What to Expect When Hiring a SEO Company?

Often I have been asked questions like (a) what does an SEO agency really do? (b) what work should I expect? (c) Do I really need them? - The answer is Yes, it is imperative you hire professionals if you are serious about winning in organic search. If you are looking to make optimizations within your website, it is critical to think about how much control you want to have over your content. A SEO Agency responsible for your search optimizations will look to alter your website's content to best present it to Google and other search engines.

Your engagement with the SEO Agency can be only consultative if you wish. However, please note all SEO agencies have got capabilities to implement the recommendations on behalf of the client.

So what does a SEO agency really do? To start with, they will completely audit your site. A complete SEO site audit identifying opportunities and listing recommendations would include:

• Keyword & Competitive data: Identify and research relevant search terms to target

• On-Page Optimisation (Quick Wins): Full site review including best practice SEO recommendations including the following elements:

• Titles & Meta tags: Bespoke tags for all top-level pages

• Content & Header tags: Recommendations for improved content volumes, keyword usage + density and header tags

• Navigation & Internal linking: SEO agency will ensure navigation is compliant with SEO guidelines and content keyword interlinking

• Image & Video optimisation: Ensuring the site is optimised for non-contextual listings (Universal Search)

• Social Media: Exploring current Social Media presence and identifying opportunities

• Technical optimization recommendation

• Link Strategies: Off-Page Recommendations - review current link equity, identify opportunities and negotiate new link partners. Link popularity is one of the core elements of Google’s ranking criteria

• Reporting: Tracking and analysing campaign KPIs

• SEO Maintenance: On-going SEO consultancy, advice, reviews and recommendations

Besides the above, the search agency is also responsible for full project management of the above deliverables. While the Creative and Web Dev agency is required to implement the actual changes, the Search Agency should act as an extension of your web team advising on how to best execute the work.