What can you expect from an SEO agency?
In general you can expect a dedicated point of contact, an initial audit and ongoing advice tailored to your business goals. A reliable SEO partner also offers proactive monitoring, transparent communication, regular reports on performance and tailored, easy-to-follow solutions, backed by subject-matter experts.
Expectations of SEO agencies vary, but businesses should expect more from their SEO agency today. That means looking for more than a supplier of on-page, off-page and technical SEO services: a partner that builds an effective, measurable SEO strategy that adapts to change, instead of having to react to it.
That is why this article focuses on what to expect from a reliable SEO agency.
In this guide:
- What should an SEO agency do?
- What to expect from your SEO agency
- Is an SEO agency worth paying for?
What should an SEO agency do?
SEO agencies must stick to what is set out in the contract. Beyond that, the best SEO agencies should provide tailored SEO solutions that take into account the client's sector and short- and long-term goals, such as a future need for enterprise SEO services, to help them reach both their SEO and business goals.
What to expect from your SEO agency
In more than 10 years working in SEO, we have come across SEO agencies of every type and size (and some excellent SEO services). From that experience, we have put together our own overview of what businesses should expect from an SEO agency:
- Dedicated point of contact
- SEO audit
- Ongoing advice
- Proactive monitoring
- Regular reports
- Results aligned with the business
- Transparent communication
- Competitor monitoring
- Subject-matter experts
- Taking the work on from start to finish
- Tailored solutions
- Keeping up to date with SEO
- Upfront billing
Your SEO provider, whether an SEO agency or an SEO consultancy, should give you a dedicated point of contact. This simplifies communication, giving you one person to share resources with, ask questions of your SEO agency or give feedback to.
Not knowing whom to call, or having to ring the main office without a direct contact, causes confusion and delays.
SEO audit
Your work with an SEO agency should start with an SEO audit.
In some cases, agencies complete this audit during the sales process to highlight weaknesses, strengths and opportunities, and to carry out a first analysis of what to prioritise.
Ongoing advice
Although there are plenty of best practices for search engine optimisation, your SEO agency should not work from a fixed checklist. Your business, your sector, your audience and your search landscape are unique, so your SEO agency should consult you to build an SEO strategy based on your goals.
Our view of ongoing SEO consultancy services goes beyond developing and growing your SEO strategy. It also means understanding your company's wider goals, beyond SEO. This helps the SEO agency give you better advice.
Proactive monitoring
You should also expect proactive monitoring of your website from your SEO agency. From tracking your site's uptime to regular checks on your SEO, your agency should behave like a member of your team, just as invested in your business and its mission.
Most SEO agencies don't provide this kind of work because of the time and resources it takes. In our experience, we have also seen agencies overload their account managers, which makes it hard for them to find the motivation to support the client's team.
Sector-specific monitoring is also extremely useful, especially in more heavily regulated sectors such as CBD.
Regular reports
Analysis and reporting are non-negotiable in SEO: expect your SEO agency to report on:
- Work carried out
- Progress
- Impact
What exactly can you expect?
Although tracking the impact of SEO on revenue is difficult, some SEO agencies do it!
It is useful to understand how your business ranks for certain keywords and how much traffic those keywords bring, but it matters just as much to see how search engine optimisation has helped your organisation generate a lead or close a sale.
This kind of information lets you show the real impact on revenue.
Although tracking the impact of SEO on revenue is difficult, some SEO agencies do it! With third-party or in-house technology, these agencies can show you how many leads and sales SEO has generated and even forecast how much you could earn from SEO.
Results aligned with the business
You should also expect your SEO agency to gather information that helps it understand:
- What your company wants to achieve with SEO
- What your company wants to achieve as a whole
With this information, your SEO provider can suggest goals aligned with the business. It can then adapt your SEO strategy and programme to those goals, helping you achieve (or make the case for) the results leadership expects from SEO.
If you work with a sector-specific SEO provider, such as an HVAC SEO agency, it will often start the partnership already knowing what matters most to your organisation.
Transparent communication
If you are like most businesses, you won't work with an SEO agency in your area. Even if you did, you would probably communicate by email, project management software, video calls or phone most of the time.
Whatever the channel, communication is essential.
When you work with an SEO agency, you should expect regular, transparent communication. The frequency can range from weekly to monthly: less frequent contact tends to undermine both the relationship and the SEO campaign.
Competitor monitoring
Search engine optimisation providers should also monitor your competitors proactively.
Many will analyse the competition at the start of the relationship, but few keep analysing how competitors gain, lose or hold their visibility in search engines.
Subject-matter experts
Search engine optimisation has many more specific sub-disciplines, including:
- Off-page SEO
- On-page SEO
- Technical SEO
- Local SEO
- Ecommerce SEO services
- Voice search SEO
- And more.
Not to mention that some areas overlap with SEO, such as the content management system (CMS).
From the best SEO providers, businesses should expect a team made up of subject-matter experts. Whether you speak to them directly on a call or hear their feedback through your account manager, these specialists will be on hand to strengthen your SEO campaign.
Taking the work on from start to finish
You have outsourced your SEO to an agency to get help, but what exactly should you expect?
Businesses like yours should expect their SEO agency to provide a complete solution. Your SEO team will probably have a few questions at the start, but it should have the means to carry out your strategy for you.
Businesses should expect their SEO agency to provide a ready-to-go solution.
This isn't possible for every business.
For example, if you can't give your SEO agency the access it needs, it won't be able to work directly on your site. However, it should have the communication skills to get round this, so that you can make updates and changes without trouble.
Tailored solutions
You should also expect your SEO agency to provide a solution tailored to your:
- Business
- Sector
- Target audience
- Short- and long-term goals
- Existing SEO
Off-the-shelf SEO plans can help you get started, but the agency should adapt them to your needs. For example, Visilay offers tailored SEO services for businesses in energy, locksmiths, pest control, B2B, B2C and other sectors.
Keeping up to date with SEO
Being proactive is a valuable trait in an SEO agency, because it carries over into the success of your SEO strategy.
Ideally, choose a provider that keeps up with changes in SEO through SEO courses and algorithm updates, so it can always stay ahead on the best strategy to follow.
Upfront billing
SEO plans vary, but SEO agencies should still provide transparent billing. That way you can see and understand what you are paying for each activity. For example, if your business needs extra hours in a given month, the invoice should show it.
Is an SEO agency worth paying for?
Whether an SEO agency is worth paying for depends on its ability to:
- Make better use of your time
- Help you reach your goals
- Meet your company's objectives.
If an SEO agency doesn't do this, it is probably not worth working with, because it won't generate a return on investment. This is why choosing the right SEO agency for your business matters. Still, you also need to give your agency the time it needs to work (around six months) before judging its performance.
Beyond your expectations
So you have weighed up in-house SEO versus an agency and you know what to expect from an SEO agency, but where do you find one that does all of this? At Visilay we believe in the expectations we have described and we meet them in our SEO services.
Visilay is one of the best SEO agencies. Our team has more than 10 years of experience running profitable SEO campaigns for clients.
Contact us to speak to our team and find out how our SEO agency can go beyond your expectations.
