Working with an SEO agency to help boost your page rank is a great way to increase the number of customers you have, boost your online visibility, and ensure you’re seeing the revenue that you should be. Not every agency, though, is a good fit for your company. In fact, with the wrong techniques, the SEO company you’ve hired to handle your optimization plan for you could actually kill your website and your rankings. If you’re not already an SEO professional, though, how do you know if your SEO company is helping you get more business? If they’re doing any of these things, they could actually be damaging your site.
- Writing for Search Engines: You’ve probably heard the adage “Content is King.” It’s true. The problem, though, is that only good, user-friendly, helpful content is king. If your SEO agency is adding material to your site, it should be material aimed at your customers, not material that’s aimed only at getting backlinks or including the keyword. It should make sense, it should be helpful, and it should look great. Content strategy is a big part of a good SEO plan, and if your current company isn’t using well-researched topics that are engaging and help promote your business, you may want to seek another team to better meet your needs.
- Employing a Poor Link Building Strategy: Link building is key to a stronger presence online. Link building, though, is one of the toughest things to master, and a poor link-building plan can damage your website quickly. Google has repeatedly mentioned that link exchanges, link purchases, or any link schemes are off-limits. Your SEO company’s link building plan for your site should be clear. You should be publishing material that is relevant and unique so other sites WANT to link back to you. Some experts call this link earning rather than link building. If the SEO company you’re working with doesn’t have a link-building strategy, can’t articulate it, or tells you about one that seems problematic, it’s worth investigating things a bit further.
- Guaranteeing a New Ranking: No SEO company can guarantee you the top spot on Google. The simple reality is that optimization doesn’t work that way. Google doesn’t create special relationships with companies, and algorithm updates aren’t specially reserved for some customers. Instead, every SEO team has to work just as hard for their clients to update sites and stay on top of changes if they want to do a good job. Because optimization doesn’t guarantee certain rankings change, those companies that advertise a particular kind of shift in your rankings might be running a scam operation that could damage your site and is certain to damage your marketing budget.
- Ignoring A Certain Aspect of SEO: Good SEO comes as a result of a hard look at the technical factors involved, the on-page signals your site sends out, and the off-page signals the search engine spiders can read. An SEO agency must involve all three of those things, and if they haven’t mentioned a strategy for each area, you may want to consider working with another team.
- Asking You to Link to Shady Websites: Your SEO team shouldn’t ask you to link to their website. They shouldn’t ask you to link to other websites, particularly those with questionable content. While they may build internal links across your website, they shouldn’t tell you that you must include links to outside websites on yours to improve your rankings. It doesn’t work that way, and any company asking you to do so maybe running a link-building scheme of their own that will likely backfire and damage your rankings in the process.
- Failing to Report Progress: Every SEO agency has a duty to report what they’ve done over the past month for their clients and how it may have impacted their rankings. If you’re not getting regular updates from your SEO team, start asking for them. The relationship you have with your SEO provider should be clear and transparent from start to finish, so if ever they fail to report the progress they’ve made, it may be time to work with a different provider.
The right SEO agency can do so much for your business, but if you’re not sure you’re working with that perfect team, it may be time to find someone else who can handle the job. If you’re using WordPress, the Simple Author Box plugin can help you manage authors the way they deserve. Customize & personalize their author box, assign multiple writers and editors, or manage guest authors without having to create separate accounts for them. Successful eCommerce websites have a few things in common. Those things being, a feature to export orders, advanced shipping rules, and direct checkout. If your site is lacking any of these, it is high time to change that.
Author’s Bio:
Hitesh is a digital marketing strategist and entrepreneur with more than 12 years of experience in digital marketing, start-ups, branding, and customer acquisition strategies. Hitesh is the CEO and Founder of Reposition Group, which encompasses a number of companies in the digital sector including SEO.co.uk, Reposition.co.uk, and Bouncezap.com, amongst others.
