Have you also looked upon google to search for strategies or tactics to increase brand awareness and rank on Google SERPs? We all came across SEO and tried to get our hands dirty by trying to pull it off ourselves.
SEO is a real game changer. Unlike other marketing channels, it can help you rank organically and increase brand discoverability. You can outperform your opponents and get an advantage by making persistent efforts. But it's not as easy as it seems.
SEO is more than just sprinkling target keywords throughout the text or checking the website's technical stability. It is a comprehensive practice that taps into every aspect of the market to optimize them to reach the audience.
It fits right into the marketing strategy and channels. Hence, marketing heads hesitate to hire an agency to outsource it. One mistake and months' worth of effort go into vain. Moreover, restricted budgets and accountability to the stakeholders force us to become in charge and look after every step to avoid any risks.
So, is DIY the right strategy for SEO?
Today, we'll discuss how an SEO agency can support your SEO efforts and how to pick the best agency for your company.
Should I Hire an SEO Company: SEO Agency vs. DIY
As easy as it might sound, doing SEO on your own is not the best thing. Your hit-and-trial experiment might severely affect the company's marketing results. But where does an SEO agency come into the picture?
Hiring an SEO agency involves more than just bringing on a few SEO experts to support your marketing team in managing the company's SEO. An SEO company has a lot more to offer. It dramatically increases ROI by removing the activities' burden and bringing in years of knowledge. Due to its practical experience performing SEO for numerous businesses like yours, it better understands your objectives.
An SEO company collaborates with your marketing team to devise a comprehensive strategy that brings more ROI. The results offered might not be guaranteed, but the team is accountable for showing month-on-month growth.
So, what tasks does an SEO agency perform?
- Keyword research
- Handle technical aspect
- Ensure compliance with Google guidelines
- Fix broken links
- Mobile Optimization
- Check backlink anchor texts
- Ensure a good web page speed
- Competitor analysis: SEO
- Remove duplicate pages
- Optimize images and meta descriptions
- Backlink analysis
Well, SEO companies do much more than these regular SEO-related tasks. The knowledge and skills they bring to the table make the whole thing worthwhile. Moreover, SEO agencies can level up as your content marketing agency to provide required content-related services. SEO and content marketing are closely related and hiring an SEO agency to provide both the services can help curate a comprehensive marketing plan.
As a marketer, you want to focus on areas where you can provide expertise. And even though you might have experience in SEO, trying to do it will restrict a company's growth. Let us see how hiring an SEO agency can turn out to be a marketing asset.
Top 5 Benefits of Hiring an SEO Agency
An SEO agency is a group of SEO experts coming together to handle a company's SEO to provide promising results. They start by understanding business goals and need to curate a strategy and outline the plan to collaborate with the marketing team. They seamlessly work with the marketing department to ease the burden. Still unsure about the benefits of hiring an SEO company? Here are 5 benefits of using an SEO company.
1. Industry Expertise
One of the biggest advantages of onboarding an SEO agency is you bring years of experts in the field. They work with similar clients in similar niches and know their way around. Unlike us, who try to find the right tactic for months to get results, they take up the work and own the responsibility to generate results.
What’s even more important is that they have spent years understanding the field, the niche, and the searchers’ needs. They have curated a team with multiple experts to help your business grow.
It is tedious enough to find the right SEO agency. Why spend so much time trying to build a perfect internal SEO team which includes all kinds of experts- SEO strategists, On Page specialists, Off page specialists, content specialists, etc.? In the long run, you might plan to build an in-house team, but hiring an SEO agency can generate equally positive results.
2. Save Time
An SEO agency, when taking over, might take some time to collaborate and integrate with the team. But once they set down to business, they are much more efficient with the job. They have workflows and processes to optimize operations and get the job done. They have the right tools and programs which make SEO faster and more extensive. They ultimately save us hours that we may otherwise have to invest in learning and implementing SEO.
3. Save Money
SEO is not an expense. It is an asset to your business, which takes consistent long-term efforts to show results. But these results are long-term and do not exhaust away within months. Once your site starts ranking, google bots pick up your new web pages faster, and overall SEO is boosted. When you have so much at stake, it is best to get an SEO agency to handle all the work. You should curate a budget to maximize your ROI and save bucks.
4. Enhanced ROI
DIY SEO is not the worst if you have experience in SEO and few experts on the team. However, investing in a dedicated SEO agency will save hours of effort and bring better results. They are updated with the trends, have experience, and have lean workflows to drive spectacular results.
