-
So hard to find trustworthy SEO Expert
-
Hi,
If you are looking for SEO Services in India, then BetterGraph is surely the one. You can go through the website: http://www.bettergraph[dot]com or you can mail us at sales[at]bettergraph[dot]com. You can contact us at +91-8800094244.
-
If you hire someone else to do 360 SEO, you need to invest at least 10k USD and even more depending on the niche. Else, you’ll definitely receive trash results because SEO is expensive.
-
Published a site a few months ago and you’ve already churned through multiple agencies?
-
You website launched a few months ago and you’ve been through 3 guys already?
-
just curious, how much did you pay them for each service?
this is a huge variable in your story.
when everyone and their mother thinks they can do SEO and design websites, you need to be picky and interview people for the job. don’t settle on the first you see or the cheapest price.
-
To be honest with you, as someone who is leaving their second agency position in a year for freelance or contract work, I don’t think agencies are it.
I need to work with a lot more agencies before forming a more definite opinion, I’m sure.
But so far, I can’t help but feel like I’m being encouraged to disregard the client’s best interests, and spend my time performing work that is designed to keep the client coming back for more services.
For example, I’m filling out some content briefs to be written, and providing keyword selection and competitive results from which to absorb content from to create our own.
Imagine my frustration when my manager has given me explicit instructions to ignore any data beyond Page 1 of the SERP.
Each time I’ve been employed by an agency, it’s a similar phenomenon, across any given service line. I’m asked to explain my work, I prove the validity of chasing content quality, good UX, and diverse keyword selection with data, credible sources, Google Search Central documentation, or the occasional Jon Mueller tweet. And I am met with managers who refuse to allow me to move forward. Despite Authority Hackers repeatedly telling their audience that chasing Page 1 means nothing, this is the outcome that I’ve encountered in my short stint with agency life.
And it’s got me *frustrated*. I have in-house experience on my resume leading SEO efforts and demonstrating proven results that can be backed by Google Analytics exports if I’m ever questioned.
In addition to what OP asked, are there any good SEO agencies, or SEO managers within them? How do I sniff them out during my interview processes? I feel like the people who have interviewed me so far just emulate what they think good SEO is, and then whack me over the head with a bat within a month before forcing me to execute the crappiest SEO work I’ve ever seen.
-
I’ve written about this extensively and here’s the shortest form answer. There are no valid certifications or minmum standards for SEO. Even the best SEO course is way short of the holistic SEO program any multi-project, massive success (think unicorn – $100m+) projects would have – yet thats the expectation site owners go in with. As with SEO, you cannot take people at face value. Google makes you earn authority, just like if you wanted to get elected, you need to get votes.
About 70% of the people on this subR – as well as any of the SEO groups in LinkedIn or anywhere will all tell you that SEO is on page – and 90% of that is having a page title and using your keywords in your content. That isn’t SEO – if everyone is doing it, then you’re only catching up, not optimizing ahead.
You need to speak to references – as close to your industry as you can. You need to see resutls – do they rank? Do they have examples of ranking above something else, did that rank deliver positions, traffic and leads. Can they back up those claims.
Sure – if you think everyone deserves a chance, then by all means.
Otherwise, protect yourself and do your homework.
A list of thigns to look for
* Rank reports showing high CPC value keywords in top 3 positions (outside of this, you’re taking a chance)
* Same/Similar/Adjacent industry examples
* Can you speak to a digital marketer at those clients?
* Demonstration – can they take a phrase / cluster / theme and show from page 1000 to position 0?Tl;Dr look for a robust, scientific approach. google is a software system. Inputs give outputs. It must be predciitable, reliable, testable, provable and repeatable.
Red Herrings
Red Herring signals aren’t good or bad, they’re just not black/white or binary yes/no or good/bad. there’s nothing wrong either way, they just aren’t strong enough as evidence of good seo:
* Years in practice – I have 20 years (I dont shill here, I wont take a project on Reddit, I wont take a project that isnt referred) but so what. What if I spent 20 years building a travel blog? Time doesnt demonstrate depth or breadth, it doesnt showcase adaptability. If there’s no accountability, where’s the ability to pivot etc?
