6 Little-Known Secrets To Hire the Right SEO Company.

what to look for in seo company

Have you recently looked into SEO services and are excited about getting more customers than you could handle?

What you’ve been hearing is true…

SEO brings an enormous ROI to your business because it turns your website into an automatic lead generator.

Qualified leads that are 858% more likely to convert than outbound leads, and that you get for FREE from Google.

With clear-cut benefits like these, it's no wonder why half of all businesses are investing in SEO these days.

However, I’m going to have to pull back the curtains a little bit and give you a taste of reality.

Just the cold, hard truth, ok?

Odds are that you are your business will never experience these amazing life-changing results…

In fact, over 90% of the web pages on Google do not receive a single click from organic search. That is a frightening statistic considering how much people invest in SEO.

(Visual from Ahrefs)

how to find the best seo company

Many people have taken a stab at SEO and have come up short. Losing thousands in time and money, and seeing this had made one thing clear…

Most SEO agencies, as much as it pains me to say this, have no idea about how to rank a website.

They will lure customers on with false promises(promises they know they can’t keep) and ridiculously low price points all to seal the deal.

And when you think about it, it's pretty easy for them to do that, since most people don’t know a single thing about how SEO works.

This is why, if you are a business owner thinking about hiring SEO… YOU MUST do your due diligence before you become yet another company burned by shady SEO agencies.

You need to know how to spot the SEO agencies that all bark but no bite… Just waiting to take your money and run with it.

And,

You also need to know how the find the few expert SEO services that KNOW what their doing, and will rank your website(because they do exist).

By the end of this article, you’ll be equipped with 5 nifty tricks that will guarantee you hire the right SEO company for your business.

I call them the power 6.

1) Reviews can be faked but results cannot.

how to pick good seo company

These days, it’s far too easy for an SEO company to fake their reviews online. So basing your judgment off of reviews can lead to you making a poor judgment.

One signal that always speaks volumes about an company's skill level though, is their ability to rank themselves.

You see, ranking in the SEO niche is an interesting task because well… you only going against other SEO pros.

To be able to outcompete others in this field means you have to have a solid process that produces impactful results.

That said, there are a large majority of SEO agencies who don’t rank for any of their important keywords and aren’t getting traffic from Google.

If you see this, then you should run for the hills immediately.

Not only are they incompetent, but they are also claiming to be able to help you with something they couldn’t even do for themselves.

Imagine getting your teeth fixed by a dentist whose teeth look like that of a donkey’s. Doesn't that just seem a little unnerving?

Now that you know to look for this red flag, you might be wondering…

“Well, how do I know if they’re ranking on Google”

It’s simple, and you can get a birds-eye view of their online presence in 30 seconds flat. All you need to do is go on Ubersuggest and type in their website and you’ll be able to see their traffic for yourself(for free).

2) Their promise isn't too big or too little.

With SEO agencies, you get the bipolar mix between agencies that promise results within weeks and those that refuse to make any promises because (ahem)

"SEO is unpredictable."

Both of these types should make your stomach churn a bit because they will waste your money.

With the SEOs that promise too much, they often never hit their promised objectives. But sometimes, you do find an SEO company that can get “page 1 in one month” however if that’s the case, you should be even more worried.

This is because this is typically only possible through the use of BlackHat SEO, which strongly goes against Google's policies.

Once your website has been corrupted, it's only a matter of time before Google and their team of 4.0 MIT graduates find your site and erase all of your traffic.

how to pick an seo company

(Did you think you could outsmart them on their turf?)

Except, that’s not all. When Google catches you doing blackhat SEO, they’ll slap on a penalty to your website just like they have with all the other sites that thought they could “fool” Google.

And now, not only are you down the thousands of dollars you spend on SEO, but also, your website is worse off than when you started.

So, avoid the “rank page 1 in one month” SEO agencies like the plague.

SEO simply takes time for it to have a noticeable effect, however, this introduces us to the other end of the spectrum.

These are agencies that hide behind the unpredictable nature of SEO and refuse to promise you any sort of results.

SEO agencies are supposed to be experts that can make these sorts of estimations. Would you hire a surgeon that refused to give you their professional prediction because "surgeries can be unpredictable"? Yea, me neither!

