Choosing the right SEO agency to optimize your website for better Google rankings (search engine optimization) is an important component of your company's marketing strategy. Search engine optimization must be tailored to the needs and specific industry of your business.
Even if an SEO agency has optimized your website, it does not necessarily mean it will attract visitors (traffic). And even if visitors reach your website, they may not convert, meaning they might not provide their contact information in exchange for content such as a free downloadable whitepaper. You need specific SEO techniques to achieve high visibility in Google's search engine results pages (SERPs). You should establish the key points for this when choosing your SEO agency.
Research is a crucial element of SEO success. If your SEO agency does not have a standardized, documented, and traceable research process, your entire SEO project is unlikely to succeed, as it will be unclear what exactly is being optimized.
Always request a keyword list and a process description in advance. You need to clearly understand how the agency plans your search engine optimization and whether it seems reasonable to you.
A good SEO agency will provide recommendations for improving all areas of your website—from the design of your website to user experience and lead generation effectiveness.
Ensure that all aspects are optimized—insist on an analysis of your website concerning design and layout, navigation, coding, content, and link structures.
Particularly, the coding, content quality, and the design of incoming and outgoing links on your website are crucial factors for the success of your search engine optimization.
A good SEO agency will assess which competitors in your industry already have an effective SEO strategy. If there is no competitor analysis, how will the agency know who to compete against? A website should always be part of your overall business strategy—and thus also part of your competitive strategy.
If your SEO agency does not understand the difference between your online and offline competitors, they are unlikely to know how to tailor a strategy to outperform them.
Your SEO agency should also promote your visibility on other third-party websites to obtain valuable links for your website. Ensure that your SEO agency develops a detailed plan for this.
Only when a detailed plan is established and discussed in a strategy meeting with you can you assess how professionally and sustainably your SEO agency will manage link-building. Often, such strategy plans are not focused on the keywords that are crucial for your success.
The SEO agency must first understand your business, your industry, and the search behavior of your target customers before a keyword discussion and link-building strategy can even take place.