Even after they reach out to us initially, many potential clients still have this question on their minds: “Do I need an SEO agency?” They may have only heard of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) as “something you have to do” in today’s marketplace, or perhaps they think they can get by with a freelancer for SEO instead of an established agency.
In the end, the question that potential clients want answered is this:
Will SEO be valuable to my company’s bottom line?
In our experience, we need to explore a potential client’s industry vertical, target audiences, internal processes, and marketing goals to find the answer to this question. And sometimes after all that, we may find a prospect isn’t necessarily ready for an all-out SEO engagement. (In that situation we always point them in the direction of resources that can better meet their current needs.)
But for those clients who are ready to engage with us – the ones who can answer “Yes” to the question “Do I need an SEO agency?” – here’s what we usually find:
You Need An SEO Agency If…
1. You Are Ready for Growth
Whether their online presence takes the form of an ecommerce platform, a lead generation site with a longer sales cycle, or a content publisher generating revenue via advertising, our clients are poised and ready to expand their customer base. They’ve got a well-defined product or service and finely tuned internal systems that are ready for a pipeline of new customers.
2. You Understand the Importance of Digital Content
Our clients know that digital content is a valuable marketing investment that can be distributed across multiple channels, and they want to get as much ROI out of that content as possible.
3. You Value Search As A Channel
Your product, service and/or key topic is something that people are searching for information on in volume, and your company understands the importance of being found. When there is a smaller niche of potential customers, that niche is big enough to warrant investment in search engine marketing. In fact, many of our clients (but not all) already profitably dedicate marketing budget to paid search advertising (AdWords) and know they can benefit from similar visibility in organic search results.
4. You Understand SEO Is A Long-Term Play
A comprehensive SEO project typically takes a few months to complete, and it can take search engines several weeks to a few months to recognize those improvements and give a website “credit” via increased visibility. Therefore, our clients understand that SEO is not a get-rich-quick scheme. It takes time to build a solid SEO foundation, and the positive results are earned over the long haul – usually via the reliable guidance, constant vigilance and consistent improvements that you can count on from an ongoing engagement with an established agency (as opposed to a freelancer).
5. You Employ Other Marketing Channels Effectively
SEO is typically one marketing channel of many employed by our clients. They understand that brand building and visibility is an essential component of an integrated marketing plan. Most of our clients also prefer managing a stable of agencies that are experts in those channels, as opposed to a generalist agency that may not have a specific focus. At Momentic, we play well with third-party partners.
6. You Have the Ability and Willingness to Change
Either through in-house-staff or third-party developers and designers, our clients not only have the ability to make changes to their website – they’re also open to making adjustments in order to attract more traffic through organic search.
Since we often find a gap between how our clients talk about their product or service and how their customers talk about it, our most successful clients are willing to adjust the language on their site to attract their potential customers…while being true to their brand and voice, of course! In fact, our clients are eager to learn from us and incorporate the value of our services into their internal processes.
7. You Want Expert, Up-To-Date SEO Guidance
SEO is a complex and ever-changing field, and constant vigilance of algorithm changes and new techniques is needed to maintain an edge over the competition. Generalist agencies may offer SEO as an add-on service, however very few actually have the internal SEO resources to provide expert, up-to-date SEO services that are essential for consistently positive long-term results.
8. You Focus on Metrics that Matter
Momentic clients are clear about their marketing goals – whether they be obvious objectives such as sales or leads, or mini-conversions like social follows or email newsletter sign-ups. In any case, the focus is generally not on rankings, which are notoriously unreliable metrics of true success (we prefer traffic and conversions). Our clients focus on the numbers that drive tangible business success.
Think You Might Need Momentic?
Learn more about our approach to SEO.
How to Find the Right SEO Vendor
If you already know that you need an SEO agency, and you have a good idea of what you need from an SEO vendor, you might find that putting together an SEO Request for Proposal is the right direction. Learn more about SEO RFP from DesignRush.
