Hiring an SEO agency
My SEO agency selection service
One of the services I offer as a freelance SEO consultant is agency selection where I work with your company to help you select the right agency to handle your SEO project. This involves covering in detail the steps I discuss in the article below. Many companies don’t have the technical knowledge (or time to acquire that knowledge) which is required to make a good decision when hiring an SEO agency. Making a mistake with your agency selection can be expensive and damaging for your business so for many having an experienced and impartial consultant to help with the selection is invaluable. I charge £300/day + expenses for this service. If you’d like to discuss it further give me an email on john@ioptimal.co.uk
A guide to hiring SEO agencies
Are you looking to employ the services of an SEO agency and not sure where to start or what to look for? In this guide I want to outline some of the qualities I’d look for in an SEO specialist. As I offer my services as a freelance SEO this isn’t without some bias but ultimately some businesses and projects will always be better suited to agencies while others will get more value from using a freelancer – see agency or freelance SEO for more on this.
Why hire an SEO agency?
More than likely the answer to this is to improve your search rankings and get more traffic from Google, but why an SEO agency rather than say a freelancer or recruiting your own team? I think the main thing an agency should bring to the table is depth of knowledge and resources. When you pay for any SEO work, particularly consulting, you should be aware that all the information you need is available for free on the internet if you know where to look so you’re paying for a person or company to know everything already and to save you a job. The actual execution of an SEO campaign is also relatively simple in most cases so what you’re paying for with an SEO agency is the process and man power which they use to do the job to a higher standard and more efficiently than you could do it yourself.
Defining a brief
Before you start looking at SEO agencies it’s a good idea to create a solid brief of the work you want them to do. As an outline I think a brief at this stage should include:
- Company background and relevant information like web addresses, contacts etc
- Summary of objectives
- Past or current SEO work you’ve done on the site
- Some benchmark stats, ideally including the number of visitors you get each month from search engines and anything else you think relevant
Most agencies will come back to you with a number of questions and requests before submitting a proposal anyway so don’t worry about trying to cover everything in your initial brief.
Finding an SEO agency
The first thing I’d recommend when looking for SEO agencies is asking around for recommendations from business colleagues, associates and friends. These types of recommendations are the best way to cut to the chase of whether an agency is any good or not. When I was agency side and now as a freelancer most new business I get is through referrals from previous or existing customers.
Personally I’d recommend searching for an agency local enough to you to make regular face to face meetings easy to organise. This will obviously be easier if you’re somewhere like London or Manchester where there’s plenty of good SEO agencies to choose from.
With that in mind, if you haven’t got any personal recommendations, I think the best place to start your search for an agency is Google Maps. Most SEO companies will list their businesses in Google Maps, if they don’t, they’re probably not that good!
Some other places you can search by location are the directory on blogstorm.co.uk and seoco.co.uk although these have less listings. At this stage I’d just make a list of all the credible looking companies near to you.
How do you know if an SEO companies any good?
Because the SEO industry is still relatively new there are no real credible organisations, trade bodies or regulations which help you select a trustworthy SEO agency to work with. On the whole there are far fewer rogue operators around now than when I started working in the business in 2006, however indoubtedly some agencies still offer better service and results than others.
The best way to establish if an SEO agency’s any good is to look at the results of as many of their clients as possible. Some agencies will publish their client lists on their websites which will give you a starting point but bare in mind they may only publish their top performing clients. Try and get hold of a full client list if they’ll give you it (expect to be asked to sign an NDA).
You can tell fairly easily what the main keywords the agency is targeting for each of the sites they work on by looking at what keywords they use on the homepage and top level pages which are linked from the homepage. You can then check in Google to see where the site is ranking for that keyword.
The other important thing to check is the types of links which the agency is building for their clients. You can use a tool like yahoo site explorer to check the backlinks for clients sites. A look at some of these links should tell you whether they’re using any spammy techniques or paid link networks which could potentially be harmful for your website. On the contary if they’re getting some relevant, natural looking links they’re probably doing an ok job.
How much to pay your SEO agency
In theory good SEO is worth as much as it earns you in increased website revenue. However most SEO agencies work on a retainer fee basis rather than pricing their services based on performance which means if the SEO campaign underperforms you’ll still be paying fees but might not get the promised increases in revenue. Few SEO companies will guarentee results but it’s a good idea to try and tie as much of the agencies fees to a performance based pricing model as possible. This will make the agency more accountable for the campaigns results and more proactive in achieving them.
Where you pay a retainer you should ask for a proposal which breaks the retainer fee down by the hour and includes reporting on exactly what manpower will be used by the retainer. Get the agency to be specific about exactly what they’re doing rather than just ’10 hours of link building’.
In my experience typical fees for SEO agencies range from £50-100/ hour with larger agencies typically charging more. While some SEO consultants can command an hourly fee above £100/hour in this case I would seek assurances about the actual person conducting the SEO work. No agency should be charging £100/hour+ for work carried out by a junior member of staff with limited SEO experience in my opinion (although I’m aware many companies do).
The number of hours and size of the retainer will be relative to the difficulty of your project and the time it will take to achieve results. A competitive niche like financial services or a project with lots of potential keyword variations will require more man hours than a local SEO project with only a few uncompetitive keywords.
Retainers will typically cost between £1000- £5000/ month. Anything below £1000/ month I’d consider hiring a freelancer instead. Contracts above £5000/month are not uncommon but when you get to this level you should be seriously considering hiring someone in to manage your SEO in-house instead.
Performance based pricing for SEO projects?
Performance based pricing is where part or all of the money you pay to your SEO company comes from objective based commissions. As a crude example you may agree to pay your agency £5000 once you rank in first place for your main keyword. If they fail to hit their target you wouldn’t pay.