What oftentimes happens with these SEOs is that they’ll get you committed for 12 months of SEO and by the time comes to look at the results, they’ll say:

“Give it more time, okay, SEO is unpredictable, and it's impossible to say when you’ll start to see traffic”

Just writing that makes my stomach churn. SEO experts are supposed to be experts. Why hire them if they’ll produce the same results you would.

Unless you are in an extremely competitive niche(think finance, insurance, or any other industry with deep pockets), you should see results in 6 months max.

3) They don't leave you in the dark.

Your SEO company should be an extension of your team, overseeing your organic growth.

choosing a good seo company

This means they should not only bring traffic to your website but also fill you in on how they do it. This leaves you with more knowledge of the process and also more confidence in your results.

Additionally, the more you know about what work your SEO company is doing, the more you can decide whether your money is being spent wisely.

Although don’t get me wrong, this does not mean that you need a detailed audit every week explaining everything they do in detail.

Instead, a monthly report discussing some of the work that was done, and the results achieved is more than enough.

4) Their focus is on RESULTS, not just traffic.

Everybody wants traffic... the more the better, right?

WRONG!

Traffic by itself means absolutely nothing if it's not converting.

One of the biggest traps I see website owners making is daydreaming about traffic numbers instead of real results.

But understand this…

A nice and big graph on your Google Search Console isn’t going to pay for any of your bills.

Although it may look good on paper, having sky-high traffic won’t matter if none of those visitors are converting into paying customers.

The problem though with most agencies is that their focus isn’t on producing the most returns, but on making the biggest graph on GSC.

Of course, as a business owner, you want more sales and customers above all else. That is the lifeblood of your business and maximizing that will allow your business to grow like wildfire.

This is why the goal of every SEO campaign should ultimately be to increase sales. By doing this, your SEO turns your website into successful business asset.

5) Their Price isn’t too Low or too High

There are a lot of SEO “pros” these days that you can find on sites like Fivver that will offer their SEO services for dirt cheap.

But here’s the thing, name anything you’ve ever bought for dirt cheap that was impactful. If you pay a cheaper price, you're going to get cheaper work.

And when it comes to your business, is going for the minimum what you want to do?

But on the other end of things, you also have SEO agencies that are requesting an absurd price for their services without showing that they are worth it.

The bottom line is to find an SEO company that offers a service tailored to the size of your business as well as how much you want to grow(and invest).

6) The SEO company cares about your business

When you take on an SEO company, you are entrusting them with your digital storefront.

And given how important your online presence is these days, having that completely ruined by reckless SEOs would be the end of your business.

In the wrong hands, your website can experience penalties from Google, security malfunctions, and even complete removal from the internet.

Therefore, you must be sure that you can trust your company to manage your website.

From the agencies, perspective, they should be treating your website as they would treat their own.

And some easy ways to tell that they care(and you’re not just another business on their list) is that:

  • They ask important questions about your business and the direction it's going. This means they know about your customers almost as much as you do. They also know what separates you from the other businesses in your market.
  • They are timely in their responses to you. Heads up, if they take weeks to respond before you hire them, they will take weeks to respond after as well.
  • They are enthusiastic to bring you results. This one is subtle, but an SEO company that wants to send your organic results straight to the moon will have the energy to match that. You’ll be able to pick this up in the general way they talk about growing your business.

When you find an SEO agency that truly cares about your business, you will get a night and day difference compared to one that doesn’t. This is because they will be an extension to your business rather than a foreign entity occasionally swinging by.

Conclusion

With these 5 little-known secrets, you have everything you need to know to find the best SEO agency for your business.

Given how important it is to grow your organic presence and how competitive SEO is, you don’t want to make the mistake of hiring the wrong agency.

If you do, that could mean months or even years of progress and revenue getting flushed down the drain.

So, to save yourself from losing years of growth, and instead, catapult your business to the moon…

Make sure the SEO agency you take on passes all of these checks.

Your bottom line(and your stress levels) will sing you praises.

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Posted by Marvin Dominguez
Marvin Dominguez Headshot
Founder and Head of Growth at LevelU. If he's not behind the computer you're likely to find him outdoors stealing some fresh air. One thing he despises though(with a burning passion)... is wasted potential.

Which is why he had to create LevelU.