How to Choose the Best SEO Company in Melbourne
Search engine optimization (SEO) is going to be an important part of your marketing strategy if you’re trying to promote your products or services via organic search. If you’ve chosen to outsource this to an SEO company in Melbourne, your next step is to find a firm that you can trust with your business, but which SEO company do you choose?
To answer that question, it’s going to help if you analyse a few different SEO agencies. How they act when you meet and how they answer specific questions will tell you a lot about their ability to help your overall SEO profile. This will begin when you first meet and analyse their sales process.
Assessing an SEO Company in Melbourne and Their Sales Process
When you’re putting your business in the hands of another company, it’s important to assess how they conduct business when you meet. Some key elements to watch for include:
– Their overall knowledge of SEO
– Are they good communicators?
– Do they seem organised?
– Can they give you concise information about your site’s current condition?
When a Melbourne SEO company first meets with you, they’ll be trying hard to have you become a client. If they have good communication skills and seem to be organised, that’s a great start. An experienced company will have worked with multiple clients in the past and have a process that they use to formulate a unique strategy for each new business that they help.
They’ll also have a thorough knowledge of SEO. If they seem to be overly generic when discussing SEO or only want to talk about price, they probably won’t be as detailed as they could be when it comes to implementing SEO on your site. It’s probably best to choose another SEO company if that’s the case.
They should also be able to assess the current condition of the SEO profile for your business. If they can quickly come up with a few SEO strategies that they can implement to boost your traffic and conversions, it would show that they understand what works in the current environment.
Red Flags and Unrealistic Expectations
There is no exact formula for SEO. In fact, it’s somewhat of an art. This means that sometimes it can be unpredictable. Experienced agencies understand this about SEO.
Beware of a company that starts promising unrealistic expectations such as top rankings in the search engine results pages (SERPS) for competitive keywords. Remember, an important part of any SEO strategy is patience. The results you usually want don’t happen overnight. If these type of red flags pop up, it’s a good idea to probe deeper and determine how a company is going to make this happen. You want to make sure that they only use white hat techniques so that you don’t end up having your website penalised in the future.
3 Month Expectations
It’s highly likely that the first three months of an SEO campaign is not going to show any type of real results. Every business is different, and some industries are more competitive than others. A company may have already had some type of keywords implemented on their site in the past and only require an updated analysis to see how those keywords are converting.
Whatever the strategy, if a prospective SEO agency is experienced, they should have some type of basic outline that they use as a strategy for each company that they work with. This will probably include a reporting structure so that they can discuss the process with you as your SEO campaign moves along.
Do They Use Current Strategies?
Starting in 2011, Google has made 8 major changes to its algorithm. These updates have included:
– Panda
– Penguin
– Hummingbird
– Pigeon
– Mobile
– RankBrain
– Possum
– Fred
A seasoned Melbourne SEO company will be aware of all the changes that have been made to Google’s algorithm. They understand and know how to implement correct strategies so that your site thrives in the SERPS. You may want to ask your prospective SEO agency how they stay in tune with current strategies that are working in the space.
Ask to See Past Results
One of the best ways to evaluate an SEO company in Melbourne on their ability to help your business is by asking to see past results. They should have a portfolio that highlights the strategies they used to increase the SEO profile for previous customers.
The best SEO companies will probably not even wait for you to ask. If they are proud of their track record and have a good grasp of the latest SEO techniques, they’ll have a portfolio of satisfied customers that they’re eager to show you.
It will also help if they get specific. Learn what they use to base their success on. Does it include traffic and keyword positions in the SERPS? Do they also look at conversion data and how that has impacted the revenues of previous clients that they helped?
Do They Provide You with Content?
Content marketing is a key element of having a successful website. When talking with an SEO company, you’ll need to find out if they provide content. They should understand that providing valuable content is as important as the SEO that’s used to help drive traffic to your website.
Your site must be able to entice visitors to stay and offer them content that’s packed with useful information. This will include long-form quality posts that may be 1500 words or more. Of course, the type of information that’s used will vary between industries and companies, but a good SEO company will know that this type of content is required if you want to rank in top listings on the SERPS.
How Do They Offer Reporting
Implementing SEO on your website can be a lengthy process. It’s important for you to understand how they are going to report results back to you. If you’re going to invest a large number of your marketing dollars into this company, you should know what you’ll be getting.
With SEO, positive results may take a little time to show up. It may be a few months before you start to see any type of movement in your listings. You’ll probably want to know what’s being done during those first few months to boost the SEO profile of your site.
This probably won’t be and really shouldn’t be a detailed list of exactly all the actions that are taken to improve your site. However, it should show categorised information related to areas that they’ve worked on and the results that have occurred.
Building Quality Backlinks
Backlinks are still an important part of the overall SEO profile of your business. Having quality backlinks pointing to your site will help your brand gain trust with Google.
A quality Melbourne SEO company will understand that links should come from high-quality websites that are relevant to your business. If they start talking about using Private Blog Networks (PBNs) or directory links, your site will probably end up getting penalised if you decide to use their services.
An SEO company who knows what they’re doing will not focus on quantity as they know that the rules of link building have changed. They’ll suggest using guest posts or other white hat techniques to obtain a quality backlink.
Summing It Up
When assessing an SEO agency to see if they are a good fit for your business, it’s going to help if you have a list of questions to ask them, so you’ll get an overview of what to expect from them and find out if their digital marketing services can address your needs. As you can see, you’ll also need to analyse their process to determine if they have the expertise and experience that will help boost traffic and conversions on your site.
