With the competitive nature of digital marketing and the barriers to entry – one of Porter’s five forces- being so small and new companies popping up every day, it is really hard to choose the right SEO company for your business. Take note, this does not mean these companies are credible, nor does it mean that these companies will be a good fit for you.
When looking for an SEO company to work with, you need to ask these three questions:
How do you determine which keywords to target?
The first step any SEO company takes when working with a new client is to create a keyword list. These words are phrases that will help drive traffic to your website. While a good keyword can improve rankings, a badly chosen keyword will leave you worse off. Ensure that you ask for a comprehensive keyword list and an explanation as to why these words are the ones you should be using to target consumers.
What is your link building strategy?
In the SEO world, links are very important. If your SEO company cannot concisely describe to you their strategy for determining the type of links your site will need, and examples of where to source them, you need to steer clear. There are two types of link building strategies that you need to be aware of:
Internal: When one page on a site links to another page, it passes ‘link juice’, otherwise known as the first site’s trust factor. Therefore, a link from the home page to another relevant product or services page gives the website a higher trust factor and increases the likelihood that Google will display your page when someone searches for something relating to your website or services.
External: An external link is a keyword that drives traffic towards your website. External links are valued according to the trustworthiness of the linking domain, the popularity of that page, the anchor text used in the link and the relevancy of the link. Therefore, in order to have a solid external link building strategy, you need to ensure that the website the link is coming from is popular, meaning that it has a high user base, and that the content on the page is relevant to your link and the content on the page you are linking towards. For instance, if you are talking about motor vehicles, it would not be relevant to discuss flowers, but it would be applicable to discuss vehicle tyres, petrol consumption and luggage space.
Where do you write your content and where is it published?
Content is king. The worst outcome for your company would be to associate your brand with poorly written content - spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. These errors will get you penalised on Google’s rankings. Look for a company with in-house copywriters and look over some examples of their work. Furthermore, ask your SEO company where they are likely to publish the content written. A good SEO company will have a variety of blogs and communities that they post content to.
Remember, your SEO company needs to work with you, not against you. Ensure that you find a digital marketing company that shares the same outlook on results as you do, is transparent in their work practices and is constantly looking to go the extra mile to improve your rankings.
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