Jeff Williams 17 April 2015

Categories Advertising, Search Marketing

5 Factors To Consider Before Hiring An SEO Agency

Cost, experience or customer reviews? What would you look for in a good SEO agency?

If you haven't been able to list the important filtering factors, here's a little help. In the following article we've spoken about 5 important factors you need to consider before signing on an SEO agency.

With billions of websites on the internet and, each one of them trying to rank above it's competitors, SEO has certainly become a tough egg to crack. So when you're looking for SEO agencies to help you out with visibility and rankings, you should ensure they're capable of handling the grind and offer you results too. So what would you look for when searching for an SEO agency? Here are 5 important factors talked about, to set the ball rolling.

5 Factors To Consider Before Hiring An SEO Company
Experience
Experience maketh man. Well, this phrase wasn't coined without a reason. Experience does have its own impact and a significant one and it's true for businesses as well. While you may find a large number of the newly established SEO agencies offering you an attractive deal on their SEO services, chances are that they'll be running off the book theories solely. Besides, with experienced agencies, you can expect long term benefits from your SEO as compared to the new new ones who more often than not, plan for the short term.

Market Presence
With experience comes recognition and market presence. Now, this may be a little difficult to find out about but, it can save you a headache or two, if you're successful in doing it. A good way to find out about the market penetration of the agencies is by searching about it on Google. You'll find a number of links available for the agency, which are on pages other than the agency's own website. These pages will mostly comprise of referrals and reviews about the agency in question. Reading those carefully will help you gain significant insight into the market presence of the agency.

Customer Reviews
One of the most powerful measuring tool, customer reviews are the best way to know about an agency and the quality of services it offers. In other words, it's what separates the veterans from the amateurs. And, a good SEO agency will offer their customer reviews upfront for it's prospective clients to view. While you can search on Google for customer reviews on an agency, but chances are, you'll mostly find negative ones, even for the good agencies. Hence, ask the agency for their clientele and customer reviews straightforward.

Results
Words are hollow unless they are backed with results. While many many argue that tracking the progress of SEO activities isn't easy, there are metrics which help show results. Good SEO agencies wit have a list of metrics with the help of which they'll tract your SEO's progress. In fact, they'll provide you with reports periodically to show the progress of your website and how well it's responding to the SEO activities being performed on it. You can also ask them to show you case studies or samples of the successful campaigns they've had.

Cost
The worth of a company should never be judged by it's pricing. It can be possible that SEO agencies charging very low rates are using less capable skill sets and those charging exorbitantly are doing so because they know exactly what they are doing. An affordable internet advertising company can be a good one too. Hence, when looking for a SEO agency, one should look for those which offer a good balance between value and affordability.

Note: Take time off to educate yourself about SEO and then get down to looking for a good SEO agency. That way, no one will be able to take you for a ride.

What according to you are the most important factors to consider when choosing an SEO agency? Share your thoughts with me in the comments below.

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