17 [Easy] Tips To Find The Best SEO Company For You!

When you find the right SEO company, your online marketing strategy becomes more effective.

The problem is that when someone finds a good SEO company, they keep things under wraps so their competition doesn't find out about them. So hearing about the best SEO company probably won't happen via referral or your competition gloating about their success.

That leaves starting your research by checking independent review websites and requesting the company's case studies to see what previous clients have had to say about the particular SEO company.

Google Reviews
Facebook Reviews
Company Case Studies

These websites are independent, so you’ll get the good and the bad (without the BS).

Spending just a few minutes reviewing the company can save you a lot of pain down the track.

They will also outline if the agency has helped other people.

At Websites That Sell, we are proud to have helped many business owners, and our clients are proof of this, having been reviewed on Google and Facebook by satisfied clients. We can get such great results because of our free, no-obligation, no-strings-attached SEO strategy session - which you can learn more about here.

Websites That Sell is one of Australia's most reviewed SEO companies from 3rd party review sites, testimonies & rank reports.

However, what sets us apart is that we focus on measurable & meaningful results - not just rankings.

Websites That Sell's head office on the Sunshine Coast houses our team of SEO Experts.

We're also close enough to travel to Brisbane, so we can easily meet in person in Brisbane to discuss your SEO campaign.

While most of our Gold Coast clients meet us via Zoom, you can learn more about our Gold Coast SEO services and request to speak to us from there.

Well, call us old-fashioned, but the fact remains several times a week, we talk to prospects who have called “recommended” SEO companies only to reach voice mails, virtual receptionists (not SEO experts) or worse… get no answer at all.

So let’s get real here… the ability to pick up the phone, ask questions, run ideas past your SEO company and talk to a human (here in Australia - in English) is important.

Do you need to be able to reach them 24/7 - 7 days a week?

No.

But you should be able to call the office Monday to Friday during office hours and speak to a real person.

Instead of getting ignored or waiting days for a simple answer.

Here at Websites That Sell, we operate 9-5 - Monday to Friday, and you’ll always catch a real person on the end of the line during these hours.

We know it’s important not to outsource the phones to a voicemail or receptionist or, worse, not answer them at all.

We pride ourselves on having trained SEO professionals. Australians who understand English (the nerve, right?) are ready to answer your questions.

Hard to believe?

Try us out on 1300 188 662

Or, if you don’t like using the phone, test our email response time here.

Or go the bold and request a free SEO strategy session.

A professional SEO company should be able to demonstrate in no more than 10 minutes:

• Online growth opportunities. Including traffic opportunity snapshots, competitor gap analysis & market dominance strategies.
• Outline any website roadblocks. Details on what is and isn’t working on a website PLUS any hidden opportunities to drive fast growth.
• Reverse engineer the competition. The use of advanced tools shows exactly how the competition is ranking and provides simple ways to outsmart them

The inability to provide results in advance as outlined above probably means the company is incompetent and not professionals in their field.

Too harsh?

Maybe… but at the end of the day, it’s your investment at stake.

So as a bare minimum request some research from your company.

You can do so from Websites That Sell here.

Here's a quick video that outlines how an experienced SEO company can quickly demonstrate how to take over traffic their competitors are currently driving, using one of our go-to tools called aHrefs:

78% OF SMALL BUSINESSES STATED THAT KNOWING THEIR PROVIDER’S LOCATION WAS “EXTREMELY” OR “VERY” IMPORTANT (WITH 46% STATING THAT A KNOWN LOCATION WAS “EXTREMELY IMPORTANT”).

In the SEO world, it’s very common to have a “virtual” office in a major city and make it look like the company has a presence there - and there is nothing wrong with this.

It’s smart.

We have offices all across the country.

However, having a virtual office in a city alone isn’t enough to execute a highly profitable SEO campaign.

We had to learn this one the hard way.

We have offices in every major city around Australia, so we know our client's operational areas inside out. For example, take the city of Brisbane as an example. You've got North Brisbane, South Brisbane, the fact that the Valley is just about part of the city… and so on and forth.

However, when we took on our first client in Sydney, we had no idea about regions, population levels and localities.

