How to Select an SEO Firm

Search engine optimization (SEO) is about as close to a no-brainer as any marketing investment gets: you've made a significant investment in designing and building an attractive, easy-to-navigate, content-rich website, so why not invest just a bit more to make sure it's easy to find? Or to put it in Biblical terms, quoting Matthew 5:15, "No one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket."

SEO is relatively cheap, it brings prospects to your site when they are interested in your product or service, and it enhances your brand image by associating your company with the problem-solving terms your buyers use.

So, case made, how do you select an SEO partner? Jonathan Ashton offers Ten Tips For Choosing The Right SEO Partner in the Search Insider blog, including:

Don't respond to unsolicited emails from SEOs.

Prepare an RFP (good advice in any agency selection process).

Get references (of SEO firms from your network of associates, and of clients from prospective SEO providers).

Be patient (SEO work is fast, but search engines are slow).

I don't agree with everything on Jonathan's list (I think he had to stretch to get to 10 items), but overall his advice is sound. To his enumeration, I would add a few more points:

Avoid anyone who "guarantees" you top placement on search engines. Quite frankly, any SEO firm that makes such a promise is spewing bullsh*t. The only person in the universe who could possibly guarantee anyone a #1 spot on Google is Matt Cutts, and he's not for sale.

Ask potential SEO partners how they build external links—there's the right and reputable way, and the wrong way.

On a related note, ask how the firm performs SEO in general. A reputable firm will outline their process and indicate what automated tools they use to check the quality of their work. Respectable SEO practices are pretty well-known; if a potential SEO vendor starts talking about their secret sauce or doesn't want to share the "how" of what they do, don't walk—run away.

Have realistic expectations. While you should expect your SEO firm to follow established best practices, as noted above, no one can guarantee you top placement, particularly for highly competitive two-word search terms. If you want to make sure your company appears on the top half of page one on Google for a specific term, buy the term in your AdWords program. Your SEO partner can make every effort to get you to the top of the organic results, but can't possibly guarantee this. Any valid SEO effort should show improvement in your search engine position, but not necessarily top half of page one on every desired term.

Remember the 80/20 rule. A relatively modest SEO effort can produce decent results. The more you are willing to spend, the better the results you can expect to achieve, but the return on investment declines rapidly near the top end. Put another way, it may very well cost more to move your site from position six or seven up to the first or second spot than it does to from the fifth page to the first page.

Finally, keep in mind that quality content is king. While investing in SEO may be a no-brainer, putting useful, relevant content on your site is the first step—make this modest internal effort before you start looking for an SEO partner, and you'll be halfway to success from the start.

*****

Contact Mike Bannan: mike@digitalrdm.com

Comments

All Time Greats

Top Notch Digital Marketing Tip: Google AdWords and PPC

MARKETING: 101 Looking for some online marketing strategy or social media tips to grow your business? Well, you’ve come to the right digital marketing resource! Web Market Central has been doling out the proper digital marketing advice for years. And as you already know, marketing to customers online is 100 times easier than using dated, expensive and traditional marketing tactics. Like seriously, who uses billboards in 2019? But you already know how effective digital marketing can be in the modern age. So now that you're totally convinced of what you already knew, let’s give you today's top-notch digital marketing tip! The Pure Unfettered Power of PPC (Pay-Per-Click) and PPC Campaigns Just like optimizing your site to rank for keywords, you can use our online marketing tips to pay to run advertisements on Google so that your business is shown on the first page of search engine results. Ranking this way is instantaneous whereas SEO (Search Engine Optimizati...

How to Use SEO: Leverage SEO To Be Found Online and Boost Your Online Marketing

All businesses that want to attract customers online, no matter the business size or age, have few options other than Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO In The Box™ by Results Driven Marketing®, LLC There are roughly 1.8 billion websites online, and basic SEO allows Google to find and index or catalog your webpages. After that, Google serves you up to searchers in the organic section. The question remains: where they list your site, on page one or page 22 or further back? SEO controls your positioning. Do you want to be found online or not? If your business is online or you want your product or service to be found online, then Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a must, and knowing how to use SEO to leverage the power of the internet is vital. Arguably, an effective SEO strategy gets you on the organic results section of the search engine results pages (SERP). Organic traffic is highly valuable and requires high-quality SEO. But even busines...

