Avoid Impostors
We’ve seen it all too often. A local business or organization hires a company promising quality SEO services. A few months later, the client’s site has been blacklisted from Google SERPS and the owner has no idea what went wrong.
There are a lot of pretenders out there in the SEO market. They like to take advantage of clients who know they need SEO, but they do not fully understand why, what it is, or how to measure the results.
Because they care more about their clients’ pockets than their clients’ needs, these SEO agencies and specialists resort to underhanded practices that go against SEO best practices.
Is This Hat Black or White? How to Tell if You’re Getting Quality SEO Services
If you’re wondering if it’s time to break up with your SEO company, ask yourself these questions:
- Does my SEO specialist promise results in a short period of time? Great SEO takes time. It is a continual process, and therefore takes longer than a few months to see results. Agencies that promise near-instant results are most likely going against Google guidelines to produce short-lived results. Be wary of any SEO agency that guarantees results or promises quick success.
- Is my SEO targeted toward my local area? With the rise of mobile, it is safe to say that local SEO is here to stay. When people search on their smartphones and tablets, they want results closest to their location. If your agency is targeting the wrong area, or not targeting a specific area with local SEO, then it’s time to move on.
- Does my SEO agency provide reports on a monthly basis? Believe it or not, we’ve heard of agencies that provide SEO, but leave their clients in the dark as far as how successful their efforts are, or provide data that is irrelevant to the clients’ goals. What should you look for in an SEO report? Organic and referral traffic, conversion rates based on your company’s goals, crawl issues and, perhaps most importantly, how they have been analyzing the data and adjusting their strategy.
- How is my site obtaining backlinks? Back in the day, the only items that mattered in SEO were links. The more links to your website, the better. However, in today’s SEO landscape, quality trumps quantity. If your SEO specialist is reporting a high number of links built in a month, you can be sure that he’s building spammy links or, just as bad, paying for links.
- How is my SEO working with my other marketing efforts? SEO is just one aspect of digital marketing. In order for it to truly work, your SEO efforts must be paired with smart content and social media marketing. Also, having an integrated marketing plan (including digital and traditional marketing efforts) is even better. Achieving synergy throughout your marketing strategy should be your ultimate goal.
Gavin Advertising: Truth in SEO
Work with an agency that has the capability of achieving that synergy. We won’t make false promises of hard and fast results, because we believe in providing quality SEO services.
We’ll provide you with monthly reports on the key aspects you need to know: traffic, referrals, conversion rates. If you don’t understand something, we will be more than happy to sit down and chat about how our efforts are working, and if they aren’t working, how we can adjust our strategy.
Let’s get started. Contact Gavin to learn what sets us apart from the competition.
