It is not unheard of that investing in SEO is a must for any business, regardless of its size. So, you hire the services of one SEO service provider to improve your ranking and visibility. However, if you have no idea about what your service provider must deliver, it oftentimes becomes difficult to judge their performance. As such, it might so happen that you can be a victim of rip off.
In this article, let us find out what role the SEO agency must play if you have entered into an agreement with it.
The write-up will deal with the following subject, namely,
What role should your SEO company play?
The roles and responsibilities that the SEO company must play is vast and covers a wide array of tasks. It is expected that these tasks must be performed to get optimum results. So, read on for better understanding.
- Identifying client vision and objectives
If you are a part of the SEO team and your client signs up for your services, by default, the client’s vision, mission, and objectives become yours. You must understand what your client needs or expects you to do.
Unless you are fully aware of the goals of the company for which you are working, it is difficult to proceed. Also, it becomes easier for you to work since you can decide what strategies you will adopt for the company.
- Auditing the prevailing condition of the website
Prior to implementing the strategies, you must understand the current position or ranking of the website of the client that you are working for. However, when you talk about the current condition, it encompasses a broad spectrum of various aspects and parameters.
What parameters must you take into account when you are assessing the current condition of the client website? Few of the essential elements are given below-
- Finding out the ease of navigation
One of the most crucial aspects that a website must offer is ease of navigation. A visitor should find it easy to locate the things or topics he is looking for. Too many options in navigation can lead to confusion, thereby forcing the visitor to bounce out.
In other words, the user experience must be good. So, this is one of the first factors that the SEO agency should see how the prevailing navigation aspect is.
- Check the status of prevailing content
The phrase “Content is King” will always be right and rein. One of the roles of the service provider offering you SEO services is to check whether or not content currently live on the website is relevant, updated, informative, and adds value to the user.
It is not just about relevant content and factors above; it is also important to make sure that how well it is able to compete with the competitor websites belonging to the same niche in terms of content.
This can be better understood with the help of an example. “Competitive landscape” or the niche area in which the client is competing is crucial. A website that has many pages stand a chance to rank better as compared to a website that does not have too many pages.
- Check the speed of the website
Another aspect that the SEO company must look into is website speed. The main aim of the company is to draw more web traffic, rank better for which it is willing to invest in SEO services.
But few factors that are vital and requires attention include the speed with which the web pages load, uptime, ease of navigation, user experience, whether the website has a mobile version of it too (responsive), the theme code, plugins, templates, and extensions to name just a few.
- To check for the presence of a sitemap
The SEO service provider will also see whether the client website has a sitemap. Presence of one allows visitors better user experience and navigation.
Once the above factors’ assessment is done, next is to delve into the more important aspects like identifying the keywords and key phrases that will help the client website rank better. So, the other roles of the SEO company are as follows-
- On-Page and Off-Page Optimization
The SEO agency must find out the keywords and long-tailed key phrases that will draw traffic to the website. And for this On-page as well as off-page optimization is a must. Of course, following the strategies of white hat SEO is what the agency must follow.
And if any company assures you that it will make your website rank in a fortnight, it is too good to be true. There are no shortcuts to get good ranking, and for the website to stay at the top for long, it will take some time. It does not happen overnight.
As such, if the company rushes into getting good rankings, it is perhaps skipping a few essential steps, which can be the same reasons why the ranking of your website might fall later.
- Check for the presence of links (backlink profile)
Backlinks are crucial, and they play an instrumental role in ranking a website. As such, it is important for the SEO company to check the existing status of these links. Most importantly, the backlinks must be from websites that are relevant to your niche or area of operations/business.
If you have a backlink from a website that is not related to your niche area, it sends wrong signals to search engines.
- Check competitor websites and their modus operandi
Next, the SEO service provider will find out how the competitor websites operate and try to implement strategies that will supersede them and take your website to a position preferably higher than theirs. However, be prepared to wait. It requires patience.
- Check Google analytics
The search engine optimization company has extensive work with Google analytics so that it can work out strategies for its clients and implement them accordingly.
Remember, the role of the SEO agent does not end here. It is a continuous effort that must be put in and perhaps a perennial task that the SEO company must undertake.