Top-Notch Digital Marketing Tip: Advertisements That Make Sense

MARKETING: 101 Looking for some online marketing tips to grow your business? Well, you’ve come to the right digital marketing resource ! Web Market Central has been doling out the proper DM advice for years. And as you already know, marketing to customers online is 100 times easier than using dated, expensive and traditional marketing tactics. Like seriously, who uses billboards in 2019? But you already know how effective Digital Marketing can be in the modern age. So now that you're totally convinced of what you already knew, let’s give you today's top notch-digital marketing tip! Advertisement Congruence If your business is running ads this is one of our most important online marketing tips! Ad congruence is when your ads and landing pages look alike or have the same message. Have you ever clicked on an ad and been taken to a page that looked nothing like the ad? When your ads look like the web pages they lead to, customers will feel like they are in ...

5 Painfully Common SEO Mistakes to Avoid For Better Results

Every company wants their website to show up well in search engines, and their marketing teams understand the importance of search engine optimization. And after the thousands of articles and blog posts written about search engine optimization , SEO is no longer the black art it once was. It's still a blend of art and science, but the basics should be well understood at this point by web marketers and designers. To their credit, many have integrated this basic knowledge. Yet there are still a surprising number of sites that violate some of the most basic principles of SEO, and pay a penalty in poor search position. Here are a few still-common mistakes that are easy to avoid. Header Tag Abuse: Although header tags have declined somewhat in SEO importance , they still have somewhat of an impact on rankings—and they are an easy thing to get right. Sites that use words and phrases like "Overview," "About Us" and "Our Services" in their h1, h2 and h3 h...

Fishing for B2B leads? Choose the right bait.

Fishermen (fisherpeople?) choose their bait based on the type and quantity of fish they hope to catch. On the lakes of Minnesota, worms and small leeches are great for catching sunfish, and if find a good spot, you can catch a lot of them in a short time. However, it's likely that you'll also end up throwing many of them back because they're too small to be "keepers." Bait such as sucker minnows or spinner lures will attract larger, more exciting prey like northern pike. These larger fish are more elusive, so you likely won't end up catching many, but each one will be larger and more fun to catch than a small panfish. The same principle holds true in b2b lead generation. Different types of b2b lead generation programs can be used to draw visitors to your landing page, but once there, your incentive for response is the bait that determines the quality and quantity of leads you'll "catch." The greater the involvement you require of respondents,...

What is CRO and How Can It Skyrocket Your Conversion Rates? Expert Digital Marketing Strategies Revealed

‍ Image Source: FreeImages‍ ## Introduction to CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization) In the world of digital marketing, Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is a crucial strategy that can significantly impact your business's success. CRO focuses on improving the percentage of website visitors who take desirable actions, such as making a purchase, filling out a form, or subscribing to a newsletter. By optimizing your conversion rates, you can maximize the return on investment (ROI) of your digital marketing efforts. Why CRO is important for your business CRO is important for your business because it can directly impact your bottom line. By increasing your conversion rates, you can generate more leads, increase sales, and ultimately drive revenue growth. Instead of solely focusing on driving more traffic to your website, CRO enables you to make the most of your existing traffic by ensuring that a higher percentage of visitors convert into customers. In addition to boosting your revenue, C...

Top Notch Digital Marketing Tip: Optimize Your Site

Looking for some online marketing tips to grow your business? Well, you’ve come to the right digital marketing resource! Web Market Central has been doling out the proper digital marketing advice for years. And as you already know, marketing to customers online is 100 times easier than using dated, expensive and traditional marketing tactics. Like seriously, who uses billboards in 2019? But you already know how effective digital marketing and an seo strategy can be in the modern age. So now that you're totally convinced of what you already knew, let’s give you today's top-notch digital marketing tip! Optimize Your Site to Improve Search Engine Rankings Most small business owners know that their websites need to be optimized in order for search engines, like Google and Bing, to find them and rank them on the search engine results page. If you don’t know, that’s okay. You can learn all about Search Engine Optimization and SEO best practices here to help impr...

Email Campaign, Newsletter and Banner Ad Click-Through Rates (CTR)

When planning online advertising and email promotion budgets, it's critical to calculate the likely ROI upfront whenever possible, as well as to establish campaign benchmarks. The first step is understanding the average and likely range of CTRs for various programs. The growth in online advertising, the proliferation of enewsletters, the emergence of new forms of information delivery such as RSS and the emergence of social media sites have all affected CTR, so planning based on current data is crucial. It can be challenging to find current statistics, but based on several studies, these are typical CTR ranges for email newsletter ads, email campaigns (blasts or internally-produced enewsletters), and banner ads. Email newsletter advertisements Open rates range from 28-40%, with an average of about 33%—meaning that roughly one-third of the subscriber base is likely to see your ad. The Advertising Is Good For You blog tracks these statistics from DoubleClick . The average CT...

Search This Blog