Sometimes, if you really want to do right by your moving business, you may need the assistance of an SEO agency. This is because it takes time, knowledge, and skill to do SEO right. And taking the time to learn would leave your business floundering in the meantime. To make it easier for you to pick one, here are the key tips for choosing an SEO agency.
Insist on transparency
The first step of selecting an SEO agency is to always insist they be fully transparent with you. Just like moving company marketing is an exact and specialized subject, managing SEO requires a proper approach and techniques. If an agency tries to wave away your request by citing that it is a business secret or if they just try to guarantee the success rate of their ‘secret techniques’, then they are likely not a genuine agency. Oh, they will likely try to offer you some sort of visible results, but trending for one or two unpopular keywords would hardly actually accomplish the goal of SEO: attracting organic traffic and increasing your site’s visibility.
Never fall for unrealistic promises
Any SEO agency which tries to lure you in by promising quick or even instant results is lying to you. Genuine, high-quality SEO takes time to pull off. Again, they may actually produce some results to mollify you and continue taking your cash. But it wouldn’t actually be useful for your business. And the fact that their methods might be able to produce such quick results is often proof of less than honest practices. Which, as the sophistication of Google’s algorithms grows, might eventually hurt your site rather than just do nothing of substance for it. When choosing an SEO agency, prioritize instead those who try to explain that achieving the goals you’ve set will take some time. They are being genuine, and you can at least trust them to be honest with you!
Do not just demand proof of results
We’ve touched on this already but will expand on why choosing an SEO agency based solely on ‘results’ is a bad idea. The short of it is, that those might be the results of using Black Hat SEO techniques. What, then, is Black Hat SEO? Well, this is a series of practices designed to maximize SEO gain through pandering to Google’s algorithm. Those who use it, instead of trying to properly write SEO content, will just cram the text full of keywords meant to trigger algorithms. They may also use the text of the same color as your site’s background in order to blend it in, and then list out a ton of unrelated keywords there. More sophisticated use of Black Hat SEO involved tricking Google crawlers into visiting pages full of keywords and similar while missing genuine site pages. All this means that your site would rate poorly among actual users.
Always ask for referrals
One of the best ways to make sure you actually want to hire an SEO agency is to ask them for client referrals. They might be able to hide a ton of disadvantages of working with them from you. But they can’t forever fool people who’ve worked with them for a while. It may even be smart to ask for a referral that will connect you with a prior client of theirs who has cancelled their contract. Just to see what it was that actually drove that particular client away. This is also another opportunity to see just how transparent the agency will be with you. If they refuse to provide you with the contact information, you’ll know that they have something they want to hide. Even if they justify it by citing that they are protecting the privacy of their clients. They could, after all, ask permission.
Firmly set your budget
SEO costs can sometimes get out of hand. For example, investing in responsive web design and SEO can cost you anything from a pittance to a reasonable expense, to extravagant spending. Of course, sometimes the results justify the costs. However, you are running a business. And it is in your interest that a long-term expense such as selecting an SEO agency doesn’t end up costing you more than it is worth. Just as important is clearly outlying that budget to the SEO agencies you are interested in working with. Some might refuse to continue cooperating with you. But at least you would know that your cooperation would’ve been unsuccessful anyway!
Communicate goals and expectations clearly
While chasing only results would be bad, you need to have clear-cut goals for your SEO drives. And you need to know exactly what you want to achieve before you go around choosing an SEO agency. This is because that’s the only way for them to give you reasonable predictions and even whether your expectations can be met in the timeframe which you may have specified. SEO is just as important as digital marketing for moving companies since its proper use would make you massively more visible locally. So, you want to make sure that the people you are working with understand and follow your vision for your moving business.
Choosing an SEO agency means giving multiple agencies a shot
The final of our tips for selecting an SEO agency is never to rush into picking one. There is a lot of agencies in the market, and SEO for movers is important enough to justify a lengthy selection process. So, dedicate the time and effort needed to truly find an agency that meshes best with you. Preferably one that is willing to work closely with you in the long-term. Only such cooperation can really ensure you get the best possible results. Especially since switching SEO agencies often does more harm than good as you try to adjust to their different approaches to SEO.
With our key tips for choosing an SEO agency, you will be able to find one that suits your needs. Again, remember that the search may take a while. But, it is much better to wait than choose the wrong partner!
