As a business owner, you’re always looking at ways to build a strong online presence, to increase sales, and attract more customers. Whether you’re running a small local store or managing a national brand, attracting and engaging your customers online is more important than ever. While there are several ways to boost your online visibility, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is one of the most effective and cost-efficient marketing tools out there in driving organic traffic to your website.
So, are you asking the question, do I really need an SEO agency?
While it may seem obvious to answer yes, it can be more complex as a business owner.
When you’re taking on SEO, careful thought must go into it whether you’re investing in an agency or outsourcing your SEO work.
Finding an agency that can’t drive results will cost you as a business time, money, and missed opportunities. Partnering up with an agency that can deliver results can have you reaping the benefits.
Do I need an SEO Agency?
Firstly, before answering the question, you need to decide whether you need an SEO agency and how it may affect your business. Here is what to consider:
- Do you have the time to go out and find new customers?
- Do you have the time to handle SEO yourself?
- Are you working each day to reach the top page of Google?
- Are you adding content pieces to your website but not seeing the benefits?
- Is your business slowly dropping in rankings?
If so, then having an SEO expert or agency take care of your website optimisation might be the best investment for your business.
Compelling Reasons to Work With An SEO Agency
Before you start contacting SEO agencies, it’s time to consider what tell-tale signs your business is showing before figuring out if optimising your website is worth it.
Organic Traffic is Slowly Declining
This is one of the main symptoms of why you need SEO support, any drop in traffic means your website content is getting pushed further down the search engine result pages due to low optimisation.
Minimal Backlinks Being Built
If you have a low backlink profile, meaning you have minimal links pointing back to your website and poor content that isn’t optimised this will deliver a negative user experience. If visitors don’t stay on your website this will cause a high bounce rate which will signal to search engine crawlers that your website is not serving its users.
Relying Only on Paid Ads
While paid ads can deliver you clicks and conversions here and there, it shouldn’t solely be your only marketing strategy. If your SEO content is well optimised, it can start generating traffic for years to come if done correctly.
Keep in mind, paid search ads are great, they will fulfil short-term goals, but SEO will fulfil long-term visibility, reach and sustainable lead sources for business success.
Low Conversion Rate
If you’re experiencing traffic coming to your website without any conversions, this could be because of your content and SEO is not being optimised to the right audience. It is not serving your users’ queries to make that final transaction. You need to ensure your content resonates with your visitors and ensure it drives user intent.
Keyword Stuffing & Poor User Experience
This falls with your on-page SEO and website structure. Ensure you have a website navigation structure that will enable users to find different parts of your website easily. If there is a lot of keyword stuffing and a poor website structure, this will not only hurt your online visibility but increase a higher bounce rate (users leaving your website).
Why Use an SEO Agency?
The end goal is to start getting more traffic to your website and convert more leads into customers, right? Working with an SEO agency that know how to optimise your website for your specific niche will be able to move the needle for your business.
Benefits of Working with an SEO Agency
Whether you’re a large organisation or a small business, working with an SEO agency you should be getting:
On-Page & Off-Page SEO: They’ll do the complete SEO work for you, from optimising your content to building links back to your website.
Technical: They will be able to handle all the technical issues on your website and fix what’s holding back your website.
SEO Experience: They’ve most likely generated positive results for other businesses similar to yours, so they’ll be well equipped with the knowledge and experience.
Free Up Your Time: While your SEO is being worked on you have more time to work on your business, which what matters most. SEO can take weeks and months to deliver significant traction, this is the time you can use in working on your business.
While working with an SEO agency you will be able to learn and expand your knowledge on how SEO works and what is involved. You will be able to be on top of managing your online content and seeing how it can make a difference to your rankings.
Are SEO Agencies Worth It For Your Business?
Think of SEO as an investment in your business and not an expense. Is it worth having an agency work on your SEO? It all comes down to your business and what sort of results they can achieve.
All industry types are different which means some perform better than others, for example, anyone in the e-commerce space or someone who is in a less competitive market. However, in saying that, some agencies are better than others which simply comes down to their own strategies being implemented.
Tips for Choosing an SEO Agency That Can Deliver
It can be a daunting task when searching for “SEO agency near me” or “SEO agency Melbourne”, you’ll have a heap of results to swift through. From the list of options, you now have to pick one and hope it’s one who can deliver you the best return. There are a range of factors to consider below:
What to Consider When Choosing an SEO Agency
When looking through potential agencies in search results make sure you’re looking for a partner who will have:
Experience should be apparent from the list of case studies on their website with a proven track record.
Transparency should be discussed during initial meeting and onboarding
Beware of agencies promising guarantees for top rankings in a short period of time, Google even states in their policy that no one can guarantee first page rankings in Google.
Focus on what’s bringing in results and understand the metrics. This comes from clear communication and measurable data coming from reports.
Do Your Due Diligence Before Choosing
After you have a list of agencies you’re potentially looking at selecting, it is time to dive deeper into their experience, history of work and knowledge. It’s important to look for the following:
Review online case studies and client reviews to ensure they have social proof of results delivered. If this is not visible on their site, it’s a good sign to move on.
Check in to see what tools and processes they use, will there be any reporting on a monthly basis? Any catch up meetings?
Ensure that you’re getting value for what you’re paying for compared to other proposals. Discuss budget and pricing packages to ensure it fits within your marketing spend.
Start off with basic packages to see if the agency can deliver some type of results before upgrading to a more expensive plan.
Check to see if they provide any current road maps and expectations in the coming months when it comes to rankings and website performance in search.
Asking the right questions before selecting your agency will help you determine the quality of the work that’s being delivered.
Final Wrap Up
When the time comes to hire an SEO agency there’s a lot to think about and that it aligns with your business goals you’re wanting to achieve.
The initial step in searching for an agency on Google might sound easy, but you have to look for certain factors and do your due diligence when carefully selecting one.
Choosing the right agency could provide your business with the best return, so take the time you need to assess their credibility, work they do for their clients and pricing.
By covering the above, you’re well on your way to selecting a team that has one priority – achieving goals for your business. It’s the team that are here to move the needle and strive for online success.