This lack of local know-how brought about challenges.

• Missing out on local traffic opportunities (some of the hottest buyers)
• Missing out on local link opportunities (some of the best links for local SEO)
• Missing out on local coverage (which can supercharge a SEO campaign)

To say the least… we learnt quickly.

We invested in on-the-ground research and now have “local agents” to ensure we tap into every possible local opportunity no matter where a company operates.

Again… general perception is that your SEO companies' location doesn’t matter.

This is correct as long as they can demonstrate local knowledge of your area in a geographical, cultural and operational sense.

The internet is still quite young, with the birth of www dating back to 1989, the first-ever web search engine released in 1993 and then finally Google going live in 1998.

Right now we're in an era of constant updates and chaotic change as technology advances and companies refine their systems & websites to best serve users.

And it's no different with Google.

In 2018 alone, Google reported 3,234 updates for the year.

What's all this got to do with choosing an SEO?

A lot.

A survey about agency experience revealed that over half of agencies and employees of these agencies have less than 5 years of experience.

This means half of those agencies never even experienced the first Google update in 2011 (Panda)

So SEO companies coming on the scene over the last 1, 2 even 3 years generally have no idea about how to "play nice" with Google.

Why?

Because they haven't lived through any of the core updates, they don't understand the bigger picture Google wants to achieve.

While they may understand some of the tech stuff (usually taught by outdated "coaches" wanting to make a quick buck themselves) they haven't lived through recovering sites from Google algorithm changes, and they haven't been exposed to data across hundreds of sites that show them insights Google will never publicly reveal and most important of all these kind of SEO's just don't get that Search Engine Optimisation isn't just about rankings...

SEO is about creating a page that presents the best possible content which ends the search.

Yes - that's marketing.

It's an experience like this that will set a truly quality SEO company apart from the fly-by-nighters.

Websites That Sell has been operating and helping business owners with their marketing since 2007.

We were there for the very first Google Panda update in 2011, and our client's sites have not only survived but thrived every other update since.

The big difference with our company is that our head of SEO (hello, that's me...) I first cut my teeth on direct response marketing - not just SEO.

I understand not just how to rank a page but how to get the visitor to take action on the page and end the search.

Having a marketer like this on your side, online marketing experience since 2007, and results across the years to back it up is the magic combination you need for your chosen SEO agency to generate meaningful & impactful results.

If you've talked to a few SEO companies already or have researched Search Engine Optimisation, no doubt you heard that SEO takes time.

Which is true.

It's not overnight that an SEO agency can drive results.

Having said that... we're continually amazed at how we can get impacting results for clients in less than 90 days.

Still...

That's 90 days of paying for SEO and if no understanding of what's actually getting done is in place - it can get pretty daunting.

This is where the "mystery" of SEO comes in.

Companies claim that the work that's being completed is proprietary and doesn't concern the client... or a "combination of the following" SEO services will get completed... or worse nothing gets said at all.

Not any of these 3 scenarios are good enough.

If you're going to pay for a service, you deserve the right to see the tangibles of what's actually getting completed.

Sure you're paying for results, but as I said many times it takes time for results to come in... so in the meantime to give you peace of mind your budget is actually being spent to complete work, and a clear outline of deliverables should be given.

Ask the SEO company to provide a minimum outline of the tasks that will be completed each month.

It's important to see the plan and an outline of actual tasks/services that will be rendered.

The last thing you want is for the SEO Campaign to go one way when the objective you have in mind is totally different.

Hard to believe?

I know...

...But we've heard it many times before from people who have gone down this track with other companies.

Here at Websites That Sell we provide a custom proposal for each client, outlining each of the tasks and strategies that are implemented over the initial month.

Sometimes tasks change based on the response of the campaign. This flexibility should be in place. But a clear path at a minimum should be given.

The proposals we provide are based on the initial strategy session we complete at no cost - that way everything in the campaign aligns with what the client is after.

We've even gone as far as publicly sharing the kind of proposal you can expect.

You can watch this outline below:

Contact us if you'd like to know the kind of proposal/campaign we would create for your organisation. For more information about our pricing, visit our pricing page here.

