In the last blog, we looked at some of the common mistakes inexperienced shoppers make when looking for an SEO company. So now let’s look at some of the traits an experienced SEO shopper looks for – once you read them, you’ll see they make perfect sense.
Proven track record
An intelligent man once said that the greatest indicator of future performance is past results. In other words, if you’ve done it before then you can probably do it again, and that is largely true of SEO companies. When scoping out a potential company to work with, the obvious question to ask is, have they delivered verifiable results for other businesses? Check their references. Check that they ranked them for keywords that actually brought traffic and business – if they’ve done a good job, those companies they’ve helped will be happy to act as a reference for them.
Accountability
Some SEO companies hide behind the excuse that “nobody except Google can guarantee rankings”, and at TrafficZoom we aren’t here to tell them they are wrong. Only Google can truly guarantee Google rankings. But when we are hired to do a job, we believe in being held accountable. We’re hired to use our skills and experience to achieve Google rankings and deliver targeted traffic to your website, and if that doesn’t happen on time and on budget then we have not done our job. If you hire an SEO company that can’t give you any specific targets or safety nets, you are basically writing them a blank check. You’ll be in danger of finding yourself waiting in line and not sure just how much longer to hang in there… knowing that if you quit now, you’ve definitely wasted all that money, but if you keep going, you’re in danger of wasting more.
So what is the solution? Full accountability. Choose an SEO company that reduces or removes this risk by setting milestones that must be met for the campaign and billing to continue. Choose a company that is contracted to meet those milestones even if it means working for free to meet them. Choose a company like TrafficZoom!