* Takes time – the better the SEO, the shorter the time to rank. People will cite 2 months to 12 months – thats got to flag that this is nonsense. Sure, someone new with a fewer set of levers to move is going to have a slower start. Yes, an older site with authority will move faster. But skills, options, networks will allow some people to move faster. We all have two legs, some of us run faster with their two legs than EVERYONE else
* Gives a promise – most advice will say ignore guarantees. Obsiouly guarantees are silly – you have no control around what is arguably the largtest public and most fluid dynamic database system in the history of mankind…but if you have a ttarget list fo 50 keywords and the SEO isn’t able to set a roadmap of getting 80% to top 5 – then why are you still engaging?Absolute Red Flags
* Insinuates a Relationship with Google – most often via large PPC spend, many “account managers” make subtle to over to direct promises that Google “listens to them” or “feeds them information” or “takes care of their clients” – run. When I spent 6 year in house as head of a startup that went from 25 people to 600 and a $252m acquistiion based on generating 1,600 B2B tech leads a month, I got these all the time
* It takes time/forever – as I mentioned above, ranking positions take time – but time isn’t linear or applicable to all keywords all of the time. The problem with 6-12 months is – after 12 months of something clearly not working, you’ve wasted 12 months. It also gives a band aid to bad SEO which never had a chance of succeeding even if they had 12 years
* Any shy to demonstrate, cannot demontrate or alluding to a dark art or secret recipe. “It works but if I told you, I’d have to kill you” = run. SEO is about knowledge, skills, experience, testing, pivoting, trial and error (hence time is a factor) – if they are too afraid to share, it means that what they know isnt that deep
* Macro SEO – there’s no such thing as universal SEO – i.e. we do X and your whole site magically moves up
* Any buying links, guest posting, – this is very difficult for a new-to-SEO manager to undestand, I would say 90% of the time, if you can, you should avoid. Not to say its bad, low quality or detectable. But if you can’t discern off-page and on-page you have slim-to-0 chances of managing potentially blackhat SEOWhat is unreasonable to expect IMHO
* Pay Per Performance – its too hard to calculate in a spread of keywords which ones will go to position 0 (thats my benchmark, no apologies given if its not yours – this to anyone who wants to disagree, its just my standard) – so pay per performance is really difficult. Its difficult in PPC too and that’s much more controllable
* Contract level guaranteesWhile on contracts, watch for
* Contracts dont necessarily have to hold an agency to ANY standard but many build in complex get out clauses – like notice periods, pay offs etc
* If an agency cannot perform then they should be dumped unless they can provide a roadmap and a way of measuring against it. If you have that then there’s no need for disagreemtns
* Becaerful what they make and hold you responsible for
* Make sure they have some accountabilityWhat you need in an SEO report:”
1. High value keywords – e.g. volume, CPC, KD% etc
2. Showing a consistent move to number one
3. Drops happen – Google updates dont mirror our calendar week/months. But consistently moving toward 1
4. NexT: Orgnanic, non-branded traffic
5. then leadsHTH – I have a bunch of videos and blogs but I dont share them here – feel free to DM me. Again, I’m not shilling, just trying to be a standup citizen.
-
Everyone you hire will be awful unless you are very good at giving very specific instructions and setting expectations. So many clients throw out super vague requirements and expect contractors to read minds. That’s just a big waste of money and everyone’s time.
If you’ve gave really detailed instructions and those guys still eff up, then it’s like what everyone said, you get what you pay for.
If you want quality and you don’t have massive budget, you are better off doing it yourself albeit the hefty amount of work involved. It’s either spending money for someone to give you meh and you go in and undo everything, or spending time yourself to do it right in one go.
Log in to reply.