Many businesses make regular payments to an SEO company, some spending
several hundred pounds per month to pay for ‘ongoing SEO activities',
despite not knowing what they are actually paying for. Sometimes these
businesses are afraid to stop the payments, fearing that once the SEO
company stops being involved the site will disappear from search engine
results.
If you are spending hundreds, if not thousands of pounds per year on
‘ongoing SEO activities' you have a right to know what exactly those
SEO activities are. If you paid an accountant the same amount, you
would want to see evidence of their work, search engine optimisation
companies are no different.
Does your SEO company give you regular reports on their activities?
Have they explained what they have done to your site and why? Are they
managing AdWords or other affiliate programs on your behalf? If so,
which ones and how effective are they? If you answered 'no', or 'I
don't know' to any of those questions, you have a problem.
Regardless of whether you are receiving a report or not, you should
be able to see results. Results from SEO efforts can come in many
different forms, but the vast majority are visible. Ask yourself the
following key questions:
Since beginning the monthly stipend with your SEO company have you:
Noticed an increase in traffic to your site, and changes to user behaviour?
Google analytics should be installed on your site (if you are paying
an SEO company a monthly fee and it isn't, then something is seriously
wrong!). Simple numbers of people on the site is not enough – if more
people are finding you, are they coming back? Do they look at more than
one page? A good SEO company will take the time to interpret the
results and tell you what they mean, but you should also be able to
look yourself.
Noticed an increase in enquiries either by contact form, e-mail or telephone?
An increase in traffic has to turn into something beneficial for
your business. If traffic has increased but the number of enquiries
hasn't, something needs to be improved on your site. A reputable SEO
company that is being paid monthly to keep your site working at its
hardest for you should detect this pattern, and then work with you to
correct it.
Typed a niche keyword phrase that is absolutely critical to your
business into Google? (e.g. "full-time live-in tutor" or "landscape
gardener Witney") If so, where does your company appear?
At the beginning of the search engine optimisation process, your SEO
company should have researched and discussed your critical keyword
phrases with you. After months of paid activity, If you type in one of
the phrases discussed and you are not present in at least the first two
pages of Google organic search results (positions 1 – 10 for location
specific keywords) then you need to ask them to explain what they have
been doing.
Noticed an increase in your site's PageRank?
Google PageRank is a factor that influences where you appear in
organic search results. Download the Google toolbar and you will be
able to see it for yourself. If there has been no improvement since the
beginning of your relationship with your SEO company, they need to
explain why. If they didn't tell you about PageRank right at the
beginning, then consider moving to an SEO company that is more
transparent about search engine optimisation benchmarking and
techniques.
If you are getting regular reports on work done, seeing the results
of the work and are so pleased with the service that you would consider
recommending them to a friend, then you have a great SEO company
working for you. However, if none of those apply, seriously consider
ending the agreement, and spending the money on one batch of really
good advice that you can then implement in house. If you don't have a
technical resource in your company, outsource in order to implement any
technical changes to your site as it is much easier for that kind of
work to be monitored.
In an industry as competitive as SEO, you should never be in the dark
about what is being done to optimise your site for organic search
results. Ideally you should be able to learn what needs to be done on
an ongoing basis (it isn't rocket science, just search engine
optimisation!) and if you don't want to do it yourself, an SEO company
being paid monthly should detail exactly what they are doing for you.
If that isn't the case, you need to look for a new SEO consultant. | 
