Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

5 Things To Avoid When Hiring An SEO Company

My last blog post was 5 things to do when choosign an SEO company, today i’m going to talk about 5 which are really stupid to do when selecting an SEO company. There may actually be some cross over and thats proves that often it isnt what you do but the way that you do it that counts sometimes.

Anyway things not to do when looking for SEO agnecy or consultant.

1) Dont Automatically Select The Number One Agency In The SERPS For The term ‘SEO’,

Both of the people I have known who have done this have regretted it and do not have a good thing to say about the agnecy involved.

Obviously someone in the agnecy knows what they are doing for them to rankin that position, but judghing form results the skill level is no reflected across the agency, and the staff have too many customers and potential customers to be able to do a proper job.

As a principle agencies ranking number one for major SEO terms willeither take on too many clients or bump there fees up to a high price to allow potentila custoerms to self select.

2) Dont Take Snap Shot Results As Proof OF Compitence
I have worked at one company which inheritted an SEO customer that already has geat results, The salemens then used the great results we hadnt got from this custoemr to sell to other custoemr in the same market sector, claiming we run SEO for the number 1 site.

Judge results but look for results which are imporvment over time and are more sales related than position related.

3) Dont Take Guarentees At Face Value
As a first principle I don’t trust SEO guys who make guarentees at all. It is an art not a science and if we are honest we cant guarentee results,we can increase chances and make predictions, but we shoudln’t make gaurentees.

Experience as told guarantess are worthless (we guarenteee you a number 1 position on google, for you gbrand term or soem term that has no value), misleading Guaranetess ( included PPC positions ) or juts outright lies.

Find someone who will guarantee you the extras sales which you are actually paying for an I will actually eats my own hat.

4) Dont As A Customer Decide On Your SEO Strategy
If you approach an SEO agnecy telling them what you want them to do then you are removing one of the most effective thinsg they can do for you, which shoudl be create your SEO stratergy. Defines you goals and allow the agency or consultant the stratgey to get you there, and the package required to fulfill that strategy.

However dont allow a salesman to propose your SEO strategy either. If required pay for technical consulatation before an ongoing contract to make sure a SEO technician/ consultant has created your strategy.

Why is it so important, because the wrong stratgey will see a waist of resources and a very ineffective campaign, and a lower ROI in the long term.

Howvere most agencies will bring an SEO technicain to help on technical support in the pitching process if reuqired.

5) Dont Be Impressed By A Long List Of Tangbile Work To Be Completed.
One of the hardest questions regarding SEO is cost, and the only way the value of SEO work can be attributed is by ROI. We are prone to think of SEO in what tangiules do I get back in return for my money.

How man articles are written? How many directories am i submitted to? How many reports do I get? How many hours onpage optimnisation do I get? We then try to associate tangibles with worth an the process gets sticky.

In looking at price with SEO the question needs to be how much ROI am I going to get back at the end of a 12 month process. Focusing on actions makes you agency jump through hoops. focusing on ROI makes them perform.

Add these five warnings with the five previous peices of positive in my last post and you will be more confident that you can choose the correct SEO agency for your campaigns.