Define what success looks like when selecting an SEO company

How to Pick an SEO Agency, Part 4: Specify Success Metrics/KPIs

Determine What Success Looks Like Early

Ask how the SEO Agency quantifies results. Include tracking how your site ranks for Keywords over time (for Search Engine Results Pages’ sake) and what metrics they use to determine success of their SEO campaign overall. The SEO campign program/strategy is ultimately an effort to help your business make more money, but a top SEO agency will also show you how you perform with key performance indicators. These go well beyond tracking Organic Traffic only; also think about:

leads your site brings in,
conversion rates on contact forms,
direct, referral (and organic) traffic numbers
revenue generated (ecommerce),
and much more…

Ask the SEO agency for examples of recent websites that they’ve optimized with their SEO programs (and if possible, the keyword rankings that they helped these sites achieve). Remember to look for the current examples – what worked five years ago for SEO is much different today. Some SEO programs in certain marketing vertical simply take a while to show results – I think we all understand that – however, a good agency will still be able to show you the progress even a difficult client makes.

Once you have an idea of your desired results (KPIs establish, quarterly or bi-annual check-ins, etc.), pick the SEO agency that has experience helping other companies achieve similar goals. Remember, your SEO agency is your partner, and an SEO Progam is a lot of back-and-forth collaboration. They get to know your goals and your business and that information drives some decisions, and in turn their data, process, and expertise should create an amazing collaboration that is successful (over time) for both parties.

And if an estimated ROI isn’t part of the initial calculations for success… Contact us!