OK.

We talked about getting your campaign outlined in writing.

But how are you going to check that the promised work is actually completed?

You get the company to agree to provide reporting and communication throughout the campaign.

Here's the report you should expect to receive:

• Monthly outline of completed work (website changes, link building) - ensure you get reports outlining the actual links built for you during the month.
• Rank Tracking report - At a minimum, you'll want this every month to see progress in rankings. Ideally, request an online portal where you can check rankings anytime. (BONUS TIP: ask the company to report rankings from the local area you're targeting. A rank report pulled from a Sydney IP address will serve up different results than one pulled from a Melbourne IP address. If you want to rank in Sydney... well, then it pays to see the results people from Sydney see)
• Analytical Reports - You won't get too many agencies providing this kind of reporting - but this is where you'll find the gold and effectiveness of your campaign. Proper set-up of analytical reporting will allow you to inspect and understand:
  • traffic increases
  • website user metrics
  • website enquiry form conversions
  • website phone call conversions

And a whole lot more... but the above is a great starting point to measure the effectiveness of the campaign (remember rankings are just one part of the equation)

• Monthly strategy report outlining the progress of the campaign & direction for the coming month. The SEO strategist at the firm should, at minimum, oversee the campaign to identify any gaps and opportunities and provide feedback on where things are going. This should be completed at the start of the month so decisions can be made monthly on how to invest your allocated SEO budget best.

This is probably starting to sound like a broken record... but we do it better than any other SEO firm we know regarding reporting.

We track, measure & report on EVERYTHING - 3 levels deep. You get:

• Cloud-based, geo-specific rank tracking system.
• Analytics: traffic, web & phone enquiries.
• Monthly completed SEO tasks.

PLUS monthly strategy input from our Head of SEO and phone support from real people (old-fashioned, right?) ready to answer your SEO questions.

Give us a try and call our office on 1300 188 662 now.

Getting SEO right involves a lot of moving parts.

It’s not just a matter of researching keywords, optimising a page and building some links.

The website should be of high quality. Often a developer is required to fix functionality, speed issues and implementation of on-page changes (title tags, meta description, h tags, schema mark etc)

The website should grow. Unless you’re a professional writer a content creation expert will be required to help create high-quality, shareable & helpful content.

And of course to attain rankings the SEO campaign needs to be strategised & executed.

Every company is different.

Some companies only act as SEO consultants while the company's in-house team executes the campaign.

Other companies provide recommendations for on-page changes and execution of the campaign.

Other companies provide a full-service solution including development, content creation & implementation of the campaign.

There is no right or wrong in what a company provides.

What is important, however, is to know from the start what is and isn’t included as part of the SEO service.

At Websites That Sell we are geared to provide any level of service. We have an in-house content creation team, developers and of course SEO professionals willing and ready to execute world-class SEO.

You have values, your business has values.

There is a specific culture and a way you do things.

It's important that the company you choose will be a good match.

SEO is one of those industries where no regulation means "anything goes".

Here are a few examples:

Negative SEOing - this is the practice of sending bad links to your competitors to tear them down.

It goes against everything I personally and our company stand for.

We think SEO should be a fair fight and may the best, most innovative and persistent company win.

This is embedded throughout our values and mission.

However many agencies don't align with those values, crossing lines that if the industry was regulated probably would border on illegal activity.

Illegal Link Placement - there have been cases of companies illegally spamming and hacking websites around the internet and inserting links into content without the owner's knowledge.

Let's get a clear comparison here.

This would be the equivalent of you walking into every store on the main street in your major city and placing your advertising on every shop window.

It probably wouldn't fly with the shop owners let alone the police who more than likely would get involved.

Yet this practice is apparent across the Internet.

These are just 2 examples of many ways the hired company may think it's OK to cut corners, do things the wrong way or not actually deliver what's promised.

So how do you know if the companies on your shortlist are going to align with your values?

Well...

The first place to check would be to see if the company has any values.

A legitimate company, serious about building a long-term presence in the market usually has a mission/vision and values displayed on their about us page or on a dedicated page.

