When interviewing candidates for your next SEO marketing company hire, what should you use as criteria? Especially if you have had a less than stellar experience with a previous agency you will likely want to whittle down your question list. It’s okay to conduct in-depth interviews and you can get to the point with our checklist. It can help you spot exceptional SEO marketing companies and also help you know when it’s time to look elsewhere.
1) Top SEO marketing companies are genuinely interested in your feedback for the campaign. This is huge. An agency that thinks it knows it all cannot succeed. It’s vital that the customer (you) be involved because you are the expert at your business. The agency needs to mine your expertise and use your goals as the pillars of the campaign.
2) A leading SEO services company offers education and thought leadership. Agencies that don’t offer this advantage to their customers are only fulfilling half of their obligation. Digital marketing is changing all the time because the digital landscape doesn’t stand still, and it’s important to help customers understand why strategies are used in a campaign. For example, Google recently announced that it will focus even more intently on its mobile friendly ranking signal. If the customer’s site is not mobile friendly then this could become an issue; it’s up to the agency to explain the reasoning behind a mobile design update. The quick take on this is that the SEO services company needs to be the go-to resource for all things digital marketing and have solid strategies to keep campaigns moving forward.
3) Great SEO marketing companies have great campaign managers. In your interviews insist on meeting your campaign manager and get to know this person. Ask them about their background and let them tell you how they would manage your campaign. Interviewing this person is really important because you will be spending a lot of time working with him or her. You don’t have to know a lot about SEO to discern if the manager is someone you believe will help you accomplish your marketing goals. The manager has to be an SEO expert and also someone who can grasp what you are trying to accomplish (increase purchases of a specific product, build awareness of a new product launch, increase downloads of technical papers, etc.). You want your manager to understand your goals and then apply SEO knowledge towards achieving them.
4) Great SEO marketing companies have an effective and easy to use project management system. Disorganization has been the death knell of many an online campaign. Even the best organizers may have something fall through the cracks from time to time. The object here is not perfection, but your sense that the agency’s project management capabilities are at a professional level. The fanciest tools don’t guarantee that. A thorough understanding of process does. Ask about the agency’s project management system and how you will have access to it (usually through a client login).
5) Availability: It’s important to work with an agency that can schedule regular meetings with you to keep you up to date on your campaign. When you interview prospective agencies ask them how they will plan these meetings. If you have a preferred day to meet then let them know. Most agencies are very accommodating, and if you need your monthly reports on a specific day, be sure to tell them.
6) Speaking of reporting: Most SEO marketing companies will provide monthly reports showing search engine position rankings. Agree ahead of time on what your reports should look like. You can begin this discussion by talking about your goals. Then the agency will know what KPIs they will need to track. Every campaign is comprised of a variety of components; have your agency track each of these, then report on them. You also should receive a summary report that provides you with insights derived from total campaign progress.
Ideally your agency will provide you with a login to your reporting so you can download trend data whenever you need it. Sometimes you may want to access it for decision-making, or to provide it to colleagues. Having your own access to the reporting tool will make ad hoc reporting much easier.
7) Content creation and distribution: While you are vetting potential SEO marketing companies, there will likely be some discussion of content. Most digital campaigns include content creation and distribution, whether it’s through social media, blogs, e-newsletters, new pages for your site, or all of these. Video content, podcasts, infographics and other forms of content may also be included in the mix. Ideally your agency will augment what you already produce, but it’s not unusual for some companies to turn over all the content activities to an agency. Often companies will already have staff who blog, so the agency’s work can be used to build out the blog and provide additional posts for social accounts. As with any other portion of a campaign, get the content piece in writing – know exactly how much content the agency will be producing and where it will be placed (on or off your website). Also be sure that you or your colleagues get to review the content before it goes live.
8) Look for an SEO services company that’s efficient: Everyone’s busy and you want to work with an agency that can get you to your goal in the most efficient manner possible. This means that the best agencies help you save time and are always thinking of ways to keep your campaign moving forward. They anticipate new ways to make your reporting easier to understand. They think of innovative content ideas for your big product promotion. They really understand your needs and they go the extra mile for you in everything they do. It’s a good idea to ask a question like this when you are interviewing digital marketing companies: ‘Give me some examples on how you go the extra mile for your customers.’ The answers you get should help you decide which agency is the best fit for you.
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