Let’s be honest, choosing an SEO company is difficult. The market is overcrowded and extremely competitive, with thousands of SEO agencies and consultants in Italy, each specializing in different sectors and outcomes.
As the natural SEO market is expected to grow, the competition will become increasingly challenging for businesses to choose an SEO consultant for their activities. The choice of the agency or SEO advice to use will have a huge impact on the results that will be achieved. A reliable SEO expert will work for a company, helping them understand the type of work done and showing concrete results after just a few months of work.
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To find the SEO agency that will work well, it is important to be precise and stick to a plan. Such a process can help you filter SEO consultants and agencies based on your needs. In this article, we answer some questions that arise during the process.
Step 1. Internal Preparation
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Set your goals.
This may seem obvious, but often the goals you want to achieve are not defined at an early stage.
To get the most out of your SEO investment, you need to know what you want from it. We suggest talking to all stakeholders in your company and developing a plan on why you need to hire an SEO consultant and the KPIs you will use to evaluate the progress of the campaign.
When it comes to your goals, aim for those that are defined and measurable that you can track.
Here are examples of SEO goals:
Wanting to increase the number of sales from organic traffic as part of a digital marketing activity. If users who subscribe to the newsletter convert well, then we want to use SEO to generate more organic traffic and thus more users who subscribe to the Newsletter.
Our company works on leads generated by our site, so we need to stay in front of our audience while they are searching for something, and we need to do SEO to help us get traffic for specific topics that our target is looking for.
Goals that make little sense:
Wanting to beat competitor X for a specific keyword: rankings fluctuate daily, and what you see is different from what others see. Based on an SEO campaign, the specific keyword placement is what is defined in the jargon as a “vanity metric,” unless there is evidence that your conversion rate for that keyword is excellent; otherwise, positioning may not be the best thing to do.
Wanting more organic traffic: we all want more traffic, but what we want is more revenue. Asking a company that only does SEO to increase traffic may attract many more visitors who are not interested in what you offer as a business. If you say, “We want more organic traffic on these topics because we have seen that it converts well for us,” then that becomes a measurable goal.
We want X number of links per month. With the power of links, this is a common goal from potential clients. However, it is easy to create many low-quality links that could cause problems in the future, but it is difficult to create links from reputable websites that will positively impact organic results. More links are not the goal — the goal is better authority from the right type of link.
Step 2. Gather and Select from a List of Potential Providers
Now that you know exactly what you want to achieve from the SEO consultation, it’s time to start making a list of people to talk to. Knowing where to start, when there are so many options, can sometimes block you in your search.
Common Mistakes When Choosing an SEO
Using Google to find local SEO:
At first, this may seem counterintuitive — surely those ranked on Google have shown they can do good work, right? The companies that spend their time optimizing for “SEO + [your city name]” and dozens of other places tend to spend more time doing that than providing quality customer service. Of course, finding a local SEO expert can be a huge advantage, but make sure to check their work and reputation with the same care as the other options you find.
Questions to Ask Your Potential SEO Agency:
Once you have your list, it’s time to start talking to them. In many cases, the agency will be happy to do preliminary research in your industry and discuss some of the relevant strategies they have used in the past.
Here is a list of questions you might ask:
What do you know about our site?
This will show you how much time they have spent researching in advance and if they have experience in your industry. For SEO to be successful, the agency must understand your business so that it aligns with how you work and the needs of your audience.
Who will manage our account and who will do the daily work?
You want to know who is responsible for your project internally and who will do the actual work. Often, these are not the same people. The vendors attending the meetings will not be the same.
Can I meet the team that will work on my project?
If the meeting participants do not do the daily work, make sure it is possible to meet those who will be operational on your website.
How much work will be done in-house?
Many small agencies outsource part of their work, and you want to know where your work is being done, even if your agency reviews it carefully.
What is your approach to SEO: What do you do to get the sites you manage to rank online?
Questions like this will allow you to see a little more about how they approach their work, what they emphasize, and whether they follow a unique process for everyone or act more customized for each campaign.
Most SEO agencies will provide a detailed program of the work they intend to deliver as part of a proposal. However, even at the consultation stage, they should be able to provide exact figures on what they hope to do for you.
What do you need from us to make it work?
This can get complex very quickly. The SEO agency should be an extension of your team, rather than an external partner with whom you have never had contact. Likewise, they will likely need feedback from you to make the campaign a success, such as making technical corrections, communicating with developers, and the digital PR team.
You may be tempted to hand over all responsibility to your SEO specialist, but generally, you want to be involved in the project, even just to fully understand what is being done.
Can we see some examples of content you have researched and created for a client, and what will you create for mine?
This question allows you to see their ability to create content. If these experts are to be left free to act on your site, you want proof that they can create content you can be proud of.
