If you want your brand’s SEO to be in good hands, you will have to turn to experts. And often, that means hiring the services of a specialized agency.
Your SEO agency should be a trustworthy professional partner, since you are putting the visibility and reputation of your brand in their hands. We give you the keys to understand what an SEO agency can do for you and choose the best one for your brand.
First of all: why do you need to do SEO?
Hiring an SEO agency is not a decision to be taken lightly, as it can be a significant investment, especially for small and medium-sized companies. But there are many reasons why it is worth it:
- Because it multiplies your visibility . Today, Google and other search engines are the starting point to research products online, so they are an essential source of users who may be interested in your product or service. If you manage to position yourself among the first results of the search engine, you will be putting yourself in front of thousands of potential clients.
- Because you will get more out of your website . Creating a branded website is an important investment of time and resources, but without proper positioning, you will be losing traffic and therefore opportunities to monetize that investment.
- Because it brings reputation, trust and credibility . In general, users attribute a positive value to being among the first Google search results and perceive these websites as more relevant, which contributes to improving brand perception.
- Because it is a fantastic long term investment . Today’s SEO agency work will translate into tomorrow’s organic traffic. The sooner you start implementing your SEO plan, the sooner you will enjoy the benefits.
- Because it improves your website . The goal of Google and other search engines is to offer the best possible result to users. Therefore, the techniques that help to position in search engines are aligned with improving the user experience and with it, the results in general.
- Because it increases your impact on social networks . A secondary benefit of doing SEO is improving your results on social networks. Optimizing titles and descriptions makes web link previews more user friendly and will therefore encourage more users to click and share.
- Because it provides measurable results . SEO positioning translates into concrete and measurable results, making it very easy to see what results your strategy is giving and correct the course if necessary.
- Because in the long run it will be more profitable . You may think that hiring an SEO agency is a very expensive investment. But if you value it in terms of how much it would cost you to train your team and dedicate resources to doing in-house SEO, or the benefits you are missing for not doing quality SEO, you will see that it can be a very profitable solution.
What is an SEO agency?
An SEO agency is a company that is dedicated to improving the positioning and visibility of its clients in search engines (in our country, mainly Google). To do this, the objective is to make your brands, products and websites appear among the first search results when users enter related terms.
The web positioning depends on a multitude of factors, therefore it is normal that within an SEO agency find professionals specializing in various areas such as:
- Content creation : the articles of a blog, the different pages of a website, the product descriptions in an ecommerce and even the YouTube videos of a brand channel must be correctly optimized to improve positioning.
- SEO on page : here would enter aspects such as titles and descriptions or the structure of the pages. It also covers different technical aspects, such as ensuring good loading speed and avoiding duplication of URLs.
- User experience : we must not forget that the audience for web pages is people, not robots. Therefore, SEO and UX should always go hand in hand.
- Off-page SEO : focused above all on improving the reputation of a website by creating quality inbound links.
What does an SEO agency do for its clients?
You may be wondering what an SEO agency can bring you in more concrete terms. Normally, their work is carried out in a series of steps:
- Preparation of an SEO briefing together with the client . Communication is very important for the relationship between client and SEO agency to work. Therefore, the first step is always to sit down together to prepare a document that contains the objectives to be achieved, what products or services we are interested in promoting more and other issues.
- SEO audit . The most common is that the brand already has its own website or other online content, so the first thing will be to study how they are in terms of positioning and what are the gaps to cover. This study should also include the main competitors.
- Preparation and execution of a positioning plan . With all this information, the SEO agency will be in charge of defining the actions to be carried out and carrying them out. Keep in mind that SEO is a continuous process: after the initial set-up, it will be necessary to carry out a series of maintenance tasks.
- Measurement and communication. The SEO agency will carry out a series of reports on the results achieved and will communicate regularly with the client to inform them and agree on the next steps to take.
How to choose an SEO agency according to your business objectives?
Unfortunately, not all companies that are sold as an ” SEO agency ” are able to offer quality service. Let’s see what are some characteristics that an SEO agency should have, as well as some warning signs that indicate that it is better to avoid it.
What should I look for in my SEO agency?
- Comprehensive services . As we have seen, SEO covers different aspects, some more technical and others more related to marketing and content. A good positioning agency should be able to cover all bases to offer complete assistance.
- Clarity . Positioning techniques can be very complex, but the SEO agency must be responsible for explaining to the client at all times what they are doing and why, in a way that is easily understandable.
- Fluid communication . The agency should at all times inform the client of what it is doing, send it periodic reports, and be available to answer questions as they arise.
- Customization . The situation and needs of each client are unique, so “cut and paste” solutions do not work. The work plan and budget should always be personalized.
What should I avoid in my SEO agency?
- Exaggerated promises . No agency can guarantee Google’s top position, let alone in the short term. So if they do, be suspicious.
- Charging for keywords . SEO “by weight” does not work, and the evolution of search engines is more oriented to semantic and general thematic searches. So look for agencies that offer a complete service and not by keywords.
- Dubious policies (especially link building ). Many agencies make use of black hat SEO (unethical or even prohibited positioning techniques by search engines), but in the long term this always ends up being counterproductive. In particular, be very careful with agencies that promise to generate free inbound links.
- Prices too low . Doing quality SEO takes time, knowledge and resources, so cheap ends up being expensive.
- Undemonstrable results . A good SEO agency should always be transparent with what it is doing, so if not, run away!
Steps to hire an SEO agency for your company
To finish, let’s see what would be the fundamental steps to find the SEO agency you need and establish a fruitful long-term collaboration:
- Define your needs . We have seen some general characteristics that define a good SEO agency, but from there, each case is different. There are specialized agencies in different sectors, in some specific aspects of SEO, in large or small companies … So it’s about doing a little research to see which one can best fit your brand.
- Be clear about what you want . A professional SEO agency will help you assess the situation and set specific goals, but it is always necessary to have a prior idea of what you are looking for. Why and why do you want to improve your Google ranking?
- Search and compare . Finally, it will be time to choose your SEO agency. In addition to the aspects that we have already discussed, I recommend that you take a look at the opinions of other professionals and do not hesitate to call the candidates of your “shortlist” to see how they communicate and what kind of solutions they offer you. If everything goes well, your SEO agency will be your ally for many years, so don’t rush!