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We’re redoing our agency’s SEO work.. I’m a bit anxious about the side effects
Posted by on November 24, 2025 at 7:31 amSo, for context, I am a extremely new to the SEO game. July of this month, we hired a third-party agency to write new pages for us. Here is a breakdown of what happened:
– By the end of the engagement, they have written 20 new webpages.
– After 4-5 months, our DA increased from 7-15.
– This month, our CEO wants to edit all of the 20 new webpages completely.
And here's why:
– The website does not read well (by this, I mean, there's obvious keyword stuffing)
– There are too many texts on each page (like toooo many)
– The copy does not sound human
– There are sections where we feel are irrelevant
– Copy does not sound on-brand
And I do want to acknowledge that management had some mistakes as well in terms of setting expectations with the agency. In a way, they have done their job well, they have increased our DA (which was the goal) BUT as per our CEO.. "at what cost" … the copy does not really explain what we do well.
So right now, I have rewritten 4 of the webpages (as a sample), and our CEO and the team are very happy with the outcome because they really do read better, they communicate what we do better, and it sounds human and on brand. The agency has warned us about the consequences, and the team is not that concerned.
A few questions:
– What should I do in the next year to ensure that the website continues to grow (Since we're expecting some damage in the DA)
– The agency warned us about the damages, we don't trust them that much coz their opinion may be a little subjective. In your opinion, what "damages" should we expect.
would appreciate your thoughts, thank you!
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1 Reply
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Maybe this is not really answering your questions here, but I can just tell you that I was rewriting text and it did affect the SEO, especially right after I published it. First, SEO went down, and then it went up. I figured more important are the tools that you’re using in the backend and the system you build it on – for example, WordPress, Webflow, Framer, and so on. So clean code and clean structure is very important.
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Here’s a thought – your CEO isn’t the right person to judge the copywriting.
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It shouldn’t rock the boat too much if youre rewording whats on the page to have your own “brand voice”. If you add more business expertise or insights you know that the agencies dont – add it in for improved “infomation gain”
I would probably keep their headings the same or reword but keep contextually similar.
Long term SEO improvement – anlyse all the kws your current pages rank for in search console – decide to open the pages and interlink or deepen your content further with topics missed.
DR can be faked so dont rely on that metric unlesd theyre sharing the articles you are featured in etx
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Best option you can manage the in-house content team.or if you can manage and rest task outsource them. If you can share the details we can check and plan out properly
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What was the goal given to third party agency?
Increase DA, or rank higher on Google to get more traffic?
If the goal was rankings and they thought DA was the path there, it’s not true. DA is a Moz metric, not a Google ranking factor. You can increase DA with backlinks and still not rank.
Good DA doesn’t guarantee rankings. Rankings come from content that demonstrates expertise and proper site structure.
So maybe rewriting all pages is good way for you.
Keyword stuffed, unreadable content doesn’t rank long term anyway.
If your rewritten pages read better, communicate what you do clearly, and sound human. Not keyword spam. I would add just few steps in your rewriting process.
1. Goal keyword for each page – Decide what each page is trying to rank for
2. Content structure – For each page, map out what needs to be covered.
3. Cover the complete topic: What you offer, How it works, Who it’s for, Problems you solve. Your process/approach. Related services .
4. Research for SEO terms: i) Look at top companies in your industry. ii) What terms, concepts, processes do they naturally mention? iii) Find common in top sites in your industry, make a list.
Fit them into your content structure.Repeat for each page.
When your content covers the full scope of each topic, you’ll rank for the main keyword AND all its variations naturally. With the help of AI+Right inputs, you can speed up rewriting the process and finish faster. If your new content covers the topic better and reads naturally, rankings should improve, not drop.
What’s your industry/business type?
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The body text isn’t that relevant – pages can rank for keywords without even mentioning them. It just needs to read well, match search intent, and clearly present the info (eg use subheadings). So write it however you like.
The titles, subtitles, meta title and meta description do matter. They should include the target keywords of the page, and the H3s (sub subheading) should support the H2s (subheading), and the H2s should support the H1 (primary heading of the page).
Don’t use DA as an indicator of SEO success, for two reasons:
1) It doesn’t represent your visibility. You could get no clicks with a high DA.
2) It can be spoofed, which I’ve seen SEO agencies/freelancers do (particularly on Fiver) so they can say “SEO is working” when your website is doing you no good.You need to judge SEO success by increased rankings for target keywords (something your customers search for that has decent search volume – being #1 for some search term that gets 10 searches a month isn’t the end goal of good SEO) and by increased website visitors.
Hope this helps.
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What do you need SEO for exactly?
If you’re trying to rewrite your pages just to improve their readability and conversions, that’s a job for a copywriter, not an SEO.
If you want to rewrite them because they’re not bringing in enough organic traffic/sales, then sure, on-page SEO optimization can definitely help. This is pretty easy to do and doesn’t really require an agency for just that. Make sure the main keyword you want to target for each page is in the H1, H2 and a few times throughout the page. That’s more than enough.
Long-term, you should focus on link-building if you want to increase authority, which is the toughest and most important part about SEO.
Send me a message privately and I’ll take a look at your website personally (for free of course). I can only suggest so much without taking a look first hand.
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Okay I’m here to only say Domain Authority or DA on SEMRush or anything is false and will never reflect true growth. Thank you.
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DA is vanity metric. Focus on building quality content and then work on backlinks from good sites.
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