12 Questions Entrepreneurs Should Ask Before Hiring an SEO Agency

12 Questions Entrepreneurs Should Ask Before Hiring an SEO Agency If you’re searching to hire an SEO agency, we know how hard it can be to find the right one. There’s no denying that SEO has the power to exponentially increase the traffic to your website and influence the results of your business.

According to the latest report, In 2021, Google was responsible for over 70% of the world’s desktop search traffic. Baidu followed with 13%, Bing had 12%, and Yahoo brought up 2%.

However, when dealing with such an essential factor in your company’s success, it’s vital to ensure you work with an experienced and trustworthy partner. In the US alone, the spending on SEO amounted to $79.27 billion in 2020.

Source: https://www.motocms.com/blog/en/seo-statistics-local-industry-roi/

So, to assist you in making an informed decision when choosing an SEO agency, we’ve compiled this list of questions every entrepreneur should ask

Top 12 Questions You Must Ask Before Hiring an SEO Agency in 2021 Q1: Can you define the services you would provide me as your SEO strategy?

One of the essential questions you should ask is if they are transparent about the services they claim to provide. If an agent can’t give details on his

experience or knowledge, then take this as a warning sign to avoid working together at all costs.

A good SEO agency will be open with their work, but a bad one won’t show you any proof that it works and makes money off your trust in them.

Q2: How will you optimize our content?

It is an excellent question to ask an SEO company. It allows you to understand if your SEO agency will be focusing on just on-page optimization, link building, or both. While some agencies do a combination of both, one may be more important than another, depending on your industry and business goals.

Source: https://www.lyfemarketing.com/blog/what-is-seo-company/

So, before hiring an SEO agency, make sure that it will improve its content.

Your social media posts should reflect the unique aspects of your business, and they need to be engaging enough for people you want to read them.

Doing this can increase your followers as a result.

Q3: What tools do they use?

Your agency should explain in detail which tools they use and why they chose them. And it includes everything from how they track keyword rankings to what analytical software they use. It’s always a solid idea to ask them for a quick demonstration of their tools at work.

If you see something you don’t like, it’s best to know that before investing in them or hiring new employees.

Q4: How do you go about link building?

Having a proper link-building strategy is crucial to getting your site ranking.

You must ask your SEO company to detail their plan before they start working for you so that you recognize what to expect from them. Here are some questions that will help you get a clear picture of their link-building approach.

Can I see a few examples of your past work? : Showing you examples of previous work might help give you a clearer picture of how you can do things.

Moreover, it also allows you to assess quality.

Who are your clients? : Make sure that you do background checks on any potential SEO agency by finding out who they have worked with within the past and contact these people directly.

Q5: What is your content marketing strategy?

If you’re hiring a marketing agency to help build and market your content, they must share a cohesive vision for what your content will be and how it will serve you.

Do you know? As per a report, Organic results account for 67.60% of all the clicks on Google’s first page alone.

You shouldn’t just hire them to promote any old written content. An SEO company must add value by creating something customized that best represents your business.

Q6: Do you have experts working on my campaign full-time?

Depending on your budget, you can get a range of services from any agency.

While some agencies offer a mix of part-time and full-time experts working on campaigns, others might only work with clients who have a large marketing budget.

Make sure you understand how many people will be working on your drive before committing to any contract.

Q7: What sort of ranking increases can we expect?

When you plan to hire an SEO agency, do not do due diligence on their experience and see detailed rankings reports or screenshots that prove their performance.

The best search engine optimization strategies are ones tailored to individual client needs and business goals. Search engines frequently change so, knowing how your agency responds to changes can help ensure that your campaign stays on track throughout any updates.

Q8: How do you conduct keyword research?

Asking an SEO agency how they do keyword research is an excellent idea because it lets you know what keywords they’re targeting on your behalf and if those keywords are profitable.

They could also be pursuing irrelevant search phrases that won’t bring in prospective customers or increase sales. It’s better to get started with somebody who can get you more leads.

Q9: When can I expect to see results from my campaign?

An SEO agency must set realistic expectations for your campaigns from day one. You need to know how long it will take your new drive to start delivering results.

On average, you can expect a return on investment within three months.

However, some businesses can see quicker returns, while others may need a little more time.

So, it would help if you ask your SEO partner regarding campaign results.

While growth will never happen overnight, you must have faith in your agency and its performance to deliver results as soon as possible.

Q10: Can we see some case studies?

Before hiring a company to help boost your business’s visibility in search engines, make sure you understand what they can do for you. Ask them to provide samples of their work.

They should be able to show how they would improve your overall presence in search engine rankings based on past successes. Moreover, never be afraid to ask questions about your site’s performance metrics or how you can expect it to grow under their watch.

Q11: What do you know about our industry?

If you ask this question, it shows you what they know about your business and how well they understand your needs. For example, if you are in a service-based industry, rather than asking what you are strong at? Or what services do you offer?

Ask them what kind of clients they’ve worked with within your industry. An SEO agency that has successfully helped clients similar to yours can often be much more effective for your company than one that hasn’t.

Start with open-ended questions that will help you learn about their past experiences working within your industry before moving into more specific questions.

Q12: How often will we be having meetings?

You should expect to meet with your agency weekly, so you can both assess progress, adjust strategy, and course-correct. You should always know what’s

happening with your site, and if you do not hear about it, it’s time to ask questions.

Moreover, you can guide them to use tools like DaPulse and Asana, which will allow the agency to map out tasks given your access, so you don’t need as many meetings but still get transparency on work in progress.

Final Thoughts SEO is a complex and ever-changing field. Since Google introduced its machine learning program, RankBrain, the search engine has continuously updated and improved.

That’s why influential SEO companies always stay on top of trends in this rapidly evolving industry to keep up with these changes.

SEOs should be more concerned with the quality of their SEO techniques for users than how it impacts ranking factors or link quantity.

So, asking these questions and analysing the answers to one of such agencies will help you pick out the best SEO agency.

Frequently Asked Questions What does an SEO agency do?

A search engine optimization company helps businesses make their website more attractive to the Google algorithm. The better optimized a site is for search engines, the higher it will rank on Google for relevant keywords to services you offer.

How much does SEO cost on average?

SEO services charge anywhere between $2,500 to $5,000 per month for SEO. When surveyed by Sparktoro, 87% of SEOs offer monthly retainer fees, and 65% either use hourly rates or price their work based on individual projects.

Only 15% provided performance-based pricing, where the customer pays if they see results within a specific time frame (usually three months).

What are the various types of SEO? SEO is a robust digital marketing strategy that can help businesses increase their online traffic. There are mainly four types of SEO which are the following.

● On-Page SEO

On-page SEO, known as on-site optimization, is the process of optimizing your website’s content. It includes keywords in headers and meta titles &

descriptions for images to ensure you’re using relevant terms that will help rank higher when people search online.

● Off-Page SEO

Off-page SEO refers to all factors outside of your domain or website that affect search engine rankings. Off-page factors include social media activity, blogging activity, content marketing, link building, and more.

The most important off-page factor is backlinks. Backlinks are highly relevant for on-page SEO, but their importance is not limited to just that.

● Technical SEO

Technical SEO ensures your website meets Google’s standards. It includes optimizing sites to reduce the page load time, adding alt tags to images on your site, or setting up your URL structure for better crawling and indexing.

● Local SEO

Local SEO assists your business get found when people search for your product or service within a local area. It is a search engine optimization that focuses on increasing your online presence in a local area. It’s about promoting products and services to local customers through the digital space instead of reaching out nationally.