Our vision here at Websites That Sell is to be:

"Australia's leading digital agency that companies can trust to generate meaningful and impactful results via their Website & Google."

This vision is backed by six core values:

RESULTS - It's our true north. It's what drives us. Measurable. Meaningful & Impactful results.

CLIENTS - our biggest investment. Our clients allow us to do what we do.

EXCELLENCE - we believe in delivering outstanding quality in all we do. The aim is not a one-off transaction but to build solid business relationships.

CONSTANT GROWTH - we believe there is always room for improvement, change & doing things more efficiently and standing still = going backward. Our aim is to always stay one step ahead of the pack.

TEAM - we believe in training, investing & building our team. The result is people who are the best at what they do in the industry.

BONAFIDE - we believe in conducting business honestly, fairly and in good faith. Not just on paper but in every deliverable of our service (even when no one is looking.)

Getting clear on your goals has nothing to do with SEO per se. It has everything to do with setting your expectations and ensuring you choose the right company to deliver your desired result.

If you don't have a goal, there really isn't any direction to follow.

Below, you'll find a few ways to help you determine what Goals your SEO campaign should achieve, which will help decide the agency's job.

What's the goal of your campaign:

Build your brand presence

Do you want to build the brand presence of your company? This way, when your prospects see your advertising on other mediums such as newspapers, Radio, TV, Sales Reps, Trade shows, Facebook, Instagram and anywhere else online, you'll be found when they search for your brand on Google.

This kind of campaign is very important if you're already doing a lot of other marketing and helps capture people who have already been exposed to your brand and message once they search for your company (specifically on Google).

Get found locally

Does your business attract customers or clients on a suburb level?

For example, home services companies where people search on a suburb level, cafes & restaurants or anything else where customers don't want to drive too far to get what they are after, will qualify for local suburb kind of campaigns.

These campaigns are usually much more affordable as you're not competing against every other suburb or city.

Also, check out our guide on affordable SEO to learn more about this SEO campaign.

Get found for a big city

Do you operate and attract/service customers in a big city radius? It will require a specific campaign if you're ready to attract customers in a specific city around Australia.

Competition levels are much higher, your website structure needs to be well thought out, and you'll need to be prepared and able to invest for extended periods before a return on investment will be seen.

Get found nationally or Internationally

Do you service customers or clients on a national/international level? If you do, there are several options for campaigns.

For example, you can first focus on your most profitable cities/countries or build specific websites for each city/country (international SEO). It all depends on your long-term goals, which will determine the approach.

The important thing is to know what your immediate and long-term goals are so that you can apply a targeted approach to SEO for maximum return and long-term results.

In this chapter, you'll find 4 tips to help decide your budget. And we'll get to that in a minute.

Before we do though, having worked on hundreds of campaigns over the years, it's important to outline recent survey findings.

The study completed across 1,200 business owners found a strong correlation between higher spending and higher client satisfaction. 53.3% of people investing in SEO at a higher level were more likely to be "extremely satisfied" compared to those who spent less.

This isn't to say you should spend every last dollar on SEO - however, it proves once again that quality SEO does take an investment and quality = results. Which equals client satisfaction (yes that's you).

And...

It's always good to get an industry comparison. 

Another study revealed that on average business owners in Australia spend between $500-$5,000 per month with their SEO company. The largest amount of business owners spend between $2.5-5K a month on SEO - a total of 29.41% then 23.5% of business owners spend 1-1.5K and also 23.5% spend 1.5-2K a month.

Four tips that will help you decide on your budget

1. Know what you're up against (and the payoff once you rank)

There's only one way to work out exactly what SEO investment will be required.

That's to complete the SEO analysis.

You get a free SEO analysis as part of a strategy session here. (By application only)

Knowing what you're up against not only lets you know the resources the company will require to get you ranking it also gives you different ideas of outcomes that are achievable at different price points.

This leads to point No.2

2. Set Your Goals

We've gone through a whole chapter dedicated to this. However, it's important to get clear on this in your budgeting as well.

How much more traffic do you require, how many more enquiries each week and how many extra sales are required to make your SEO investment give you a positive return?

Question to keep in mind and ask your SEO if they don't bring them up already (if they don't, maybe they aren't the right choice - just saying...).

