4 Things to Look for in an SEO Company

If you are a business, small or large, you have most likely realized by now that everything is becoming digitalized. Consumers are increasingly turning away from browsing and buying for products and services in person, and instead they are turning to the internet for their searches and purchases.

Is your company’s website being listed at the top of search results when a customer looks up your company or keywords related to your business? If not, through an experienced Atlanta SEO company, you can improve your website’s rankings and increase traffic to your site through a process called search engine optimization (SEO). Consider the following tips to ensure you are hiring the best SEO agency for your business.

Make Sure They’re Asking the Right Questions

Most SEO companies will give you a generic pitch on their services. Add some depth to the conversation by making sure you will be treated as a unique client and not as another paycheck. The company should ask you questions that show a genuine interest in your business. These questions might include:

• What is the goal of your site? Do you want visitors to fill out an email form, call your business, make a purchase?
• Who are your customers and how do they find you?
• Do you use other forms of marketing? Billboards, TV Ads, Social Platforms?
• What makes your business unique and how do you differentiate yourself from your competitors?
• Who are your competitors, and how is their business related to yours?

If these kinds of questions aren’t being asked, the SEO company most likely will not tailor their efforts to your business’s digital marketing needs.

Check Their References

Reviews are extremely important to get a feel of what the company is like overall. Ask for a list of at least 3 clients that you can contact to discuss their experience with you.

• Here are some questions for you to ask the company’s clients:
• What was the communication pattern like? Constant? Occasional? Rare?
• What kind of updates did they provide?
• Did they deliver positive results?
• Did they meet deadlines?
• Did they offer strategic plans of action?
• Did they provide background or any training on SEO so you could keep up with what was going on?

Request a Technical and Search Audit

Most Atlanta SEO companies will charge for tech and search audits, but these audits can reveal much about what your online presence is lacking. Audits generally require allowing access to your site (make sure it’s restricted access).

For search audits, the SEO team will analyze the site at its current stage. The audit will include your site’s rankings in organic search results, any issues that would affect these rankings, recommendations on what to work on, and evidence and examples to support these recommendations. The audit should then end with a tailored plan of action that will include the steps to take to work on getting your site optimized, the detailed steps it will take to achieve this goal, the amount of time the SEO team will need, and the projected positive results.

A technical audit is the technical analysis of your site. The SEO team will reveal any broken links on your site, the crawlability of your site to search engines, critiques of the website structure, and any duplicate content. They will also search for your XML sitemap if it exists, as well as your robots.txt file. Recommendations will be made based on the existence or lack of these technical factors.

Trust Your Gut

At the end of the interview process, choose the company that you feel most comfortable with and presented you with the best recommendations. The SEO company should know exactly what you are trying to achieve for your business and know how to help you accomplish your business goals. Their plan should be clear and concise, and they should walk you through the steps they plan to take. Lastly, the company should offer a reasonable price for their services.

If you’re ready to get your website to rank at the top of the search results list, and optimize your site for a better customer experience, contact Blueprint today by filling out an online submission form or calling 770.817.9560.