Is Your SEO Company Helping or Killing Your Website? 6 Tricks to Find Out

No one gets found on Page 30. So if you’re looking to optimize your online company, SEO should be high on your priority list. But you should know the risks before you shop around. Several small businesses who’ve placed their trust in an SEO company, only to have their sites on the verge of being indexed by Google - sudden death for your brand - because of outdated and off-the-books, blackhat techniques.

The problem with a dodgy SEO company is that by the time you see the result you’ve been waiting for, your contact has vanished along with your budget and your business's reputation.

Yet, you shouldn’t be afraid of Search Engine Optimization. When done right, it does wonders for your brand’s visibility across the internet. As long as search engines exist, there will be opportunities to expose your business to your targeted demographic. You have to play by Google’s rules.

This blog is here to help debunk some of the techniques behind website optimization and ensure you have the working knowledge to know whether the specialists you’ve employed are hurting or helping your business.

Here are 6 tricks to find out if your hot, new SEO company is reliable - or not.

1) You’re promised the first page on Google

Many an SEO companies will promise you the world. And by that, we mean a guaranteed #1 first page on Google for your targeted keywords. To sweeten the deal, they’ll slip in that they’ll only charge you for their service AFTER your keyword makes it to the first page.

What they don’t tell you, is they’ll use long-tailed keywords which don’t have a lot of traction or competition anyways. On paper, it looks great, but if your web traffic is increasing, and your revenue isn’t, then this should be a red flag. Remember there are bots that can increase sessions too which would make us feel traffic is high. On the other hand, if you’re dealing with a good SEO company, you may see an upward trend in traffic plus your revenue would also go up. This means, they’ve successfully tapped into your niche market and it’s bringing in the results. You’ve achieved SEO mecca, a small audience with a high conversion rate.

2) They say they know how to work the algorithm of Google

If you’re looking for an SEO company and part of their sales pitch is they’ve got a special relationship with Google, then walk straight back out the door. After the release of Google’s Panda and Penguin algorithm, there are now more than 200 plus ranking factors used, making it nearly impossible to guarantee you’re a shoe-in on the search engine unless they are on page 1. Remember Google never shares their Algorithm details.

3) Beware of Backlinks Unknown

While still very important for your website optimization, Google is more selective with backlinks. The blackhat practice of mass producing links pointing to your website is both pointless and also damaging to your business. When Google catches you, and they always catch you, it’s your website that’s going to be penalised, NOT your dodgy SEO company. You will be held accountable rather than the people who got you into this mess in the first place.

A good SEO company will never propose a backlink campaign without fully explaining where those links will come from. As a business owner, you can identify these sites by their strong domain authority - social media platforms, directories, and related industry sites. Remember we can check the same via Google webmaster tools.

4) Direct your attention to directories (Lists)

As mentioned, directories are a powerful tool for SEO. If you’re local and have hired an SEO company, then it would make sense for them to list you on local directories. Your business is relevant to your demographic. Google sees that and is OK with it. If that same SEO company then says they’re going to list you on 100+ powerful directories all around the world, you could be getting duped. Moreover, it could make your SEO service the last thing that was alive about your business.

5) Content on publishing platforms

This falls under the same category as above. Your SEO company should be producing a content strategy which will get you backlinks from reputable sources - aka online news publications or other sites which the public trust. However, if they promise you massive amounts of articles being published, it’s almost a sure thing that they’re producing spam content with those generic comments and sending them far and wide across the internet.

6) Content and the possibility of keyword stuffing

A part of the SEO service offered should include a blog. But then if you look at one SEO company in Melbourne (bad) and compare it to another (good), then you’ll notice several things which they do differently.

The good company will create content that’s user-friendly. And while it will contain keywords, there’s still a natural and organic flow to the writing. The bad company will create content that’s stuffed with keywords that no human could ever comfortably read. Not only is this bad for your website optimization (if people can’t read what’s on it, they’re not going to hang around), Google also will penalize you for it. Keyword density might not be as important for SEO in this day and age, but your business might be in hot water if Google finds out your website is stuffed.

What you can do to protect your business from a blackhat SEO Company

Your responsibility doesn’t end after you outsource. There’s too great a risk to your business if you get penalized for their bad practice. To determine whether their SEO service is helping or hindering your website, the seo expert are here to share a few things that you, as a business, can check up on. By using a simple SEO tracking tool you can:

• Monitor your site’s traffic to ensure there’s a continued increase in organic growth

• Monitor where you’re ranking in Google on your approved list of keywords. Remember, the longer the keyword, the easier it is to rank, whereas the shorter, the more competitive it’ll be.

• Monitor your backlinks. This will help determine when your site is earning new links and will show you what those links are. Usually, you can tell whether they’re good or bad backlinks at a glance.

Conclusion

So what do SEO agencies do? We hope this article has given you a basic understanding of the practices behind SEO service and that you can begin to tell the difference between a reliable agency and one that’s just after your dollar. The fact of the matter is, your online business depends on SEO and it’s important to hand it over to someone you trust.

Option 1:If you’re looking for an SEO company that has your business’s best interests at heart, get in touch with the team at Tahr SEO today.

Option 2: Has your business previously been burned by an SEO company? We want to hear about it.