Breaking up is never easy but if your SEO company isn’t delivering the goods, it’s time for an ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ conversation.
Like any new relationship, when you hire an SEO company, you have to give them a chance. SEO is not immediately gratifying – it can take weeks or even months for a new website or page to appear on the SERPS*. And with SEO, you’re definitely in it for the long haul as it’s a long-term strategy and not a one-night stand. But if you find yourself in one or all of the following situations, it might be time to call it a day.
They never return your phone calls
When they were trying to woo you, they rang you constantly but now you’re in a fully-fledged professional relationship with them, they never return your phone calls and the romance has gone. This is a very bad sign. An SEO company should continue to court you and arrange dates to meet with you to give you progress reports. For a relationship to flourish and prosper, communication, an open door policy and honest dialogue is important.
They make you feel second best
Regardless of your budget or what SEO package you choose, an SEO consultancy should always make you feel that you are the most important person/client in their life. Not returning phone calls (see above) may not be a sign of pure laziness, the SEO analyst might be overburdened by work and not be able to give you the love you know you deserve. When first hiring an SEO expert, ask them how many clients they are looking after.
They are cheating on you
While you cannot expect an SEO agency to have a purely monogamous business relationship with you, what you can and should insist on is that they do not work with any similar companies within your particular sector. For example, if an SEO firm is working with your company servicing and you service a local region, then there may be a conflict of interest to be working with another similar company targeting the same region – they should at least discuss the issue with you and allow you to decide what you would like to do.
They are all style and no substance
You may have fallen for the glossy marketing materials, the Colgate smiles and the smooth sales pitch but now you’ve working with an SEO expert, you may find that they can’t live up to their copywriting or link building. While you can’t easily ask exes to rate their former partners, before hiring an SEO firm, you can ask their existing clients what they really think of them and pray they will be candid and honest about their shortcomings.
They are letting themselves go
Let’s face it, there may come a time when your SEO company just doesn’t do it for you anymore. You’ve had the ‘talk’ with them, given them time, a lot of chances and nothing has changed. Your rankings keep on slipping and it’s starting to affect your revenue. We’ve all been there, staying too long in a relationship when it’s bad for you. But if your SEO agency can’t deliver the results you want and the spark is gone, give them the flick.
They are asking you to be a little too adventurous in the boardroom
A little adventure can make a budding partnership exciting but if an SEO consultancy is trying to enhance your performance in the boardroom with black hat SEO techniques, you may want to rethink whether this union is right for your company’s future success. It’s good to be taken out of your comfort zone but if your agency wants to use techniques to spice up your SEO strategy that make you feel uncomfortable, then show them the door.
You’ve evolved and they haven’t
When you are first starting out in business, you want your significant SEO other to grow with you but if you find that you know more about search techniques than your SEO company, then sadly, it might be time to move on. An SEO agency might have been suited to your needs and budget when you began your company but as you have developed your business, it might be time to trade up to a more experienced online marketing company.
Breaking up with your SEO company is a hard conversation to have but your traffic, lead generation and sales leads rely on SEO done well. Even worse, if you have fallen for a bad boy (or bad girl) and hired an unethical SEO firm, your website may even be penalised.
But at SEO Works, we think that nice guys finish first and only use well-researched, tested white hat SEO techniques to help our client’s websites accelerate through the rankings. If you are looking for a new SEO company to optimize your website, please contact one of our consultants today – our first “date” may be just what you are looking for..
*Search Engine Results Pages
