What to expect from the SEO company I want to hire?

Sometimes every smart online entrepreneur may just feel bored with that modest progress, and face the need for a massive improvement in online visibility to engage more potential customers. Yes, running the Search Engine Optimization strategy in a self-driven manner could become the best solution to put that commercial project on the right track, after all every business owner already has much stuff to do, and a lot of things to be worried about. So, going out to find a contractor seems quite a sound idea.

But what to expect from the SEO company we already decided to hire, for example with a compelling portfolio? Let’s face it - all of them, perhaps like any other service provider, will assure you of their commitment to your business success, tell you of their reputable name, advanced expertise and deep understanding of every, even the puniest, aspect of the Search Engine Optimization like the technical optimization itself, online marketing, web development, responsive design, content strategy, social media, and so on. But what can we expect from the SEO company, which just promised to do all that stuff well, besides at a quite reasonable price?

Here are some suggestions about what things we can always expect from the SEO company after making a commitment to hire. So, consider the following to make a deal and get down to business.

Introductory meeting

Once you selected the SEO company to work on your project, you are going to have an opening meeting. It could be either a private meeting in a conference hall, a conversation by phone, or a brief discussion call via video. Anyway, there are some critical questions that should be answered before you finally sign a contract. And it would be better to prepare a question list in advance. I recommend starting with the following bullet points:.

• Ask for more specific references or case studies for you to check and think over a bit later. I mean here the experienced and worthy search optimization provider must always be ready to show you some of its particularly unique approaches or individual actions to a specific successful SEO strategy.
• Request a time frame estimate for your business to feel the first signs of the actual progress. Note, you must be very cautious and even suspicious here. The SEO company should give you a reasonably shaped time frame, according to its past results. It should never promise you any progress in days or weeks.
• Make everything clear once again, don’t hesitate to repeat your questions on how long their core team of experts has been working in the industry. Also, request if there was any former experience in your subject or at least a relevant market niche.
• Get to know if the SEO company is focused on any particular components of the Search Engine Optimization, or may work on digital marketing in a broad manner. Doing so, ask how many marketing specialists will be working on your project.

Be sure to come to the introductory meeting with a list of such statements for consideration and make everything completely clear. Feel free to clarify all generalities, as well as the key arguments previously given you by the sales managers. Just compare them with the actual ones just pronounced by the SEO company representatives. In fact, something can often be mismatching here, so you’d better have a double-check to feel assured.

As your conversation with the representatives is coming to an end, you shouldn’t feel even the lightest air of frustration, particularly on the core subjects like billing cycles, time allotment, and the current general strategy of the search optimization.

Initial SEO Audit

The first thing to be done by the SEO company is running the Initial Audit for your website. Most commonly, the process can be compared with a would-be diagnosing your website’s SEO health conditions taken all in one.

Aside from the quality competency and experience level of the agency, the turnaround cycle for your SEO Audit will be generally determined by your site complexity, and as well as the size and amount of your web pages. Considering the Initial Audit, you should expect the SEO company for the following:

• You will be requested to provide access to your Google Analytics account. Using different professional tools and precise frameworks the experts will need a limited access to your dashboard and website reports.    
• The SEO company is likely to request the contact details on a person from your team, who will be in charge for SEO to be directly managing your account. Note, the more interactive is this conversation, the better. I mean you’d better agree on having conference calls for any core implementations, rather than just screen-sharing upon for suggestions.

Regular Conversation

The SEO company should never give you something like “to DO list”, as having a reliable and trustworthy search optimization provider means only regular communication, check-ins, and further discussions on the key findings. Doing so, you will always know how well things are going, because your mutual cooperation must still be only transparent and clear.

You should expect that the SEO company will give you a personal account manager to keep you posted on every wrong or suspicious occurrence upon happening throughout the full term of your contract. That way, the team will be able to work on troubleshooting and fixing any joint issues.

You will know that you have made the right choice on short notice. Every day the managers should be willing and ready to give you a clear discussion on any strategies and schemes already involved, or just considered for your website search optimization. That way, you will feel the ongoing discussion and support fully committed to your business prosperity. After all, there is the only thing remaining for you to remember - a global mission of the SEO company is to take a massive weight of SEO away from your shoulders so that you can be free to plug into some critical business issues, which are always waiting for a precise attention of the owner.