands of SEO agencies. Each of them is different, with their own strengths and weaknesses. Ultimately, the decision of which one to hire should depend on what your business needs.
But before deciding, you should know which services are offered by an SEO agency and the keys to distinguish serious companies from those that are not. Let’s go for it!
Services offered by an SEO agency
As you know, an SEO positioning agency guarantees that your site appears in organic Google searches.
Basically, they respond to the need of how to appear on the first page of Google. For this, you must carry out a series of actions. They can range from getting to know your business and your target audience, to implementing technical changes to your website, writing content, and tracking key metrics.
Among the services offered by an SEO agency, we can mention the following.
Website audit
It is one of the technical parts of the job. Also, it’s usually the first thing that an SEO positioning agency does when a potential client contacts. (At least it is the first thing we do in Chili, and it is a service that we offer for free).
A website audit involves:
- Preparation of a site map.
- Total SEO score of the website.
- Tracking of non-existent and duplicate pages.
- Discharge time measurement.
- Analysis of the characteristics of the current traffic.
- Evaluation of the quality of backlinks and content.
- Recommendations for link building (external and internal).
Audience and market analysis
Not all businesses and potential customers are the same. For this reason, an SEO agency must have specialists that look for trends, that study the competition, and that analyze search volumes.
These will be the pillars on which the SEO positioning strategy will be built.
Goal agreement
Now that the professionals know what condition your website is in and what is the context in which your business is developing, it is time to establish the objectives.
Setting up objectives is a job that the SEO agency must do together with the client. You must consider the needs of the client and the real possibilities offered by organic Google searches.
What do we mean? The client can expect to triple the visits to their site and, to top it off, they want it within 60 days. That is impossible to achieve.
For that reason, everyone should agree on the targets. Consequently, everyone knows what to expect and how to assess the success or failure of the strategy.
Strategy development
Now, with all the business information and objectives, the time has come to design a strategy. An SEO positioning agency must address the issue with an arsenal of different tools:
- content marketing
- Optimization of titles, URLs and meta descriptions
- Improved download speed
- Incorporation of internal links
- Linkbuilding
- Responsive design
Another key aspect of the strategy has to do with the KPIs (key performance indicators). Every KPI must be measurable and relevant. That is, you should be able to objectively track and keep a record of your KPIs over time. Also, they must be related to at least one of the proposed objectives.
Some KPIs related to Google organic searches are:
- amount of organic traffic
- mobile organic traffic
- Pages per session
- session duration
- keyword ranking
- domain authority
- Conversion rate
- ROI
- bounce rate
- Etc.
The truth is that there are more than 50 metrics to choose from. Therefore, it is important to consider only the necessary ones. Otherwise, there will be an excess of data that will not allow you to focus on those that are really relevant.
Execution and analysis of results
The time has come to put all the previous work to the test and, once enough time has passed, analyze how the SEO strategy has gone.
For this final analysis it is necessary to write a report that takes the current values of the KPIs and compares them with those of the beginning. That way you can see if they have met your expectations. Besides, after interpreting work, it will be possible to formulate hypotheses about why you succeeded and/or failed.
Iteration
Iterating does not mean having failed; it is an elementary part of any SEO effort. In fact, on the first try there might be more misses than hits, and that’s not bad.
The important thing here is to know what you have done right, what you’ve done wrong, and how to fix it. Furthermore, even with good results, there is always room for improvement.
How to know if you need an SEO agency
In an ideal world, all companies would have an SEO positioning agency. With their help, it is much easier to increase visits and, accordingly, sales.
It happens that positioning well in Google is always important, we would say vital to survive. For now, it is a sign of a business that fulfills the three “-ble”: Healthy, respectable, and profitable.
But unfortunately we do not live in an ideal world and we spend our days behind income, expenses, budgets and balance sheets. Although SEO has an ROI that more than recovers any investment, its results can take a while.
However, there are times when it is clear that a business needs an SEO agency. For example, if your web page receives few visitors; or receives a few visits, but with no conversions.
In the first case, it is clear that the company is not using the correct keywords and that search engines are not indexing them correctly. In the second case, the audience it attracts may not be appropriate. Or, there may be a problem on the page (technical or design) that does not allow users to act.
It’s also wise to hire an SEO agency if you can afford to seek long-term results. Or, if you’re already investing in quicker marketing strategies, such as paid advertising.
3 indicators that an SEO agency is the right one (and 3 red flags)
It has a multidisciplinary team
We have already seen that to appear among the first results of Google’s organic searches, it is necessary to cover different battlefronts.
You have to know the target audience, know what the competition is doing, find the right keywords, write useful and entertaining content, improve technical aspects of the website, and much more.
That, of course, requires having a multidisciplinary team in which professionals from different areas work: Marketing experts, editors, web developers, etc. Anyone who says they can do all that is lying, they do it very badly, or they deserve a Nobel.
2. It is transparent about its processes
SEO is not magic, nor does it involve secret recipes. Your tools are there, within everyone’s reach. For this reason, an SEO company should have no problem explaining what its action plan is and explaining it in great detail.
Imagine a surgeon who is going to operate on you and does not know (or does not want to) explain to you what the procedure will consist of. That probably won’t inspire confidence, since it’s your body that will be under the knife.
With an SEO positioning agency it is similar. Your life is not at risk, but your business is.
It is true that marketing has specific terms, a jargon of its own that can be somewhat difficult to understand at first. However, that is not an excuse, since one of the most important jobs of an SEO agency is to explain to their client what they are going to do.
3. Has experience
Lastly, the experience. For every thousand people who watched a tutorial on YouTube, only one went through it and checked if it works. Although we have just invented this information, you will agree with us that it will have some truth.
SEO positioning is a long process that involves many different stages (pre-study, planning, execution, evaluation, and iteration). In other words, it is difficult and requires sustained effort over time.
Having a lot of experience means that you’ve done this before and you’ve shown your ability to do it. In that sense, an SEO agency with experience and good references to verify it is an agency that you will want to hire.
The 3 warning signs
- They guarantee great results in a short time:The number 1 commandment to appear on the first page of Google is to be patient. No agency can guarantee results, much less fast.
- Their prices are very low: Does something seem too good to be true? If an agency offers prices that are too low, it means that their services are worthless. And as cheap as it is, if it doesn’t work, it will be expensive.
- They ask for account credentials: A big warning sign. While you’ll want the SEO agency to manage the accounts (that’s what you pay them for), you should always have control over access to them. Otherwise, if one day the relationship stops working and you want to leave them, problems could start.
How to start working with an SEO positioning agency
Very simple: For the first step, an SEO audit. With it you will be able to know in what situation your website is and, more importantly, what the SEO agency has to offer you.
At Chili we offer free SEO audits so you can learn how our team of professionals works. This report includes:
- Website Total SEO Score
- Duplicate content, tag and title recommendations
- Content Quality Score
- Frequency of keywords and areas for improvement
- immediate action points
- Recommendation of internal and external links
- Page performance, including page download and response time
- Backlink quality
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