Choosing an SEO company is no easy task, but by the time you finish reading this article you’ll know everything you need to know about finding an SEO company who will get the most out of your marketing budget.
Whether you’ve used an SEO company before or it’s your first time working with one, you may be concerned about signing a contract with a company and getting no real return on your investment.
And you are 100% right to feel that way. In fact the truth is, the majority of SEO services are a total con, and that’s why I wrote this guide – to help you avoid the costly mistake of choosing a bad SEO company, from my perspective as an actual SEO professional.
If you’re anything like me, you value honest professional relationships above all else and absolutely hate being ripped off – so here’s how to spot the scams before signing any lengthy contracts.
They Keep “Their Strategies” Secret
An SEO company that’s unwilling to explain how they will get you more traffic from Google are almost always pulling the wool over your eyes.
One of the most common excuses I’ve heard is that they need to keep their strategy secret to stop competitors learning from them.
The truth? There’s no legitimate secret strategies. There are 3 parts to SEO:
- On-site SEO
Changes to the overall website to improve rankings such as internally linking related pages to create relevancy and pass page rank. - Off-site SEO
Things done outside of your website to improve your rankings such as getting other websites to link to yours and content promotion through social media and influencers. - On-page SEO
Changes to a specific page’s code to better target keywords, such as improving content and meta tags (the code Google uses to list your page in their results) and fixing broken code.
And that’s it… no secret strategies – and if there was, I would know about it.
If a mechanic said it would cost £10,000 to fix your car but the thing he needs to do is a complete secret, would you work with him?
They’re Unable To Show Proof Of Traffic Increase
Because we all know how easy it is to track the results of SEO, you may have an SEO agency tell you that it is the company policy not to show clients results due to confidentiality.
That is absolute nonsense. And a great way to hide the fact that they probably cannot get any actual results through SEO.
While it is completely reasonable to not show client accounts, it takes 5 minutes to take a screenshot and blur out any sensitive data.
Here’s some of mine:
Any SEO company that’s worth their salt will be able to show you screenshots like those from “Google Search Console”.
And this is the number one most important thing to consider when choosing an SEO company.
Would you feel confident hiring a business coach who refuses to tell you about any of the previous businesses he’s helped?
Their Prices Are Incredibly Low
SEO, when successfully executed, can make a business a lot of money. And anyone who works in the industry knows that, which is why it’s so competitive.
If a company is charging an incredibly low price, you’re probably not getting a bargain – they are just offering a poor service.
As I discussed in my recent blog post “the average cost of SEO”, the average SEO professional who gets results is paid around £40,000 per year.
If a company can afford to offer SEO services for £100 – £400 per day, you’re getting one of three things:
- An inexperienced SEO
- Minimal time spent on your website
- “Black hat SEO”, which is a dangerous practice that can result in your website being removed from Google all together.
How confident would you be in a financial advisor that charged £8 per hour?
They Don’t Rank Well On Google Themselves
This one may seem obvious, but it’s vitally important I point this out as I’ve seen other people online claiming it doesn’t matter…
When in reality it matters a lot!
Finding an SEO agency that doesn’t rank for keywords in Google is a total red flag.
And the excuse of “we’re too busy to do SEO for our own business” is such a big red flag that bulls from all over Spain immediately start stampeding their way over as soon as someone says it!
Any company that says that is really telling you that they either don’t believe in the service they offer or they simply cannot deliver the service they offer.
The only exception to that rule would be if they do not have the capacity to grow and are not looking for new clients. But we know that’s not the case as they are interested in working with you.
If a company says their SEO services would help your business, but they’re not using them for their own business – how can you expect it to help yours?
Those 4 Matter Most, Re-read Them
Those are the 4 most important things you need to check when choosing an SEO agency.
I very much advise you bookmark this page and re-read them the night before meeting with any SEO company to make sure you know exactly what to look out for.
The final point I must add is that you should ignore any web page that lists the “Best SEO Companies” – as they are mostly paid listings. Meaning you won’t find an unbiased answer, you’ll find the company who paid the most to be there.
SEO can be like the wild west, and I sincerely hope this guide helps you find an SEO company that does a great job for your business.
If you’d like to discuss your SEO needs with me, feel free to click on the button below.
Thanks for reading.
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