Introduction
This is a VERY important question! There are several SEO agencies in London, which can make selecting the best SEO agency difficult. Too many small businesses opt for the wrong SEO agency and end up getting burned.
And when you are putting your business and life-blood on the line…you want to be sure you have success and avoid the scorn of failure and disappointment with an SEO campaign.
The problem is, people realise: ‘hey, there’s money to be made in this SEO lark, let’s give it a go.’ and SEO became a big thing. And when everyone sees a way to try to grab a quick buck… there seems to be a pattern in business formation.
This led to the birth of two distinct types of SEO agencies in London:
1: The SEO agencies that are GREAT at what they do but are honest about what can’t be done.
This should not exclude them from your search by any means, but be sure you know what you want going into the search. By having overzealous goals, many agencies may not be able to help you reach those.
An agency that is great at what they do both operate organically and align with white hat techniques. If your niche or goals are too far out of their reach and abilities…they may be able to refer you to an agency better suited to your needs.
2: Then, on the other hand, there are those SEO agencies who will lie through their teeth just to get business.
Then they attempt to deliver on what they promised via some terrible black hat SEO techniques. The use of black hat techniques can get your site flagged or penalized at varying levels. The worst-case here is your site gets completely taken down…best case, you are out money and have to go find another agency to bring on board.
With this in mind, I’m going to share with you some tips for selecting the best SEO agency in London for your small business.
So without further ado, let’s get started!
Check out THEIR SEO
As a rule of thumb, the first thing to look for when considering hiring an SEO company in the UK is to look at how well their SEO is doing for their own website.
Head over to Google and search what should be their keywords. Things like “SEO Agency Near Me”, “SEO Agency London”, “London SEO Agency”, “Best London SEO Agency”, “Award Winning SEO Agency”…and possibly more
If they are not coming up for targets like that, you know that their own SEO may not be top-notch. After all, your business is your baby, and you want to ensure it is resting in trusting hands. How trustworthy is it if the agency you are looking to hire does not perform well themselves?
If they are nowhere to be found for their target keywords, this is a major red flag – you probably do not want to use them for your own SEO efforts!
Once you find an SEO agency in London that has their act together, the next thing to do is to speak with the SEO expert that is going to be helping you. After all, it is best to get to know who will be helping you beyond just the agency name.
Ask SEVERAL Questions before selecting the best SEO agency
It is vital that you ask several questions. This will help you determine if they are the right SEO company for your small business.
- Ask them what their plan/ strategy for your website is.
- Find out how long they have been in business.
- Request to see customer testimonials.
- Ask them if they have worked with any small businesses similar to yours in the past.
- If your business targets a local audience, you’ll need a local SEO strategy. Therefore, ask for a case study where they offered local SEO services to another small business based in London.
These types of questions should all be in your qualifiers when looking to bring an SEO agency as a part of your team.
By knowing what their general approach will be for your site and the level of experience they have, you can establish a baseline knowledge for what they do. By looking at testimonials and reviews, you will be able to see how other clients succeeded or failed with their services. And looking into their niche experience, you can be sure that there is a base level of knowledge with your business.
All of these points are designed to see how legitimate their business is, as well. A scammy, black-hat company will not be able to provide authentic reviews and testimonials. Testimonials on these sights will look clearly fluffy and lack specifics that a real testimonial has.
View client testimonials
Once you have seen some testimonials, see they can do SEO on their own site and have more information about them. You can move forward with confidence.
Client testimonials are a powerful tool in your research for the best SEO agency in London. Testimonials allow you to look into past campaigns through the words of the previous clients.
Be wary, though. A testimonial should be clearly written by a past client. A review that is fluffy and vague may be a red flag to a signal of it being false or bought. If there are only five-star positive reviews, this could be a signal, but not always. A truly great agency will have close to exclusive positive reviews, but the devil is in the detail with the content of the review itself.
If however, they are not able to confidently answer your questions and are not transparent about showing your client testimonials, it’s time to move on and continue your search!
Even once you have selected a London based SEO company for your small business, do not drop your guard!
Make sure that you get constant reporting.
This allows you to keep up to date with the progress. Any good SEO agency will be fine with all of that stuff; it’s just the bad ones that won’t.
It is normal to get monthly reporting and some weekly reporting. It can also be included that if you have questions, communication should be returned within 48 hours. If you have concerns and are waiting over a week and haven’t seen a report…you may be in a bit of trouble.
Be sure to ask ahead of time what types of reports you are getting and the frequency of these along with other updates. Some of these documents may include:
- Keyword movement
- Client increase or decrease
- Page visit time increase or decrease
- Any link building statuses
- Any Google Updates that may have affected your site
- Any other notable site and traffic changes
Having these reports and access to your analytics dashboards ensure that the work you have hired the agency to do is getting done and showing improvement on your site. Without this documentation, you are completely in the dark.
At (Pearl Lemon), our clients LOVE the fact that we send them frequent updates.
Conclusion
I hope these tips help in your search for the best SEO agency to work with.
By no means is this list exhaustive. Be sure to take the above points away and use them to guide your research, but really dig into that company. Be sure that not only they are the best agency but that they are also the perfect fit for you, your team, your company, and the niche you operate within.
If you need more advice on selecting the best SEO agency in London, that will offer affordable SEO services for your small business- let’s chat! Pearl Lemon can support and provide all of the above-listed requirements when looking for the best SEO agency for you and your business.
For more digital marketing related advice, be sure to follow us on Quora. It’s managed by Rajesh, one of our SEO experts also based in London.