Hiring An SEO Agency: When, Why & The Benefits

Hiring an SEO agency is never an easy task for a business owner or marketing department. It’s a big decision with potentially a lot of money sitting behind it. You need to feel as comfortable as you can to give the yes and commit to trusting an SEO agency to improve your current SEO performance.

If you’re reading this as a small business owner thinking about hiring an SEO agency for the first time, this could be an even bigger decision for you.

But exactly why, when and how should you hire an SEO agency? 

Our straightforward guide is here to walk you through it all.

When Should You Hire an SEO Agency?

When you’re one person or a small team, or even a larger team without the funds for an in-house SEO specialist, the best option might be to hire an SEO agency. 

SEO agencies can help your business at various different stages, from starting up your website to improving an existing site, and everything in between.

There are many situations a business might find themselves in when hiring an SEO agency could be beneficial to their business. These include:

• You’ve been trying to do SEO yourself, but know you can only take it so far or simply don’t have the time.
• You want to develop grow your organic traffic but don’t have the available funds to hire an in house SEO manager or support.
• Your website has never had any SEO work done to it, so you need an SEO agency to come in and get you up-to-speed, handling everything.
• Your current SEO efforts aren’t providing increased visitors to your site or the conversion results you expected.
• You are getting some positive results from SEO and can see it’s potential, but need an SEO agency to take you to the next level.

Why Hire an SEO Agency?

So, we’ve covered the when of hiring an SEO agency, but what about the why? 

SEO agencies have a wealth of knowledge and experience they can bring to your business. They have the ability to provide you with a strategic roadmap for SEO, while also providing valuable insights along the way. 

So — let’s take a deeper look at some of the benefits of hiring an SEO agency.

• You know it makes sense to get on board with SEO, but you don’t have the bandwidth or expertise in-house.
• Your website visitors aren’t converting, and you need someone who understands how your site should be structured from an conversion rate point of view. Not all SEO agencies will do this, but user experience is key so look out for ones that can also help you here.
• You want to focus on what you do best (building great products, running your business) while you let the experts handle the SEO.
• SEO agencies will have team members who have been doing SEO as their whole career, some will even have 20+ years experience behind them.
• You have the budget. Sometimes it can be as simply as finally getting to the stage where you are ready and can afford to commit to an SEO agency and strategy for your business.

Related Reading: Why SEO is Important For Small Businesses

Steps To Take When Hiring An SEO Agency

As we said hiring an SEO agency, especially for the first time can be a big decision. We get it, we speak to business owners all the time who are nervous and want to make sure they are making the right decision.  

So with that said, here are our top tips when hiring an SEO agency.

Hire an agency you can trust

This may be an obvious one and easier said than done but trust your instincts.

When you’re looking to hire outsourced SEO, it’s important that you choose an agency that you trust will work hard for your business, while representing your best interests.

There are some key questions to keep in mind when selecting an agency you can trust:

• Can the agency provide testimonials and case studies from satisfied clients?
• How will your agency communicate with you on a regular basis? Monthly call and reporting?
• Can the SEO agency provide a plan on how they’ll work with you, what tools they’ll use and what services they’ll offer?
• Do you feel like you would enjoy working with the team?
• How long have they been operating?
• Have they answered all your questions satisfactorily?

They will carry out the right SEO work to get results

It’s also critical that the agency you choose has proven results in the SEO game. Every business needs their website performing well on search engines if they want to scale, so make sure you know what kind of results you can expect from your campaign.

Their services should include:

• Initial audit and recommendations
• Keyword research and selection
• Local SEO optimisations (if relevant)
• Competitor analysis and reporting
• Content development – They should mention blogs, guides etc
• Link building – They should be building good links to your website. Ask them how they do this as well.
• Technical fixes and optimizations – They should be making technical SEO improvements to your website. Page speeds, thin content fixes etc

Check Tools & Processes

You have to work with an agency on a regular basis, so it’s important that you find one who provides a process and a set of tools that will allow them to create the right results for your business. Make sure you ask these questions before hiring an SEO agency:

• What kind of reporting schedule will they provide?
• What tools and processes will they use to perform the SEO work for your website?
• How detailed is their plan of action, and what role will you play in this process?

Make sure they hold themselves accountable

You should not expect results from SEO overnight, think more in the line of months. Especially for a new website. That being said, the agency you choose should be able to show work carried out, and even potentially some small “wins”. For example, if you have one page that is ranking in position 50, they should see that over weeks, this has moved up to position 25 for example.

You should be able to see blogs going live, on site changes being made etc. All these tasks need to be carried out to help your website improve positions, so make sure they report on them and you can hold them accountable.

7 Key Benefits of Hiring an SEO Agency

You get to focus on what you do best

By hiring an SEO agency, you can free up your time and resources so you can focus on the things that matter most to your business. This means you can spend more time developing your products or services while letting an agency manage the SEO side of things.

You get access to a full suite of skills

When you hire an agency, it’s like hiring a whole department in-house for a fraction of the cost, because many agencies have different departments with various expertise in different areas. This means they can handle a wide range of digital marketing services, from SEO and content creation to paid ads and social media management.

You get more value for your money

Hiring an agency typically costs less than hiring a full-time employee. Plus, you’ll have access to their skill set as long as you need it. This means you don’t have to hire someone, only to find out that they don’t have the necessary skillset a few months down the line.

You get insight into how Google’s search algorithm works

Search engine optimisation is something you need to know as much as possible about to effectively improve your rankings, and a big part of this includes keeping up with the Google algorithm. This means your business needs to be as knowledgeable as possible about how Google works, and hiring an agency can provide your business with this insight.

Increased organic traffic to your website

Once your site is optimised for search engines, and their SEO strategy has been implemented you will should hopefully see an increase in traffic to your website from organic search. This means those visitors are being directed to your site from Google itself by using keywords related to what they’re searching.

Organic traffic tends to have a higher conversion rate than paid advertising traffic as well, so it’s an excellent long-term source of traffic to your site.

It’s important to note that results will not be instant. The above chart shows how traffic from SEO can snowball over time if done right. However, these results took months of work in the previous months to get to that level.

Boosted conversions and leads

Speaking of conversions, once your site is better optimised for search engines, and you’re ranking well for keywords that are relevant to your business, you should see an increase in conversions and leads from those sources.

Having a strong SEO strategy can be the difference between being invisible online and being found by your target market. It is the difference between someone bouncing from your site, and someone finding the information they want, signing up for a newsletter or buying a product.

Agencies have the resources and expertise to get results for your business

SEO isn’t something you can be taught in a few months. It’s a constantly evolving field of study, and it takes years for someone to become an expert. When you hire an agency, you’re hiring experts who have been through the learning curve and can handle your specific business needs.

Read More: The True Benefits of SEO Agencies

Hire an SEO Agency For Improved Rankings, Traffic & Sales

In conclusion, hiring an SEO agency is a great strategy for any business that wants to get and stay found online and improve its search engine ranking.

In fact, we can show you how to improve your rankings and get more traffic to your website with a free SEO audit of your website today!

At Dandy, we offer expert digital marketing services for businesses of all sizes. Our dedicated SEO team ensures your business a high-quality service that consistently delivers results. 

If you want to learn more about our SEO packages, contact us today!

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