7 mandatory requirements for your SEO agency in 2019

Introduction

There is so much buzz about search engine optimisation (SEO) at the moment. Digital marketing agencies are selling a utopia where you will get free traffic from search engines and it will create a step change in revenue. Who wouldn’t want that for your business?

However, a number of digital agencies that are selling SEO services to small businesses regardless of whether it’s the right strategy or not. There are many elements to a digital marketing strategy and SEO can be highly effective. As SEO is quite a technical discipline and results cannot be guaranteed, small businesses should ask the right questions before they make a commitment.

In this article, I will outline seven must-have requirements that you should insist on before you sign an SEO contract. Before we do this, we’ll start with some definitions.

Definition of SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results.

Mandatory requirements for your SEO agency

1. Never enter a long term contract

It’s true that SEO can take many months for your site to rank. But that should never be an excuse to make you sign a long-term contract. Digital agencies that insist on this generally have very weak exit clauses. This means you will be stuck with them regardless of the service they deliver to you.

I have recently been asked to arbitrate between a digital agency and a small business owner. This small business owner cannot exit the contract due to the watertight contract she signed. After a number of escalations, the best we can do is to micromanage and cajole the agency into delivering the right service.

If the agency insists on a long contract (e.g. anything more than three months), don’t agree to it. If they are confident in the results they can deliver, they will not need a long-term contract.

2. Review keyword strategy in detail

Your SEO agency will outline the keyword strategy that they are going to rank your website for. It is crucial as a business owner and domain expert, you get actively involved in this stage.

Nobody knows your customers’ journey better than you. The SEO agency may come up with some keywords, but it is likely that an automated tool has generated the keywords. If you target the wrong keywords, it is virtually guaranteed that you will waste your money.

Key information you should ask on each keyword suggested include:

1. Monthly search volume: What is the monthly number of searches that are being performed on that keyword?
2. Commercial intent: What is the intent of the user when they search with this keyword? Are they looking to buy the product or service you sell? Or like many search terms, they are just looking for information and have no desire to buy anything?The ‘cost per click’ is a good indicator for commercial intent. This is the amount businesses are prepared to pay for advertisements to be displayed above and below the search results. It’s an auction-based system to display advertisements. If businesses were ‘bidding up’ the price, then they would only do this if there was an acceptable return on investment.There can be valid reasons why low commercial intent keywords are selected as part of an SEO strategy. This could be to improve the ranking of your whole site (e.g. to increase your ‘domain authority’). It could be to support other primary keywords that are the ‘money keywords’. If this is the case, just ask your SEO agency to outline the rationale.
3. Competition: How difficult will it be to rank for this keyword? If there is a significant competition, it may take months if not years to rank for this keyword. This will mean that a significant amount of money will be spent and you may still not rank.However, if the level of competition is low, then you may rank easily within a couple of months.

3. Estimate return on investment

All expenditure must have a positive return on investment. It’s that simple. However, with digital marketing, some people forget these basic rules of business.

Agencies may tell you that it’s too hard to calculate a return on investment because too many factors impact it. I completely agree that many factors impact incremental revenue.

However, you can estimate the best-case scenario with some very simple formulas in Excel. Using standard click-through rates for a number one ranking in Google, you can derive site visitors. From the site visitors, you can use conversion rates specific to your industry to calculate incremental revenue. From the incremental revenue, you can use the cost for the SEO services to calculate a return in investment.

The only caveat is that it is a best-case scenario. But it’s better than nothing at all. Ask your SEO agency to provide you with this as part of their proposal.

4. Ensure on-page SEO is included

Now you have the target keywords, it’s critical that your website is optimised for those keywords.  On page SEO is one of the key determinants to if your site ranks.

It’s therefore important your SEO service includes optimising your website for the targeted keywords. In my experience, it is better if the SEO agency can amend your website directly after you approve the amendments.

If the SEO agency has to communicate with another company to change your website, then there is added communication. This can easily translate to miscommunication, errors and additional cost.

5. Understand the backlink strategy

A key determinant in whether Google ranks your website is how many other websites link back to your website. This is known as a ‘backlink’. However, it is critical that backlinks you get are from high authority websites. Google has updated their algorithms to ensure low-quality backlinks that used to help websites rank no longer work.

Agencies often employ ‘black hat SEO’ techniques where they try and trick Google into ranking your site by using artificial backlinks. One of the techniques used is when they have a network of websites that they control.

When you become their client, they use the websites they control to send you back links.  These artificial links can work to increase your rankings, but they contravene Google guidelines.  At some stage, Google will catch on and you may lose your ranking.

Also, when you stop paying the monthly retainer, these agencies will remove the links to your website and your ranking will go down. You’re now in a situation where they have locked you in.

Always ask how the backlinks are being generated. In the regular reports they provide, ensure they don’t just give you the number of backlinks. Ask them to provide the source of the backlinks so you can see the sites yourself.

Gaining backlinks properly is much harder which is why agencies avoid it. However, it is much better for your business. There are strategies for gaining authentic backlinks that I’ll outline in another post.

6. Insist on regular communication

SEO is different from paid campaigns. It can take many months to start to rank in Google. Therefore, insist on regular updates no progress.

I recommend that you get at a minimum a weekly update that can be generated automatically.

Then you should also have a ‘face-to-face’ review where you can discuss the progress of your SEO campaign. This recurring meeting should be in your calendar and it’s important that you don’t miss it. You can then have an open discussion about progress and there is a clear line of communication.

In the early stages of your campaign, the ‘face-to-face’ meetings are more often. This allows the SEO agency to really understand your business and to gain some momentum in the campaign. Now that we have finalised the more ‘technical aspects’ of selecting an SEO agency, the last point is the most important.

7. Do you trust them?

There is one secret that SEO agencies don’t like to admit. The truth is that SEO is a risky endeavour. SEO activities can help you to rank in Google.

However, Google has never specified in detail the different factors that help a website to rank. The SEO industry is continually trying to ‘reverse engineer’ the factors from Google. I don’t believe any SEO agency can guarantee a customer that they will rank on specific keywords.

Based on some of the factors above, it may be probable that your site will rank. If an agency tells you that they can definitely rank, then I would be wary. With the knowledge you’ve gained in this article, you’ll be able to tell if the SEO agency is being transparent.

Conclusion

This article has outlined seven key points that you should consider before you commit to an SEO agency. It is by no means a complete list, but a good starting point. There is a plethora of information online on each of these points if you want to dig deeper.

Although SEO can be an excellent digital marketing strategy, it may not be appropriate in all circumstances. Social media marketing or email marketing may be a better strategy where there is latent demand for your products or services (e.g. customers are not actively searching).

The overall point of this article is you need to conduct your own due diligence before you enter into a commitment with an SEO agency.  Like any other partnership or investment in your business, it is up to you ask the right questions so you can make the right decisions.

Please comment below if you have any suggestions to this post.  If you want to share your experience or add some extra tips, please comment below.  I will keep this article updated so it can be an up-to-date resource for small businesses.

Also, here’s an infographic that summarises the article.  Please feel free to embed it in your own blog with attribution  using the code below.

Embed infographic on your site using this code:

<p><strong>Original infographic published on https://embersoftware.com.au </strong></p>
<br/><br/>
<p><a href='https://embersoftware.com.au/seo-guide-2019/'><img src='https://embersoftware.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/7-mandatory-criteria-for-your-SEO-agency-min-410x1024.jpg' alt='7 mandatory requirements for your SEO agency' width='410' border='0' /></a></p>