SEO Cowboys & Indians
We visit many different clients, in size, stature and market, and they always seem to have the same words to say about their current or previous SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) company, 'they didn't do very much at all for the money they charged' or 'the promised the earth and delivered nothing'.
It is important to understand the difference between a professional SEO Company, such as SEO Clinic, and web design agencies who have ‘tagged’ SEO on to their services because they can charge lucrative fees, but they are not experts in the field.
One of our SEO team went to see a customer this week, for a review, they had spent £20,000 with an ‘SEO’ company last year and they managed to get them 4th page in Google for their most desirable keyword, we have been working with them for two month and it is now mid page one. So it is easy to see how you can spend a lot of money and not get very far with agencies (big and small) who promise the earth, charge a lot and then don’t deliver, by that time it is too late and the money is spent.
So we have compiled a list of tips / questions you will need to ask your SEO Company before you sign on the dotted line, and please bear in mind this goes for large well known agencies as well as the smaller ones.
1. Read the contract
Take a look at their contract, long term contracts are fine, but these don’t allow you to stop the work if you are not happy. We offer a 30 days rolling contract, this gives the customer peace of mind and shows the confidence we have in our service. There are cowboy SEO companies that basically sign you up and then know you can’t cancel. Having said this, there are also some good companies who use this model, so discuss the contract, can you put in review dates that allow some movement? Most decent SEO companies will be happy to negotiate.
2. Who is doing the work?
Ask about their methods, is your SEO work being done in-house or is it out sourced, I know of some SEO agencies (again not small ones) that use workers in other countries to complete all their work from link building to the actual SEO process. Now, the point is not outsourcing work, it’s that work is carried out by people who don’t understand the nuances of the English language so the work can be a little confusing. Again if the teams are well briefed then this style can work but we complete all SEO work in-house, we outsource some of the on-going work but the building blocks of our campaigns (keyword research - hand completed optimisation) are all in-house so we can get them right.
3. Link Building / Reporting
Make sure you will be getting regular updates and, if the company is promising link building, that they provide link reports to you with the normal monthly ranking reports. One of the most common complaints we hear is that the companies don’t provide much in the way of clarity for customers, we provide full clarity – if you have a question - ask it, if you need information about your accounts we will provide it. As a matter of course we provide monthly ranking and link reports as well as an email review of the account (as standard – more in depth reports can be provided with larger accounts).
4. Promises
Many Indian tribes use rain dances to invoke a storm when rain is needed, we can view a promise of rankings in the same light, sometimes it might be achieved and sometimes it may not. The point here is Google is not an entity to be controlled, we can understand some of how the algorithm works, and we can test to see which processes work and which don’t, but we can’t categorically determine how seo techniques will work in Google. SEO is about using a variety of techniques that work to enhance the rankings of a site. We can indicate where you will probably be, in terms of rankings; in a time period but we, at SEO Clinic, do not offer guarantees. Beware of those promising the world.
5. Transparency & Honesty
We genuinely value openness and honesty at SEO Clinic, I know many of you will be thinking you have heard that before, but those that use us and those that know us, will tell you these principles are at the forefront of how we work. Check the proposed SEO company out, can they provide verbal and written testimonials? Can they offer real evidence that there methods and processes work. We can provide both written and verbal testimonials, please take a look at our SEO testimonials page for more information.
Ultimately just be careful, ask as many questions as you can think of, make sure you are comfortable with the company, can you work well with them? are they proposing work that seems to fit your business model. If you would like us to review any work or provide a free seo assessment for your site, contact us for more information.
