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seo agency review - page 2

Following on from SEO agency review page 1.

step 3 - checking the SEO work carried out

Here are the key points you need to double check to ensure your SEO agency is doing the best they can for your website:

Can the work the agency is doing be switched off?

Organic SEO can't be switched off. It's there unless you redesign your site and rewrite all the copy. Even then, the link building work done for your site should still show some benefit. However, certain spam techniques use off site pages to drive traffic to your site. This is bad for you as you will be paying as much for this as you would organic SEO.

Which would you rather? SEO that will stand the test of time, or SEO that your agency can switch off when you stop paying them?

What techniques is the agency using for link building?

All links are not equal (check out our link building page for some more information on this). While low quality links have some impact on your rankings (if you get enough of them), they are no substitute for high quality links, which aid deeper indexing in Google.

Your SEO agency should disclose (at least after the fact) where they are gaining their links from and equally, they should be able to justify those links. While some generic links (directories, press releases, etc) are useful, there should be a focus on high quality links. Stay away from anything that looks like the agency has setup a spam directory just to build links for their clients.

What is their timescale for results?

SEO isn't an exact science. It can take a while for results to be achieved through organic SEO, but when it happens, those results should be relatively consistent (usually with an upward trend, although it really all depends on the site in question).

For an established website (18 months or older), results should appear quite quickly, usually within a few months of implementing your SEO strategy. Newer sites and those in a more competitive industry (gambling, real estate, etc) can take longer to achieve good results (up to a year), although in these cases your SEO should be looking to target more niche key phrases as more of a short term solution on top of your long term strategy.

Is the SEO using any form of hidden work?

This can be hidden text (text that is hidden from visitors, but visible to search engines) or entirely hidden pages that users never see but search engines rank well.

These kind of techniques can produce short term results but inevitably, search engines will find about them and not only remove the offending pages, but the site as a whole. It's hard to get good search engine rankings, but it's even harder to get your site back in to the search index if you've been banned.

Finally, are you comfortable with the changes to your site?

There are cases where certain web development techniques act as a barrier to search engine optimisation. For example, search engines can't read text embedded in graphics or Flash and they can't follow JavaScript links. Cases such as these require that changes need to be made to your site in order to achieve search engine success.

However, these barriers are not so large that a suitable compromise can't be found. Your SEO agency should be able to advise you on how to adapt your site, while maintaining the same look and feel it has always had.

Still unsure? Or more confused than ever?

No worries - you can make use of our SEO health check service and we'll happily take a look at any work done that you are unsure about.