Moreover, they have the accountability to generate results, and with the right SEO agency, you are relieved as well. Unlike an internal team, which tries to work around various arenas of marketing, an SEO agency solely focuses on SEO and hence gives month-on-month improved SEO growth.
5. Access to Valuable Insights
What if you give a dev an excel sheet from the marketing department to read and interpret? S/he might understand what it is, but they can not possibly derive the best conclusions from it. Similarly, an SEO agency, a group of experts, can give much deeper insights into a company’s SEO. So, you are not only signing up for SEO results but get a better understanding of your company’s SEO situation.
An SEO agency doesn't just allow you to focus on more critical tasks but brings together a system to perform and measure SEO. Instead of trying to find a silver lining in their efforts, all the work is calculated, based on experience, to generate results. But the importance of hiring an SEO agency is well realized. Hence, every day there is a new SEO agency in the market trying to sell off with gimmicks and unrealistic guarantees to offer results. So, how to hire an SEO agency that doesn't trick around to fill their pockets and is reliable?
How To Choose An SEO Agency?
Choosing an SEO agency doesn’t have to be a tedious task. The main aim of hiring one is to take off the burden and not increase it. However, before you hit the new google tab and start looking for the best and most trusted SEO agency, you should spend some time planning. Before you start searching, here are some questions for you to answer:
- What are the businesses’ SEO goals?
- How much time are we ready to devote to get the desired outcome?
- How much are we willing to invest in the SEO agency? (yes, getting an SEO agency is not an expense but an investment that truly pays off)
- What are some of the business values that we wish to align with the SEO agency?
- How will all people collaborate with the agency?
- Which metrics will be prioritized while measuring the success of the agency?
Now, once you answer these questions and have clarity over what exactly you need from the SEO agency, you can start hunting for the right SEO agency. You can look up google and compare reviews to prepare an exhaustive list. Moreover, you could look at other successful companies to track down their SEO agency. Another way is to look for referrals within your circle.
While we are at it, TripleDart is a performance marketing agency for SaaS companies that curates integrated marketing campaigns. We at TripleDart are like an extended helping hand to prioritize your business goals and boost SEO growth. Instead of making false promises, we believe in bringing results to the table. We help growth startups to reach the pinnacle of success by collaborating and delivering organic results.
Once you shortlist the SEO agency you wish to work with, here are some questions to ask the agency. This will help you assess their credibility and if they know their work.
- What are some companies/ case studies in similar niches that you worked with?
- What input is required from our end? How much access would you want to manage efficiently? What tools and programs will you need?
- What specific strategies are you planning to employ, and how much time will it take to get visible results?
- What are some of the common challenges your agency faces in niches similar to ours?
- What aspects of SEO do you cover? Voice SEO, eCommerce SEO, Local SEO, Link Building, etc.?
- How will you integrate/ blend with the in-house marketing team?
- How do you keep yourself updated with Google Updates and Trends?
- What are the different types of packages you offer? How will it impact the result?
- What does the team look like? Will it have specialists in different fields, such as on-page specialists, off-page specialists, content specialists, etc.?(Here, The main aim is to identify the variety of specialists on the team)
- What metrics will be used to measure the success? How will you report on progress?
Now that you discussed your needs with multiple agencies and got final quotes, you can pick an agency you like. You want a company that understands your objectives and is just as motivated as you are, not just one that fills in for SEO.
However, Do not go for companies that guarantee SEO success in a short period. Instead of trying to find the ‘cheapest SaaS SEO agency’ or ‘best B2B SaaS agency’, hire SEO companies with interesting and relevant case studies and supporting testimonials. We've seen the gimmicks that promise to help you rank in ten or two weeks. They might use black-hat techniques to assist you in ranking, but this will eventually hurt your site's SEO. SEO is a game of consistency and needs persistent efforts to grow business.
Final Thoughts: SEO Becomes Easy With Experts
The need for SEO is growing due to the rising cost of paid marketing channels. Getting assistance from an SEO agency would help you drive better results. SEO is like a power booster to your content marketing efforts. It enhances its discoverability and helps you reach millions of people. We all create content so that it reaches people and the brand is organically discoverable.
TripleDart helps you achieve your marketing goals, more so your SEO goals. We seamlessly work with your internal team to provide visible results. Instead of believing what we say, consider what other startups we have worked with have to say.