On the face of it the performance pricing model for SEO seems far more attractive for website owners than paying a hefty retainer with no guarentee of success. However performance pricing is a minefield at the moment and while a few SEO agencies are testing the waters with it many of the best agencies are sticking with retainer based work.
Working agency side I personally had mixed experiences with performance pricing campaigns. The biggest issue is always working out a fair commision model and accurately reporting on it.
Here are some examples of pricing models I’ve heard of or seen being used:
- Pay for rankings – where you pay a monthly fee for each keyword which the SEO company gets you to the top 5, top 3 or number 1 position for.
- Pay per lead – where you pay a fixed commission for each qualified lead delivered via SEO
- Pay per sale – where you pay a percentage commission for each sale delivered through the SEO channel
- Pay for links – where you pay a fee for each link or set of links which the agency builds
I can name major issues with each of these models which makes them difficut to work, however I still believe that it you can make a performance based pricing model work for your SEO campaign you will be in a great position.
For many sites this just isn’t going to be workable. For others you may find if the campaign is a success you end up paying your SEO agency more in performance fees than you would for a retainer. Like I said, it’s a miefield- but in my opinion one which is worth exploring at least.
Interviewing SEO agencies
Before selecting your agency you should be sure to meet them in person. Some companies like to get agencies to come to them for convenience. Others prefer to visit the agency at their offices for an opportunity to meet some of the team that will be working on your project. Ideally I’d recommend doing 2 interviews, the first round with a number of agencies at your own offices to create a shortlist then a second round at the SEO agency’s offices.
Like any good job interview the interviewee should be doing most of the talking. For the first interview focus on the proposed solution and project plan which the agency are suggesting for your site. Quiz them on their understanding of your market and the problems you’re facing at the moment. Ask them to show examples of how they’ve helped other clients and get a feeling for their own structure and especially who will be completing the work. If you haven’t already talked prices you may as well do it now so there’s no nasty surprises later.
For the second interview I’d shortlist no more than 3 agencies and ask for the team who will be working on your project to attend. I’ve seen and heard many examples of SEO agencies bringing out their big gun consultants and flash sales people for sales meetings then passing over the project to junior members of staff once you’ve signed yourself into a 12 month contract. Make sure you meet the people who will be your main points of contact at the agency and those who will be running the project from a technical angle.
The second interview should be an opportunity to further explore how you and the agency would work together. The fine details of what they are proposing to do for you and most importantly to get them to suggest performance targets for your campaign and back up their expectations with data. You should also use this opportunity to explore their commercial stability- you don’t want to sign up with an SEO agency who go out of business half way through your project.
Selecting an SEO agency
After a couple of meetings and a written proposal from your prospective agencies you should have a good feel for which company understands your requirements and has the best experience and ideas to make your project a success. Inevitably cost is going to play a part in your decision as well. I wouldn’t just select the cheapest agency, remember if they fail to hit your SEO targets and drive increased revenue through your site your money is wasted. Similarly don’t assume the biggest and most expensive agency will deliver the best results. I would avoid a number of the UK’s largest agencies at all costs because their pricing isn’t reflective of the quality of their work.
Personal relationships are also an important part of the selection process. The most successful agency led SEO campaigns happen when the agency/ client relationship is good and the two parties enjoy working with one another- another good reason to insist on meeting the actual team in the selection process, not just the sales guy.
It’s good practice to inform the unsuccessful agencies promtly and provide detail on the points on which their proposal fell down for you. Occassionally contract negotiations will break down or circumstances will conspire meaning you don’t end up working with your first choice of agency. In these cases you might want to go back to your second choice agency, so it’s a good idea to keep amicable with every company on your shortlist.
Working with an SEO agency
OK, so you’ve been through the selection process, you’ve found an agency and you’re starting to pay them. What next?
For some companies the idea of outsourcing jobs like SEO is to take it off their plate and let someone else deal with it. In my experience this isn’t the best way to work with an SEO company. The best campaigns have a client-side project manager who co-ordinates the work of the SEO agency, monitors performance and works with internal departments or other agencies, such as web designers, to get any recommendations for changes to the website made promtly.
Every SEO agency has a different way of managing their accounts. Some have dedicated account managers, others project managers and some have their consultants dealing with clients directly. The most common structure for an SEO campaign run by an agency is to work in monthly blocks of work with a performance report at the end of the month. Depending on the agency and the size of the campaign you may also have weekly or monthly confernece calls to discuss progress. Quarterly review meetings are also common and a good way to ensure the campaign stays on track and internal stakeholders remain informed and interested about SEO work.
Outsouring SEO to multiple suppliers
Traditionally businesses would hire one agency to manage all of their SEO for a single website. However I’ve also worked on a few projects where a number of agencies have been contributing to different parts of the campaign.
There’s 2 ways to organise this. Either you hire different agencies to complete different parts of the SEO process. For example one company for technical SEO, another for copywriting, one for manual link building, one for link bait, one for link buying. The good thing about this approach is you can hire experts in each discipline. The problem is it’s harder to identify which agency has delivered results an which, if any have underperformed.
The other approach, which can work well for larger sites is to hire different SEO agencies to work on promoting different areas of you site, product groups or keywords. For example a holiday agent might have a different agency working on the flights keywords, one for their hotels and another for ski holidays. Alternatively you could assign different destinations to each agency.
The other multiple agency scenerio which often makes sense is to hire native speaking agencies for optimising different language versions of your site.
The potential drawback of any of these approaches is you can end up spending lots of time managing the different agencies. However, get your campaign management process in place, get agencies talking to each other and hiring more than one SEO agency can be an affective approach for larger projects.