SEO Expert series: Using an SEO agency and what to expect Posted by Wordtracker on 22 July 2008

As our expert interview series begins to wind down, Rachelle Money spoke to Wordtracker's SEO expert Mark Nunney about what people should look out for when recruiting and working with an SEO agency who you want to work on your website.

Mark Nunney is an SEO expert with more than eight years experience and runs his own business from Cornwall, England. He offers some sound advice on how to handle an SEO agency once you have hired them.

The good old-fashioned way of ‘word of mouth’ is the best way to find appropriate SEO professionals to help work on your website, as it’s easy to be duped by the glossy brochures and flash sites of some SEO agencies, says Nunney.

Non-SEO companies

Some of the work from SEO agencies “is shocking” and from non-SEO agencies it’s often worse.

“It still surprises me that respectable agencies can spend small fortunes on sites with no regard for SEO. For example, they often rely on (rather than cleverly using) Flash. And somehow these sites get approved by marketing departments.

“It is the job of everyone involved in building a website to help maximize the company’s profits, but that can't be done if you are ignoring search engine traffic, which is becoming the biggest source of sales for many markets. Nevertheless it still happens time after time.”

Nunney also warns against using a company which uses spam as an SEO tool.

“Recently I’ve seen some of the most respected SEO agencies in this country openly talk about using programs to submit comments on search engines. It’s easy to get software for this and it‘s pure spam.

"It’s also very selfish", he says clearly frustrated, “as everyone running a website with comments is reminded each time they have to delete spam comments.”

For some businesses the idea of SEO is very new. This may be the first time they have stepped into the industry. Nunney says it can be very difficult to sell someone the idea of SEO.

“It’s like selling a second-hand car that you can’t see and might not be delivered for a year.”

Don't be seduced by fancy websites

It is this lack of tangible evidence that often makes businesses reluctant to go to the ‘little guys’ because they believe that big companies are better able to produce the right results. Of course this isn’t always the case, and of course we shouldn’t tar all big SEO agencies with the same brush, but what Nunney is advising is to be wary, and not be seduced by fancy, expensive-looking websites.

He explains: “Some businesses out there are only just getting used to being on the internet, doing online marketing and PR, and then along comes SEO and how do they make that judgment (on which SEO agency to use)? It’s very hard.

“Often they will see a company with a nice website and they may be inclined to trust them. I’m sure they are right sometimes and of course there are lots of poor smaller outfits but to me it’s more shocking when respectable looking companies don't deliver.”

Get your money's worth

So how do you avoid being disappointed? Nunney says you should always get a personal referral from someone you know and trust. It doesn’t stop there.

Nunney adds: “You then need to get whoever you have approached to prove it - prove what they’ve done even when it’s a personal reference.”

You should then take a step back, Nunney advises, and ask yourself; ‘What is being delivered?’ Make sure you are getting your money’s worth.

When asked if people should set their SEO agency a target, Nunney said it could “cause as many problems as it tries to solve.”

“I concentrate on method to judge just about everything,” he says.

He went on to say that if a company says they will get you top of the search engines for a collection of words or phrases then they are using a “classic SEO con.”

“It might seem really good but really it’s meaningless - what phrases? What traffic will it bring? They can be quite popular phrases but they might not bring that much.

“Any reasonable sized site is interested in hundreds of thousands of keywords.”

When you have approached an SEO agency you should be more concerned with their method and the process by which they will get you results.

SEO strategy and tactics

So what’s the first thing you should be asking? Nunney says it should be: “Do you have an appreciation of the difference between strategy and tactics?”

“If they don’t know that then move on", he says firmly.

“I’d be wanting them to go through a process of coming up with a strategy first and then an accompanying plan of action. Show me the strategy, how are you going to get there and what’s the plan of action?

“I’d also want a bespoke plan for my website. If they say here’s our list of actions which hasn’t been adjusted for your site then that’s probably good for their systems, but it’s not considering you and your particular situation, and every site is different.”

The end goal should be profit, unless of course you are a non-profit site.

“So it’s not rankings, not traffic and not even sales - although they are useful metrics and can help measure progress and success - they are not the end in itself.”

Key questions to ask a prospective SEO agency

1. How is this company judging its own work?
2. What is their method of SEO?
3. How are they going to prove their method works?
4. What’s the process, what are the stages and why do they go through them?
5. Can they show evidence of flexibility? (That comes back to having a bespoke plan.)
6. Is there flexibility depending on results?
7. In what way do they monitor results and how are they going to change the plan of action accordingly? Ask for evidence of their ability to manoeuvre.

Have a look at our web content page if you're interested in looking into optimizing your web pages yourself.

Or check out this blog post: How to find a good SEO company