• Are you a start-up? Do you need to build up your presence and basic brand awareness?
• Do you operate on a micro-local level? Do you need to rank on a suburb level to drive results?
• Do you need to dominate your city? Is your company ready to take over a major city? Know that competition levels are high here, so expect higher budget requirements.
• Do you have to go after the highest possible traffic keywords? Are they even likely to drive results, or should you focus on more niche and commercial intent keywords?
• What is your long-term vision? Do you want to get there in the first 6 months, 1 year or 1-3 years? Understand that the most successful SEO campaign will build over time, and results will compound and stack on top of each other.

3. Don't "break" your budget

If you can't afford to go at the recommended budget level from your SEO company, don't break your budget.

Don't make SEO your life raft.

Satisfaction levels, if things take longer than expected, will be very low. And that's bad news for you, the client, the SEO company and everyone else involved...

Allocate a specific budget and stick to it.

Once you see results and the campaign gains momentum, you can always increase your budget.

4. Consider your best return on investment (ROI) options

Not many SEO companies will tell you this.

We, on the other hand, regularly turn down clients as we see better "quicker win" options.

Our goal is for your company to grow.

If you can get immediate traffic & results with Google ads, then that's what we recommend.

If we see that your website won't convert and you'll be wasting your SEO budget - we'll let you know.

If we think SEO isn't going to work for your industry, product or service - we'll let you know.

Your goal should be for your marketing budget to get maximum return.

Many of our clients start with Google ads, and from the extra profits generated, they now have a budget to re-invest in SEO.

It is a simple option.

Do we miss out on immediate sales?

Yes.

Does this hurt our business?

No.

We know we've helped your company take the right first step, so when you're ready for SEO, we'll help you achieve the next level of growth.

Short-term gains, long-term pains!

The silver lining was that tests were only ever carried out on our own "experiment subject" sites - however after all was said and done, these sites never recovered. It was easier to just start over again.

Now let that sink in for a moment.

I want to paint this picture thoroughly because we've seen too many companies destroy perfectly good authoritative domains.

Imagine that.

You've spent thousands of dollars building your brand.

You've got your brand domain name which has great age and authority already.

Trusting cheap, black-hat (strategies that go against Google's terms of service) tactics could wipe all of this out - literally overnight.

Just research some Panda or Penguin horror stories and I think you'll get the point.

The company's traffic sources were wiped out overnight. Businesses went under. The worst part - no one told these companies about this.

That's why it's important we discuss this subject to help in your decision-making.

What does this mean for your process of choosing the right SEO company?

Don't allow any of the following to happen during your campaign (even though some of these tactics may still work, your brand is too important to risk destroying it).

Also note, that you don't need to know the technical aspects behind each of the following terms or strategies - just know what things are called so you can spot them in a proposal if they pop up.

Things to watch out for in your proposal include:

• keyword stuffing of your website
• building low-quality pages
• creating low-quality content
• article spinning
• content automation
• doorway pages
• cloaking
• hidden text or links
• link schemes
• link farms, link wheels or link networks
• rich snippet markup spam
• automated queries to Google
• automated blog commenting
• using automated tools to build links
• using Private Blog Networks (PBNs) to build links.

If any of the above were to appear in a proposal, to safeguard your company's websites, it's advised to stay away and not enter into a contract.

I think I've made my point.

Ok.

Let's move on

This really is basic due diligence so we’ll keep this short. At the end of the day… you’ll want to ensure the company is a real firm. Not someone that will disappear as soon as your deposit clears. Ensure the company is actually registered to trade here in Australia. A quick look-up on the business.gov website will help you identify this.

Here’s what Websites That Sells' registration looks like: https://abr.business.gov.au/ABN/View?abn=65792267851

A quick check on ASIC should verify if the company is in fact legitimate.

Websites That Sells' details look a little something like this: https://connectonline.asic.gov.au/RegistrySearch/faces/landing/bySearchId.jspx?searchId=617671440&searchIdType=BUSN&_adf.ctrl-state=172enrej0t_15

You don’t need to be an SEO expert, but you should at least come across knowing a little bit about SEO.

