As an industry that is constantly changing and evolving, it’s always important to realistic expectations when dealing with SEO and digital marketing companies.
Of course, it would be great if digital marketing companies were able to improve your SEO ratings overnight. But unfortunately, SEO is a slow process. And, it can sometimes take weeks or even months for SEO efforts to make a difference in your company’s ranking.
This often leaves clients feeling as if they’ve been cheated out of their money because they paid for a service, and don’t get to see the results right away. Not only does this sometimes lead to confrontation, but it can also leave your digital marketing agency feeling helpless because there’s simply nothing they can do to make things progress any faster.
With this in mind, it’s easy to see the importance of setting realistic expectations when hiring an SEO agency for your digital marketing needs. Before making a deal, it’s crucial for both the customer and the agency to come to a clear understanding of how much progress can be made within a certain timeframe, as well as within a certain budget.
Below, we’ll go over a few points that should help you understand how SEO works, which will hopefully give you a better idea of when to expect when working with Determined Solutions SEO for your digital marketing needs.
Understanding the Way SEO Works
As a client, it’s invaluable to understand how SEO works in order to be able to set realistic expectations. Without a thorough understanding of SEO, you’re left guessing how long your efforts will take, which is when people start setting unrealistic expectations as to what is actually possible.
There are basically two main aspects of SEO; one is an on-page optimization, and the other is off-page optimization. On-page SEO refers to the content that is on your website, the keywords it uses, as well as the way that your site is formatted to be crawled by search engines.
On the other hand, off-page SEO is when an agency works to build links from authority sites that point back to yours. This gives search engines, such as Google, a good indication that your site is providing valuable information and helps them decide how to rank your site in their search results.
Still, because there are so many people building websites that attempt to take advantages of this practice, Google has created a powerful algorithm that works to prevent websites from cheating their system. And, unfortunately, part of this algorithm causes search engines to delay any benefits that are to come from your SEO efforts. Read more about Google algorithms here.
Fortunately, this does not mean that improving your site’s SEO isn’t worth. It simply means that SEO takes time and that it’s impossible to rush things along. In some cases, you might spend a whole month building links and optimizing your pages, but it will be several more months before you actually start to see an increase in organic traffic.
Therefore, it’s important to have faith in your SEO agency and trust that their efforts will show themselves in time.
Furthermore, if you are considering working with a digital marketing agency to boost the SEO of your site, then it is important to do plenty of research to ensure that you can find an agency that understands your mission and goals. For instance, a full-service digital marketing agency such as iTonic Digital Marketing can help your business with everything from technical SEO, to digital PR and outreach, as well as content creation.
Consider Time
Before signing a deal with an SEO agency, it’s important to decide how long you’re able to commit to implementing an SEO strategy.
Likewise, clients usually have certain expectations about wanting to see results from their SEO investment. Of course, this is entirely understandable and as an agency, we always do the most we can to ensure you get the service you’re looking for within the timeframe you expect.
However, as we’ve mentioned, SEO takes time. Therefore, it’s important to clearly establish your expected timelines before making any deals.
Read more on timelines here: https://searchengineland.com/library/google/google-algorithm-updates
Understanding Your Ranking and the Competition
It’s no secret that the amount of competition in your niche can play a significant role in how easy it will be for you to improve your search engine rankings. Similarly, your current ranking will also affect the time it will take for you to start ranking on the first page of Google.
Remember that if you’re in an industry with many large competitors that have been around for decades, it’s highly likely that ranking for any keywords will be a challenging process. Conversely, much smaller, local businesses often find improving their rankings to be fairly easy and straightforward.
Therefore, your expectations need to reflect the current SEO standing, which your SEO agency would be more than happy to discuss with you.
Your Budget
While SEO is generally always a good investment for a company, it can, unfortunately, become a rather expensive service. It costs a lot of money for agencies to be able to run campaigns.
Not only do they need to purchase the tools needed for the project, as well as paying their staff to implement your strategy. Therefore, your budget will greatly influence the amount of work that can be, as well as the results that you’ll see.
Your Commitment
In some cases, your SEO agency will take complete control over your website. However, most of the time, the client is still held responsible for taking care of their website and posting content on it. Then, the agency will take care of marketing that content, optimizing it, and perfecting your site’s on-page SEO.
The amount of time that you’re able to contribute will play a crucial role in dictating your expectation. If you’re only able to commit a meager hour or two per week, then your campaign will either take more time, or you’ll need to pay the agency to handle it.
On the other hand, if you’re able to fully commit to maintaining your website and regularly posting content, then you’re almost guaranteed to see better, faster results.
Overview
Finally, the biggest and most important aspect of forming realistic expectations is, to be honest and communicate clearly with your agency. Always be up-front and ask about things that are unclear to you, and above all else, be sure to openly explain what your expectations are.
This helps your SEO agency understand your goals, which in turn, allows them to give you a more accurate timeline and clear budget requirements for your campaign.
So, remember to always be clear about what you’re looking for, and we’ll always do our best to come to an agreement that works for everyone. Communication helps us do our job better, which can then help you grow as a business.
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