If you’re thinking about hiring the services of an SEO agency to assist with lead generation through inbound leads You’re probably thinking about what the advantages of hiring the services of an SEO company are. I’ve spent all of my time reviewing the activities of SEO agencies as well as presided over the largest SEO agency within the SF Bay Area, so I’ve learned what it is that makes sense to employ one.
This article will explain the advantages of working with an SEO agency in addition to its drawbacks. It will then explain what kinds of businesses are the best potential clients for an SEO agency and which ones should not.
Let’s first take an overview of what is an SEO agency is and how a campaign with one is like.
What’s An SEO Agency?
A SEO Agency is business which specializes in SEO, or search engine optimization. This means that it will help your site appear higher on the results of Google’s search engine for terms that are input by customers who purchase what you sell.
The degree of professionalism within this field varies widely and there aren’t any professional standards like those to practice as an architect, doctor or even a realtor. If I’m being sincere, whenever I meet someone who runs the operations of an SEO company, my suspicion increases until I find out more. Is this a single or two-person company which may not exist couple of months from now or is it a legitimate SEO firm with an established established culture that is based on experience, management and a well-trained team?
What you’re looking for when you hire the SEO firm is at minimum 10 employees (indicating they’re proficient enough at the work they do to be an enduring, sustainable company) along with a comprehensive job description for the campaign (see below for more details) Positive Glassdoor feedback (if employees are happy then your campaign is more likely to be successful) and pricing that is that is within the budget.
What to Expect from An SEO Engagement
SEO campaigns vary from one-time SEO campaigns that basically “get the home cleaned up” to ongoing engagements for which the agency handles natural lead generation managing strategies, keyword research and even content creation. Both kinds of campaigns is fine depending on the needs of your business However, you should to stay clear of agencies that fall somewhere in between with a few minor tweaks to their website and then executing occasionally content marketing. If an SEO campaign doesn’t work is usually due to an absence of any or any one or more of these:
- Strategies: setting up a hub and spoke model which focuses on transactional long tail keywords, which will result in MQLs
- Keyword analysis: Finding the low-volume but high-value keywords that take a lot of time to use keyword tools as well as analysing the keywords’ search intent
- Content production that is of high quality: Taking the time to thoroughly understand the business of the client, and sourcing an experienced writer in the field; and putting together the most effective piece of content published online according to each keyword’s search intention
If you want to get all you need from the SEO marketing campaign You’ll need around $10k per month for the agency, which is all-inclusive. (If you’re curious about exactly what’s in the SEO company’s job description, click this article.)
The Benefits of working with an SEO Agency
The major benefit of hiring the services of an SEO Agency is that specialists will manage a complicated project that’s not compatible with the core competencies of your business. Just as you wouldn’t undertake the construction of your home yourself an specialized task like the SEO campaign should be left to professionals who are skilled at the. It is essential to check the credibility of the business who handles the project is crucial, since the majority of SEO firms do not have the expertise to handle the task..
If SEO seems like it would fit into your company’s capabilities, it is advisable to conduct an expense comparison of what it would cost to execute an entire SEO-led generation program internally, as opposed to outsourcing it to an outside company. The majority of the time, four full-time team members are required to effectively manage SEO internally: a strategist-project manager, SME writer editor-co-writer, graphic designer. In our company, we have 7 staff members for the same tasks However, we’ve had 4 individuals perform effectively when our clients have moved their SEO into their own company.
If you’re sure that you’re able to handle SEO internally, you’re highly recommended to partner with an top-of-the-line SEO firm for a full year to get a better understanding of their best techniques.
Apart from this major advantage, there are many additional benefits of having SEO services. SEO agency:
- Access to the knowledge of higher-level strategies for SEO and contents that perform particularly well in your field
- Access to sources that your business will not possess, like expensive search databases and specialists in marketing analytics and marketing attribution which are only appropriate for an agency offering customized SEO that are scaled.
- The ability to use the content of HTML0 for other channels for marketing like email marketing, social media webinars, conferences, and presentations
- The ability to adapt to meet the demands ever-changing standards for website design as well as search engine optimization algorithms
- Responsibility for costly mistakes like not putting the keywords correctly in titles, or permitting dead links to remain inactive Both of these can dramatically impact the ranking of keywords and lead generation
The drawbacks of working With an SEO Agency
While the benefits can be, they also have negatives of having an SEO agency, too. They include:
- The difficulty of finding an excellent SEO agency as the above statement indicates that there aren’t any professional standards for gatekeeping the field and neither are the review websites or directories (e.g. Clutch) impartial, noncommercial organizations.
- Delayed ability to evaluate results, given that it takes 4-6 months to observe improvements in an SEO campaign. This means that you may be in the middle of a contract before you’re able to review the performance of your SEO agency.
- inability to compose about your brand or industry If the agency has spent long periods of time to resolve this issue like our agency has been doing, you’re likely to be assigned a generalist that isn’t in a position to understand what your company’s mission is and what’s important to your clients.
A team that is constantly changing is a common occurrence in marketing agencies, since they typically have an extremely high rate of turnover. This is the reason it’s important to look over for the company’s Glassdoor reviews to determine how hard they appear to be working to create an environment that is positive and to keep their staff members.
