Unfortunately, not all search engine optimization companies are going to honest with their clients. Still, don’t let this stop you from taking full advantage of the benefits of SEO. There are still more transparent and dependable ones than those who are not.
In today’s post, we’ll share some red flags to watch for to know the difference between good and bad search engine optimization companies.
An Important Business Relationship
As a business owner, employing the services of a professional SEO firm is beneficial in many ways. That’s why you need to know how to vet search engine optimization companies so you can hire the best one that can fulfill the needs and goals of your company.
Your professional relationship with an SEO firm is more than just a simple one-time meeting and signing a few documents. It’s an ongoing partnership that requires collaboration, communication, and transparency.
Unfortunately, many business owners have experienced running into trouble with the SEO agencies they hire.
These agencies are usually the ones not devoting the time they promised to grow your account or those that use black-hat SEO techniques.
Business owners end up the ones paying the price because of the unethical practices of these search engine optimization companies. Here are the signs that an SEO agency may not be being completely honest with you.
You have to talk to a different representative every time.
It is never a good sign when you are constantly passed around from one representative to another. This most likely means that your account or project is not given sufficient time and attention it needs.
You’re never going to know if whatever it was you discussed with one person was completed if you have to speak with a different representative from the agency. This is especially a cause for concern if, aside from speaking to different people, you have not been presented any tangible results of work done regarding your account.
Another scenario to watch out for is if you keep being assigned a new project or account manager. This may mean that there’s an internal staffing issue within the SEO firm. If search engine optimization companies don’t have the stability within their professional culture, they are not able to foster an enriching and motivating environment for their team.
This leads employees to seek different career opportunities, consequently affecting your marketing campaign – and not in a positive way. This also results in delayed progress and disrupted workflows, which is not what you signed up for.
With that being said, try to find out if employees leave because of legitimate reasons such as medical emergencies, relocations, maternity/paternity leave, etc. Don’t jump to conclusions before you stop working with an SEO firm.
You are not getting regular updates about your campaign.
When we say regular updates, we don’t mean a report submitted to you every day. However, if you are not receiving any scheduled progress updates, it’s a solid sign that your SEO firm is not giving your campaign the attention it needs to start making progress.
You should at least be getting a progress report if not weekly, then at least once every month.
If not, there’s no way for you to know if whatever strategy they’re doing is working.
Even if there are weeks where you don’t get favorable results, reputable search engine optimization companies are transparent. They will give you a strategy they plan to do to try to fix the issues.
Requesting for a weekly update – whether it’s through an email report or a phone meeting – is reasonable. In fact, you shouldn’t even need to request or ask for this in the first place. It should come from them initially.
They “guarantee” you many things.
In truth, there’s not a lot of things an SEO agency can guarantee. A campaign is sure to succeed when you devote enough time, creativity, and expertise to it. If you here the following guarantees and promises from an SEO company, you may want to reconsider employing their services.
- “You will be at the top of Google in a month.”
- “You will be on page 1 for the most used keyword in your industry.”
- “We know a secret technique from Google that no other agencies know.”