Five things to know before you hire an SEO agency




Okay - your website is up, looking clean and inviting [to you], and you wait for customers to beat a path to your door [err, website]. But it doesn't happen. Nada.



What to do? You go scrambling for a SEO agency. You hear pitches, sit through countless presentations, choose one, get the contractual documentation closed, and complete the knowledge transfer.

Then you wait - for your website to get ranked on page #1 of SERPs.

Then you wait - some more.

Finally, you commence an analysis:

Why is your website not ranked yet on page 1?
What more do you need to do?
Secretly goes in your mind "How do I now explain this to the CMO / CEO / Leadership"?

All of this, amongst mounting budgetary pressures, and explanations to the CX suite about the RoI on your SEO investment.

Only if we knew!

Let's quickly check out some to-dos that can assist you before you sign on the dotted line with an agency. Having burnt my fingers myself once, I can say that I wish I had known this earlier. 

Rule #1
Don't expect miracles
This is the fundamental tenet of any client-agency relationship - be it your SEO agency or your PR agency. You can only enable them to do a good job if you do yours. And yours begins at least 6 months in advance of the agency on-boarding. If not that, give yourself at least 3 months to do your research. Otherwise at the end of the agency's tenure, you will be looking at sub-optimal results.

Get these things in order:

(i) Who will be handling the SEO initiative from your side? Does that person have sufficient SEO expertise to guide the agency? If not, get someone who can or train the people to the extent that they can parry with the agency. Why parry? Cause you need someone who can question / guide / and navigate the SEO agency to get them to deliver their best work for you. You need a true SEO hustler, especially if you are start-up.

(ii) Irrespective of when you bring the agency on-board, you need to have a keyword strategy in place. Get going on keywords and content. Don't wait for your agency to come on board to commence work on this. You will end up wasting precious time. That's why you need the initial 6 months - to equip yourself a bit about SEO, get your house in order and then embark on an SEO program.

(iii) Learn from your peers: Ask people who have embarked on an SEO program before. Learn what they struggled with - what would their advice be. Choose companies similar to yours. Read up online a bit for preparing yourself for uncharted waters (And for that again, you need time, hence the six months).

(iv) Create a comprehensive scope of work: Your initial time should be invested in understanding & creating a scope of work document that captures your strategic marketing objectives. Don't create a scoping document that captures the objectives fleetingly. Tie every SEO objective to the overall larger goal.


Rule #2
Don't get swayed by credentials
All of us marketers have been there. We have got swayed by flashy, glitzy presentations. Even though the penultimate mandate might not be given to the aforesaid agency, but we do get influenced by pizzazz.  We have also been influenced by agencies that have been around for a longer time [read experience]. Our mind tells us that such agencies have more resources at their disposal [better talent and tools], but my observation has been that a smaller agency might be more hungry for your business and might do a better job of understanding your strategic objectives and build that momentum in your SEO program as well. You can also get more results delivered from a smaller agency [without altering the scope of the work] as they would be more keen on client retention [which would help them with word-of-mouth]. Needless to say, due diligence of all agencies is hygiene. Go through the drill, rigorously.


Rule #3
Ask questions

Ask questions - a lot.
And keep asking.
Go beyond the case studies and client testimonials. In SEO, you can very well cross over to the dark side, inadvertently. Hence it is essential to probe the agency in the hope that it will unearth some good (hopefully) or bad SEO practices.


What are the technical aspects of SEO that you'd fix on our website?
Can you give us a schedule of delivery / services? How many pages would be audited / fixed weekly / monthly?
Has one of your websites ever been penalized by Google [Irrespective of their answer, you can find out the truth, eventually].
What is your back-links strategy? [An agency accustomed to taking shortcuts would not have the most refined back-links strategy.]
How quickly can we get ranked on page 1 of SERPs? [No harm in asking - their answer will lead you to their strategy].
How frequently will reports and reviews be shared / held?
How big is your SEO team? Who will be handling our account?
How much time / support would you need from our in-house team?
Tell us about three atypical SEO challenges you faced and how you solved them?


Rule of thumb: Keep on asking, keep on pushing. You never know what you might uncover.

Rule #4
Housekeeping
To enable your SEO agency to do a great job, you need to empower them with the correct launchpad. Prepare starter kits about what you need to share with them regarding your company and products beforehand. Try to minimize the time spent on documentation once the agency engagement starts. You need to maximize the time they spend on your products SEO strategy - and that will happen once you empower them with all the information they need, as soon as you kick start the engagement. That means, your work starts (again) 3- 6 months in advance.



Rule #5
Be patient
You cannot fast forward your SEO program. It is slow, painstaking, and requires constant nurturing. Reckless SEO behaviour will ultimately cost you. You need to be patient with the agency itself. No agency can deliver something Quicker, Faster, Cheaper  (QFC) than the market average. What they can do, however, is deliver quality, consistently. So remove the QFC metric and invest time in building your SEO program, quality-wise. 

 Putting it all together
Hope these pointers help you kick-start your SEO agency hunt. You can read more about this topic in the article on Moz here, by ClickConsult here, and a gem of an article on NoisyLittleMonkey here.

 You can also download an entire list of comprehensive questions to ask a prospective SEO agency here. Until next time, cheerios!







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