“Should I hire an SEO company to generate more revenue for my business?”

Many businesses have tried to rank their own site, hiring in-house staff and taking several search engine optimization (SEO) courses. But many months have passed with little to nothing to show for their efforts.

Some firms are looking to increase sales with digital marketing. But they’re confused if they should do SEO, PPC, social media, or other strategies.

And we’ve also come across companies that want a cost-effective and long-term solution to bring in consistent leads.

If any of the above relates to you, you’ve come to the right place. As you read this article, you’ll gain clarity if you should hire an SEO company and the right way to do it.

Why Should I Care About SEO?

If you want short-term results, SEO is not a suitable strategy. Instead, consider paying for ads like running a pay-per-click campaign. Ads will bring you traffic much faster. But once you stop paying, the traffic coming to your website will stop accordingly.

If you’re in business for the long term, you need to have SEO as part of your marketing strategy. It takes some time to get ranked on the first page of search engines like Google.

But once you’re on the first page, search engines will start sending you traffic at no cost. Who doesn’t like free, high-quality traffic?

Working on SEO for your website is like gardening. First, you have to plan and prepare the soil by doing keyword research. This is a critical step most businesses get wrong. If you plant tomato seeds, they will grow into tomatoes. You can’t magically turn it into carrots.

Next, plant and fertilize your garden with content that search engines and readers love. And finally, ongoing care to maintain your site ranking and boost the articles ranking on the second page.

Should I Hire an SEO Company: Good vs Bad Agencies

Improving any website’s SEO requires the right knowledge and the effort to implement the necessary steps. Google has provided guidelines and best practices on SEO. These include:

• Links
• Keywords
• Authority
• Relevance
• Penalties
• Updates
• Page speed
• Meta tags
• URL structure
• Google Analytics
• Google Search Console
• And a long list of other topics.

As you can see, it’s not merely putting up blog posts on your website. And hoping search engines would pick it up and rank it.

There are a lot of technical aspects. Although you can learn to do it yourself, most businesses will benefit from focusing on running their business. Leave the technical SEO work to a professional agency.

You may have come across many agencies claiming, “I can get you on Page 1”. But how do you spot the good SEO agencies from the bad ones?

1. Traffic vs Revenue

Bad SEO agencies focus on increasing traffic, while good SEO agencies focus on increasing revenue.

Initially, getting more traffic to your website sounds like a good plan. But traffic alone doesn’t mean anything if you don’t convert the visitors to leads or sales. It needs to have valuable content for the readers that compels them to take action.

2. Tactics vs Strategy

Bad SEO agencies tell you all about the tactics they’ll be using. Although tactics are important, it needs to fit the overall marketing strategy for your business.

A strategy will address the goals of your business. This will give the SEO tactics focus, bringing you targeted traffic.

3. The Right Expectations

Bad SEO agencies promise quick, unattainable results. These are typically done with shady tactics which don’t last. On the other hand, good SEO agencies will provide you with the facts and the right expectations.

How to Choose a Good SEO Company

1. Always check their reputation

This is an easy but often overlooked step in the due diligence process. By doing a simple Google search on the company name, you’ll find online reviews of the agency. Make sure they have a decent amount of positive reviews.

Request some case studies to review or look at their website if they have case studies of past clients. Bonus points for the agency if they have successfully helped another business in your industry.

As you’re looking at their past results, be mindful that past performance doesn’t guarantee they will provide the results you’re looking for. But your chance of success is much higher with a well-established SEO company.

2. They eat their own cooking

This means that the SEO agency is ranking on Google for relevant keywords. If they can’t rank their own website, how would they be able to rank your site?

Many SEO companies make promises, but they can’t deliver. You want to avoid them at all costs.

3. Quality over price

Many businesses set an unrealistically low marketing budget for SEO. And they end up hiring based on price.

If you’ve read this far, you know that not all SEO agencies are made the same. You want to engage one that will provide quality work. Treat SEO as an investment in your business. And once you start getting targeted traffic to your website, you’ll be rewarded with a stream of predictable revenue.

Conclusion

In this article, you’ve learned what SEO is all about and how to choose a good agency. By working with a good SEO agency, you’ll be able to increase your revenue and scale your business.

If you’re looking for a professional SEO company in Toronto, we’d love to help. The first step is to book a call with us to see if we’d be a good fit to work together.