You’ve got a problem. You’ve been tasked with hiring an search engine optimization (SEO) firm to provide various online marketing services to your company. You went out and did a search on Google for “[your geographic location] + seo” and got a list of 300+ SEO firms. You start contacting the firms starting with the one at the top, since it seems reasonable that the guy at the top must know what he’s doing. But as you contact the firms they all tell you the same things, or as one reader put it in a comment on one of my previous articles, “SEO is surely the greatest con ever. Can anyone here tell me how every would-be Internet Marketer on the planet can promise every client to get them onto the first page of Google natural search?” The easy answer is that some can deliver while others can’t. But if that’s the case, how do you figure out which SEO firm to hire?
First, let’s clear up some misconceptions about SEO firms.
A nice-looking website does not make a good SEO firm. If you’re looking to hire an SEO firm that can also take care of designing your new website, then yes, you should probably consider how good their own website looks. But if you’re only looking for top-notch SEO, some of the best firms have websites that are second-rate at best.
- The SEO firm that ranks first in your geographic area is not necessarily the one you should work with. I’m going to let you in on a secret. My own firm almost always shows up first in Google for “utah seo,” and has for most of the past 10 years, but it’s not because we’re the best SEO firm in Utah. I’m not saying we’re not the best SEO firm in Utah, but if we are that’s not why our website ranks high, because a lot of our competitors are doing a better job of SEO on their own websites than we are doing on ours. Why does our website continue to rank #1 for “utah seo?” Sure, we have some decent content on the site, we’ve got the code right for the most part, and we have some good inbound links, but mostly it’s because we were one of the first SEO firms in Utah and it’s an old domain that’s been in use since 1996. Google puts a lot of weight on those two factors, and fortunately for us, it’s hard for anyone else to compete without a time machine.
- The best “SEO firm” for you might not be much of a firm. Bigger is not better. Less sometimes, but not always, is more. The right SEO firm for you might have one or two employees working from a basement. Or it might be the SEO firm with 500 employees. Don’t write either one off automatically.
- All SEO firms are scam operations. This statement is 100% false, in that it’s only 95% true. Or as the late Rex E. Lee put it in a statement about lawyers but which applies equally well to SEO firms, “It’s a shame that an entire profession should be maligned because of two or three hundred thousand bad apples.” Yes, you’re right to be careful about the firm you hire. Too many people hire a firm, only to leave a year or two later and wonder “Did I just throw all that money away on nothing?”
Here is a gist of what we do!
Optimization of on-page website technical code
Sustained back-linking campaign to build reputable links
Site architecture formatting and streamlining
Conversion rate optimization
Webpage structure and cosmetic build changes
Thorough analysis and A/B testing of website for continued improvement
Directory and blogging submissions through PR routes
Extensive competitor analysis and monthly performance reports
Linking and distribution of content through social media platforms
Submission of web pages to search engines and creation of sitemap
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