How to choose the right SEO agency?
Search Engine Optimization or SEO is an important component of your digital strategy.
If your website receives no or few visits, it is surely that it is poorly referenced in the search results. A web SEO agency helps you adopt the right SEO strategy to gain visibility!
However, natural referencing is a subtle art. Not everyone can improvise as a “referrer”, it is important to choose the right service provider.
Understand the role of a SEO agency
A web referencing agency implements a set of techniques to improve the referencing of websites. But to have a real return on investment, you have to be visible in the right place.
Keyword research and content creation
It is not enough to be referenced on a randomly chosen keyword. A good SEO agency, after having carried out a complete SEO audit, studies your target and their search intentions. It will deduce a selection of keywords related to your activity, but also to the “way of thinking” of your audience. These words or expressions will be integrated into the textual content of your website.
Netlinking: link creation
The role of a web agency is also to improve the notoriety of your website in order to make it more visible to search engines.
De manière simplifiée, plus on parlera de vous, plus Google vous considérera comme digne d’intérêt.
Simply put, the more people talk about you, the more Google will consider you worthy of interest.
Your agency will then create backlinks on the web, that is to say links pointing to your site. But be careful, these links must be as natural as possible.
It is useless to create links from sites that have nothing to do with your activity or that have little notoriety in your field.
Google may detect inconsistencies that will cause you to lose places in the long term.
Technical optimization
Your SEO agency also has the mission of carrying out on-site technical improvements.
Loading time, URL, SiteMap, HTML tags are all parameters to take into account to reference a website.
Thus, an SEO agency will work on the tree structure of your site, in order to allow search engines to quickly identify its various contents.
- It will ensure that the site loading speed does not exceed 3 seconds.
- It will ensure the optimization of the tags or the robots.txt file of your site.
Identify your needs and goals
To be able to communicate what you want with your SEO agency, you must already identify your needs and your objectives.
For this, it is necessary to be able to understand a minimum of the jargon related to web referencing. We advise you to learn briefly about SEO techniques. You can start by reading some articles on SEO on our agency's blog.
- If it is a redesign of your website, this allows you to perform a light audit to identify problems around your SEO. And helps you clearly communicate your needs to the service provider.
- If it is a website creation, this allows you to understand the actions taken and to follow the evolution of your SEO.
For example, if you need quick results, you may want to consider running sponsored link campaigns on Google Ads (formerly Google Adwords) in conjunction with your SEO strategy. Mention it to your web agency, which will help you set it up.
Check the seriousness of an SEO agency
Once you know what you want, you will need to find a serious SEO agency, likely to carry out this work with you in the long term. But there may be thousands of them. It's not easy to find your way around. There are several ways to ensure the professionalism of a web SEO agency.
1. Analyze your E-reputation
A good way to check the seriousness of your potential SEO agency is to analyze its reputation on the web. If it has a certain notoriety, it is rather a good sign. To do this, look at its actions on social networks: if it is prolific, followed and possibly generates commitment.
You can also take a look at his corporate blog and read a few articles to assess his expertise. You can also see his participation in events as a specialist. Finally, you can start looking for opinions on their work through the web (Google My business, Forums, social networks, etc.).
2. Test the positioning of the SEO agency
A web SEO agency, worthy of the name, must be well positioned in search results, if only in its locality. If the agency itself is not able to reference itself well in its sector of activity, what can it bring you? Do not hesitate to type in Google words like “seo agency” or “SEO agency” possibly followed by the name of your city. This will allow you to see its position.
3. Ask for customer references and verify them
If this agency has a few years of experience, it must have had a few clients. It is a good omen to ask for references, possibly with the results of the actions carried out. You can also contact the clients in question directly: this will give you information on the agency's ability to listen, communication and expertise.
4. Ensure the financial health of your SEO agency
Natural referencing is a long-term job. It can take months, sometimes years of work to achieve the expected results. You will therefore surely have a long-term relationship with your SEO agency. Changing provider along the way can be disabling. So make sure your SEO agency is financially afloat and not in danger of closing overnight.
5. Request an interview with your future SEO agency
Finally, discuss with your SEO agency before signing with them.
Telephone, skype or in person, offer him an interview to discuss your expectations and have a quote drawn up.
You can ask him your questions:
- What SEO tools are used?
- Does it have references in your sector of activity?
- What SEO techniques are used?
- Is it able to carry out a quick audit of your site?
- Is she interested in your activity, your target?
- This will allow you to assess their skills as well.
In addition, a good web communication agency will be able to clearly explain its SEO strategies and methods to you without spreading out its technical vocabulary.
A reputable agency will also tell you how to measure your ROI. She will give you regular reports of the results whether they are up or down and of the work to be done.
It is better to be wary of agencies that guarantee quick results.
You can actually achieve the first results very quickly but it will not last.
The techniques used, known as “black hat”, are far from being “natural”. They generally go against Google's recommendations, which will end up ousting you from its search results.
De manière simplifiée, plus on parlera de vous, plus Google vous considérera comme digne d’intérêt.
