5 Things To Avoid When Hiring An SEO Company

Oct 17

My last blog post was 5 things to do when choosing an SEO company, today I am going to talk about 5 things which in my opinion are really stupid to do when selecting an SEO company. There may actually be some cross over and that proves either that I am confused or that often it is not what you do, but the way that you do it that counts.

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

1) Do Not 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 agency involved.

Obviously someone in the agency knows what they are doing for them to ranking that position, but judging 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 will either take on too many clients or bump there fees up to a high price to allow potential customers to self-select.

2) Do Not Take Snap Shot Results As Proof OF Competence
I have worked at one company which inherited an SEO customer that already has great results, The salesmen then used the great results we hadn’t got from this customer to sell to other customer in the same market sector, claiming we run SEO for the number 1 site.

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

3) Do Not Take Guarantees At Face Value
As a first principle I don’t trust SEO guys who make guarantees at all. It is an art not a science and if we are honest we can’t guarantee results, we can increase chances and make predictions, but we shouldn’t make guarantees.

Experience has told me that guarantees are worthless (we guarantee you ‘a number 1 position on google’, what they don’t tell you is for you brand term or some term that has no value), misleading Guarantees ( included PPC positions ) or it is just outright lies.

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

4) Do Not As A Customer Decide On Your SEO Strategy
If you approach an SEO agency telling them what you want them to do then you are removing one of the most effective things they can and should be doing for you. Which should be creating your SEO strategy.

You should define your goals and allow the agency or consultant the strategy to get you there, and the package required to fulfil that strategy.

However don’t allow a salesman to propose your SEO strategy either. If required pay for technical consultation before an on-going contract to make sure a SEO technician/ consultant has created your strategy.

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

However most agencies will bring an SEO technician to help on technical support in the pitching process if required.

5) Do Not Be Impressed By A Long List Of Tangible 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 tangibles do I get back in return for my money.

How many articles are written? How many directories am i submitted to? How many reports do I get? How many hours on page optimisation do I get? We then try to associate tangibles with worth in the process things gets sticky. Companies use action determine worth and not value to determine worth.

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 pieces of positive advice in my last post and you will be more confident that you can choose the correct SEO agency for your campaigns.