For many small businesses, finding a good search engine optimization or SEO marketing agency is like trying to pick out your first car as a teenager. Unless you grew up learning a thing or two about cars, the process can be intimidating. Used or new? Buy or lease? Hyundai or Ford? Sunroof or USB port? And that’s just the beginning.
Finding the right SEO marketing agencies is often like this because people are so fresh to the SEO industry that the available choices become intimidating, rather than liberating. It is difficult for someone to estimate the true value of a professional SEO agency’s offerings if they don’t understand what a good SEO company should look like.
If you’re a small business, what should you look for in an expert SEO company? Here are three tips so that you can drive away happy with your choice.
1. Constant Change
Where the automobile industry is concerned, things are constantly changing. Within the past couple decades, CD players went from luxury to second-rate in comparison to iPod players. Your expert SEO company is the same way. You may remember that years ago, keyword dumping helped companies achieve high rankings quickly. Don’t expect this from SEO companies today, because it could actually get you penalized by Google!
Instead, look for companies that have adapted to the algorithm changes Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird. Additionally, you should stop expecting rank change to happen overnight: this is a sign of nefarious practices.
2. Domestic is Better
With cars, you could have endless discussions about whether foreign or domestic vehicles are the better choice. With SEO, though, the decision is fairly easy: always opt for companies operating out of the U.S. This ensures that you can contact them easily if something is wrong, like if your ranking suddenly slips six pages overnight. It’s worth noting, also, that Google’s algorithms can tell which content is well-written, and content written by writers who don’t have English as a first language is often of sub-par quality.
3. Cheaper Isn’t Always Better
We’ve all seen the car deal ads that promote amazing deals. One hundred dollars a month for a great car — who wouldn’t want that? But once you go to the dealership it’s actually manual transmission, low MPG, and a lot of money down. SEO is the same way. The cheapest offer you get might seem like the best upfront, but in reality there is often a correlation to value. The companies won’t do as much for you and what is done will involved cut corners in terms of quality. Pay less attention to price alone, and more attention to what past clients have to say about their services.
What would you look for in an expert SEO company? Let us know in the comments.