Below are the kind of hard-hitting questions that will set the professionals apart from the amateurs. (we’ve also included our answers for your convenience)

i) What are the exact services, and quantities of each, you plan to deliver monthly as part of the strategy?

SEO should not be a cooker-cutter approach. Every website, every business and every industry is different.

What works in one industry may not work in the next.

There are certain activities we include in every campaign eg. Strategy formulation, keyword research, and onsite optimisation.

However many other aspects of our SEO services are determined by the state of the website.

If the site is under a penalty, we’ll complete a link cleanup.

If the site lacks content authority we’ll include a content strategy.

If the site lacks local links, we’ll build local links.

If the site lacks authority we’ll build power links.

The easiest way for us to outline what we would include in your SEO campaign is to apply for a free SEO strategy session.

ii) What technical aspects of the website will you be auditing and fixing?

As a number priority, we will look at load times, functionality/usability & site structure.

Then we’ll go through our complete list of 27 technical SEO factors to ensure that your site is squeaky clean - just the way Google loves.

iii) How many pages of the website will you optimise initially and on an ongoing basis?

The amount of work that will be completed will be determined by the budget allocated to the campaign.

Local business owners may only need one landing page and one main keyword to boost sales.

Other companies with a larger focus may want to focus on several service offerings.

Other companies may want to reach outside of their main city and implement a national multi-city campaign.

The amount of pages that will be optimised depends on the size of the campaign.

iv) What kind of links will you be building and how?

Great question and a very important one.

We’re not going to go on a link-building rant here… but let’s just say we follow an approach of quality over quantity.

We have proprietary partnerships with authorise in various markets for link placements.

We have dedicated outreach teams who secure guest blog post placements.

We have local SEO experts building local links.

And we have SEO strategists who build awesome content site owners can’t but help link to naturally without you lifting a finger.

The kind of links and the amount of them will depend on the objective and outline of your campaign.

v) What do you know about Google’s Penguin Update?

We’ve been operating since 2007… so we’ve seen our fair share of Google updates.

Penguin was definitely the one update that rocked the SEO world along with business owner's rights across Australia.

The penguin update was so significant we wrote a recovery guide about it.

We're qualified to write a guide on the subject... I guess that shows just how much we know about this update ;-)

We've been operating since 2007 and one of the big things we have learned is that choosing an SEO company should not be an impulse decision.

We have clients who have been with us for over 5 years, and others that we've worked with, gotten results and have come back multiple times for more.

Why?

Because they didn't rush their decision.

In your quest to find the best Australian SEO Company, you'll be faced with expiring offers, urgency, scarcity even fears just to hand over your credit card.

I'm a marketer I'm well aware of these triggers and how they work.

But I also know that there is no rush when it comes to SEO.

Here's the simplest way I can put it.

Your site isn't going to rank overnight, so what's the rush to sign up for the "ultimate too-good-to-be-true offer"? (Probably loaded with an act in the 10 minutes or you'll miss out on the discount, the steak knives and we'll take this offer to your competitors kind of clauses and scarcity tactics)

I call BS!

In my experience, SEO companies are hungry (usually because they can't keep their clients long-term).

So don't rush your decision.

Here's the decision process our most successful clients have gone through (notice no rush at any step)

1. Read a guide like this to make an educated shortlist of companies.
2. Request a free SEO strategy session like this one here.
3. Request a proposal outlining how results will be achieved
4. Take time to think
5. Ask questions via phone, email or in person.
6. Make an educated, confident and successful hiring decision (that's going to work long-term)

No expiring offers, no BS urgency and No pressure sales tactics.

Your buying process should be well researched with your SEO company guiding the way to new growth opportunities.

As outlined at the beginning of this guide, the SEO industry is not regulated so doing your due diligence and following the 17 tips will be the deciding factor between choosing a good or bad SEO company.

All the information you will have gathered in the process will give you clarity about your decision.

There are plenty of good SEO companies among all the horror stories, that can help not just attain rankings, but meaningful & measurable results.

Armed with the information provided in this guide you’re now ready to make an educated and confident decision in your SEO company selection process.