Put SEO in Google.com.au, and you’ll have about 27M results to choose from.  So how out of those 27M results are you supposed to pick ONE agency to outsource your SEO to? To help reduce some of the frustrations, I’ve put together 10 questions you should ask an SEO agency before signing with them.  I then expanded on that to cover off the answers they should give you.

Question 1: What is your SEO Methodology?

Look for an agency that covers of the fundamentals of a good SEO campaign.  Their entire methodology should be around those three areas:

• Technical strategy
• Content Strategy
• Linking strategy

The worst thing you can do is pick an agency who have no interest in fixing the accessibility issues of your site, and who will simply optimise your site for 10 or 15 or 20 keywords.  The technical aspects are the first priority, and may take up to 4-6 weeks to fix, depending on how deep and complex the issues are.  The content strategy should be ongoing over the course of the campaign, with constant keyword research and creation of content to match.  Optimising your site for a set number of keywords is simply a cookie cutter model, which becomes a cash cow for agencies after the site has been optimised.

Question 2: How Important is Keyword Research and How Do You Do it?

Following on from, and to expand further on the above point on content strategy, Keyword Research is extremely important.  It’s where your agency can find out how and what your customers are searching for on the Search Engines.  Based on this research, you then optimise the Title Tags, and develop content to match these keywords. There are a range of quality keyword research tools available, with the most obvious being the Google AdWords: Keyword Tool.  These keyword tools will enable your agency to form a baseline on search numbers, and then estimate the traffic it can deliver through to your site for your products and services.  Now, a good SEO agency will go beyond your base level keywords, and start searching for longer tail key phrases (three or more words in a phrase eg SEO agency Melbourne vs SEO agency), as this is potentially where they can get some quick wins from.

Question 3: Do You Guarantee Results?

If an agency even mentions the word guarantee, RUN!!  There are simply too many variables from both the Search Engines and your website. For example, the Google ranking algorithm is typically updated and changed up to 10 times every week.  Not all the changes are major however, but they will affect rankings.  Your agency can work around this by ensuring they have experienced SEO practitioners who watch your campaign for any such algorithm effects. On the flip side, every client an agency has will vary in their budget and in-house resources.  All the quality keyword search and technical recommendations in the world won’t mean a pinch of salt if the client only has a few hundred dollars a month to spend, and lack the resources to produce content.  A great deal also depends on the nature of your business.  For example, keywords such as car insurance, or credit cards, will take longer to move up the rankings than red ballet shoes Preston or digital marketing agency Melbourne.

Question 4: What is your approach to reporting?

Look for an agency who, first, will supply you some sample reports, so you can see what you’ll be getting before you sign.  You should be looking for data that covers off the improvements in performance such as keyword rankings, as well  as traffic sources, keyword data, and competitors analysis to name a few. In my opinion, all results should then be presented to you in a monthly face-to-face meeting.  To me, that makes the SEO accountable for their work.  Have them present the results, and talk through the work they completed the previous month.  It will also be important for you to discuss the strategies in place for the coming month/s.

Question 5: What is your cost structure?

This is an interesting question.  I believe this is where the client must volunteer some information about their budget.  A good agency will tailor the SEO campaign to suit your budget.  You certainly want to steer clear of agencies that offer a ‘cookie cutter’ payment system e.g. 10 keywords for $300 per month, or $3,000 upfront.  This simply means all clients get a uniform campaign, with a uniform effort. Given the variables associated with SEO campaigns, you need to make sure the agency tailors the deliverables specifically to you, and the budget is the start of that.

Question 6: Do you have any testimonials?

A good SEO agency will have nothing to hide as far as past results go.  Ask for testimonials.  If the agency doesn’t have testimonials, ask for case studies.  If they don’t have case studies, ask to speak to at least two of their existing clients.

Question 7: When can I expect results?

A good SEO agency will be able to draw on past experiences, and give you a reasonable estimation as to the timeframe you are likely to see returns in. No doubt some companies will take longer than others, depending on their industry, and a decent agency will not be afraid to explain this. They should also explain that whilst SEO takes time, there still should be some quick wins, more often around brand terms, or for products and services that are absolutely specific to them as a company.

Question 8: What’s your link building process?

I’ve written about the importance of link building in the ranking process in previous articles.  Whilst the strategy sounds easy, the tactics behind the strategy are more difficult.  Simply put, link building is the process of creating back links for your website, where every back link is a vote for the quality of your website. There are several ways of getting back links.  A good SEO agency will write keyword rich articles and submit them to EzineArticles.com, or some other popular article directory, thus providing good back links to your website.  Your company blog is also a very simple way of getting links back to your main site.  Especially if someone else finds your article and posts it to their website or blog.  The only problem of course is this takes time to carry out, and can take two to three months to see the results, but, that’s a fact of SEO. What you should look out for is the purchasing of a link from “Link Farms”.  They simply sell links just to make money for themselves, and are nothing more than spammers.  If your agency asks for money buy links, be very skeptical.

Question 9: Do you work for any of my competitors?

This doesn’t mean that they can’t work for you, but you need to be across any potential conflicts of interest.  A good agency should volunteer this information up front, but often they won’t, hence, ask.

Question 10: Will you edit my website’s content? Who owns this content?

Absolutely they should edit your website content, or at the very least, supplying you with the content to upload yourself.  Second to this, you should always remain the owner of the content on your website.   Ask your agency what becomes of the content should you split from their services.  If there is an indication that they will take the content back, and I’ve said this before, RUN!!.

Shane Tomlinson – Digital Marketing Consultant – Clear Light Digital

Clear Light Digital are a full service digital marketing agency specialising in working with clients to develop a digital marketing strategy for their business. We have been involved in creating digital strategies for large corporate and Govt clients, to small and medium sized businesses. We have a broad expertise across all digital marketing channels, and our services are available as part of an integrated marketing strategy developed through a roadmap process, or as standalone services.