Unless a significant amount of content creation has been done in the past, an SEO agency will likely want to optimize, develop, or modify some of the content — based solely on internal link building. They will likely also consider adding new landing pages to target new keyword groups. You can also ask how they will optimize the content and why it matters. Expect a good agency to consult your Google Analytics statistics to find pages that can be improved.
Can we see some examples of links you have built for your clients? And what kind of link building would you do for us?
This is another key aspect of the SEO strategy to see proof of. You are looking for links from important sites (either by popularity as newspapers or highly respected within a niche or industry), and you want to see how the agency treats their clients.
How often will you conduct audits?
After the initial audit period, you may feel that technical SEO is complete for your site, but a good agency will conduct periodic checks to ensure everything is working correctly.
What is your work when you start doing SEO? How do you measure the success of a campaign — what metrics do you use?
Do you want to be kept informed of the progress made and what is happening with the work on your website? The answers you want to hear in this case will include references to tracking conversions, traffic, and rankings, as well as updates on the work with a report. Agencies often use platforms like Google Data Studio to report traffic and SEO platforms to provide an overview.
How do you choose the keywords to use?
You want to have an idea of their keyword research process and know if they will turn to popular but very broad search terms that will be difficult to track, or very niche phrases that few people search for. You can also ask if there are topics they have already thought about that you should research. How they research them is also very important. Tools like Google’s keyword planner and Answer the Public are essential for knowing which keywords should be prioritized.
This is where you can see if the agency’s idea of success aligns with your goals or if they are rigid in determining what constitutes a good result. The cases you are looking for are when the agency thinks success is simply delivering every month a promised job without any strategy.
What results do you expect and in what timeframe?
In addition to the final goal we are working towards, it is important to understand how long is needed and what the initial results will be. This is a tricky question to answer, as no agency can know where a site stands and when. No one has control over search results except search engines, and not always being on the first page can mean a lot of traffic. Instead, you want to see how the agency responds to this question and how excited they are about what they can achieve. Anyone who gives you a very precise answer (“You will be ranked in 4 weeks!”) is probably talking nonsense and making promises that cannot be kept.
Do you offer performance guarantees?
Reliable agencies will not, as search engine optimization is not something you can guarantee. They can guarantee the work they will perform or the time they will dedicate to your project, but no SEO can guarantee what will happen as it depends on the search engines.
What will you do if the campaign does not go well?
Not all campaigns are an incredible success, so find out how this agency adapts. Look for examples of what they have done to revitalize their campaigns in the past.
Have you worked this way for similar companies or have you completed similar projects?
This is not a necessity, but different markets have different nuances, and it can be a real advantage to have experience in your specific sector. Likewise, if you are looking for a specific SEO project, such as link building, content marketing, or migrating to a new domain, you want to know that the agency has experience in that kind of work.
Can I talk to happy clients?
In addition to the case studies you have reviewed earlier, you want to ask if the company can provide you with references from those they have worked with. This can be a great way to filter consultants and agencies.
What is your notice period?
Make sure there is a clause to release you from the contract, but you also expect there to be a minimum start period. If you want an SEO agency to do its best, they need some commitment from you to a serious engagement to work with them.
What questions should I expect to be asked as a potential SEO client?
This consultation is a valid process for clients towards agencies and vice versa. The SEO company should show a genuine interest in your business. By asking what your value proposition is, how clients find you, who your competition is, etc., they have a complete idea of how they can help you. Here are some questions an SEO specialist might ask a client:
Can you tell us more about your business, how it is monetized, and how the website could expand these provisional accounts?
How do clients find you right now?
Can we have access to your Google Analytics and Google Search Console accounts?
What are the keywords you want to rank for?
What are your goals for this SEO campaign?
Who are your competitors, online and offline?
What content management system (CMS) is your site integrated with?
Have you conducted SEO activities in the past?
Do you have other websites or online properties?
Do you run pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns?
What other types of online and offline marketing do you do?
Signals to pay attention to.
SEO is secret: if your future agency talks about its “secret formula that guarantees results for you,” it probably isn’t worth it. Ask them what they do: if they claim they cannot tell you, do not use them.
Instant results: Beware of promises that are too good to be true, such as immediate placements or leads.
Thousands of links: If they promise to create many links in no time, then it’s time to escape.
Choose Your SEO Agency or Consultant
After completing the selection of SEO consultants, the time has come to make a decision. Be sure of your choice based on their technical experience, but also on how they communicate. Make sure to find an SEO consultant who has experience in areas similar to those in which you operate and who is always available to answer your questions. If you do not feel confident with the current selection, keep looking; sometimes it is better to delay than to make a mistake for good.
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