Help Choosing an SEO Agency in Liverpool

SEO In Liverpool Since 2013

SEO Back in the Day

Your page author here started to learn SEO back in 2013, I worked for a small business in Liverpool and was tasked with managing a website.

As we had no real marketing budget, one area that interested me was SEO, so I set out to learn all about it.

I used to read a lot, experiment with things and rather sneakily, I used to phone up SEO agencies pretending to want services. They would usually create a document with things we could do to improve the website. I would make notes of their suggestions and go out and implement some of them myself.

Of course, I had no real intention of employing an agency, I was just trying to squeeze information out of every source possible. And guess what happened, the company I worked for started to grow substantially. So I did this for 8 years before finally becoming an SEO consultant.

I did not set out to become an SEO, I just became one as my company had a limited budget and SEO seemed the best in terms of investment of my time.

Now things have changed since 2013, as they always do in SEO, but a lot has also stayed the same. But what is true today as it was in 2013, is choosing an SEO agency to help you grow, what they do and the prices they charge.

What Questions to Ask

Now if I was really interested in choosing an SEO agency and not just a complete time waster, I have five questions I would ask before deciding what SEO agency to choose.

I have listed them here for you to consider asking the SEO agency when you approach them.

These questions have come from my experience as starting out in SEO, and also as an experienced SEO.

1. What is your hourly rate?

I would ask the SEO agency how much they cost per hour. If say you are paying £500 per month, how many hours SEO is involved in this?

You may be surprised to learn that this can vary wildly. Some SEO agencies can charge £200 per hour whilst others may only charge £30.

Of course, the big SEO company will say it is the quality of the SEO that counts, this is a good point. I would much rather have quality work over quantity.

But the longer a decent SEO can spend on your website, fixing technical issues and delivering on your SEO strategy, the better it will be. Your competitors may not be standing still and neither should you.

If as a business owner, I employed an SEO agency and only had contact with them once per month, I would not expect this campaign to work as effectively as a business that communicates with their agency daily.

But here lies part of the problem, if your only paying for 5 hours of SEO a month, the agency may not wish to develop this close collaboration as you may be taking up too much of their time in relation to what you pay for. I will discuss how regular communication is important a bit later in the article.

2. What Have You Done?

Next, I want to see some websites that they have helped to rank well in the search engines. By this, I do not mean a website that ranks for its brand name or a website that ranks for an obscure long-tail keyword with no competition,

I want to see a site ranking for a competitive keyword. Impress me. If there is no proof of the agency delivering exceptional results, why would you expect exceptional results for your business?

3. Ask About Development Costs

Websites need development work, this is just a fact. We call it “Dev SEO” internally and this could be the development of a new module for a website, with its primary purpose being to help us rank better in the search engines.

But it can be anything really from fixing issues in your them to improve speed to bespoke functionality to increase page engagement.

But some agencies will charge you extra for any development work. Ask if development work is included in the price you pay. If you have technical issues that are slowing your website down, and impacting your SEO, will you have to pay extra to fix this or is it included in the price you pay?

4. How Do They Build Links?

Building website links can be time-consuming, and ineffective if not done correctly. Every agency goes about it slightly differently, I would ask them how they plan to build links to my website.

If they say they pay for links or just directory listings, I would run a mile. If I am hearing journalist requests, and creating links through superior content, I would listen more.

What you want to hear is link building is part of the strategy, if they sound like all they focus on is link building, again, this should act as a red flag that this is not a serious outfit.

5. Reporting

Ask how your KPI’s are measured. Do you receive a report each month? Do they track keywords for you? What SEO tools do they use?

You can spin reports in some ways, by only showing data the agency wants you, the client, to see.

SEO takes time and over any given month, some keywords will rise, and some will fall. This is just the nature of search engines, it is a constantly evolving landscape. But we want transparency, anything less than total transparency is not acceptable.

Ask questions on the report to, question what is this task and what is it for. By doing this you will also grow your understanding of SEO. SEO is not coding, most people can pick up the concepts and techniques when they are explained quite easily. 

Communication is Key

As SEO’s we implement tried and tested strategies that have helped websites grow, but there are literally thousands of factors that are at play in the search engines.

When you employ an SEO agency, think of it more like a partnership. They will help you, but you also have to help them. In our experience, this close relationship is very important.

You could provide a product or service that they are unaware of that could be very valuable, the importance of visibility and communication goes both ways.

Clients who we work closely with get better results, you can bounce more ideas around, you get to learn more about SEO and the agency gets to know more about your market, competitors and opportunities for growth.

If you only pay for x2 hours of SEO per month, you need to be realistic about what can be achieved, and the SEO agency should also communicate this to you.

That is not to say 2 hours of SEO is worthless, some of the best SEO campaigns we have run have been ideas with quick turnarounds.