Once you have chosen the right SEO agency, they should be able to perform the following tasks well.
- Keyword Analysis: Keyword research can be an important aspect of any SEO campaign. The SEO company should be able to identify the best and relevant keywords for organic optimisation of the campaigns.
- On-page Technical Audit: Technical audits are performed by all SEO companies. However, a competent SEO service provider would review every aspect related to a website as it can directly impact the optimisation ROI. However, the SEO agency should not be forcing you to perform monthly audits which can be a waste of money. SEO audit is usually carried out when the optimisation campaign begins and some tweaks might be suggested to keep the website adhering to the search engine guidelines and the latest UX best practices.
- Content Audit: It is an essential part that shouldn’t be missed out when it comes to search engine optimisation as it would help out in aligning the content with the intent of the target audience. When the content syncs with the intent of the person who searches, it would be given more priority by search engines and would end up ranking higher. You should perform a detailed content audit when the SEO agency begins its work and should repeat it every year. The audit would involve examining all the content on the website to learn what might work and what might not. It can also help in providing great insights and would inform the content marketing strategy. It is a qualitative assessment and evaluation to find out whether the SEO process is a success or would need any rectification or changes. However, you should check with the SEO agency as it can help in providing the details about the content audit. This would help you to easily implement suggestions on the website.
- SEO Tool Selection: The SEO company should be able to handle and pick the right tools to carry out the tasks that can help in improving the website ranking. Each business's needs might differ and so do the expectations. However, when it comes to an SEO campaign, the expectations would depend on the business goals that are set. There are various tools available for SEO and selecting a tool would depend on the tasks you might be interested to achieve from the campaign.
- Link Audit: Backlinks are one of the major and top-ranking factors when you consider the search engine ranking algorithm. The search engine would continuously monitor each link that would point to your website. It is then used to rank the website in search results. The higher number of backlinks your website might have, the greater are the chances for the website to rank higher in SERPs. If the website has too many irrelevant links, the chances of ranking on the search results diminishes. If there are too many spam websites that are linked to your website, there are chances that it might get demoted in the search results unless the issue of unnatural linking gets fixed.
- Website Monitoring and SEO Reporting: You should ask them regarding the type of reports that would be provided and the mode of communication. When it comes to SEO reporting, the SEO team will provide a set of reports at certain intervals. This would contain the instructions about issues that would require attention and approval from the brand before proceeding with related SEO tasks. Click here for more information.
There might be some important reports a brand would expect from the SEO agency. Some of the common SEO reports are as follows:
- Keyword Research Report: This report provides information about the total number of keywords a business would require to target and the SEO costs that might accompany it. You might be free to choose the target keywords in the report. However, it is advisable to trust the SEO team and move ahead with the keywords suggested by them. However, you can ask the team to provide relevant KPIs that are used in measuring the performance of each keyword.
- Competitor Analysis Report: This can be a comprehensive report that would highlight all the SEO strategies that are used by the competitors, types of links earned or created by them, top organic keywords that are targeted, number of content produced each month and the overall engagement of the content and their current SEO metrics. The report would provide a clear idea of the amount of work you have to put in to defeat the competitors in search results. It can also help you in deciding your SEO budget as well.
- On-page SEO Audit Report: The on-page technical audit report helps in highlighting the issues that the website has and the recommendations to fix them. There is also a content audit section that can provide a clear idea about the type of content that is required on the website. The suggestions should be carefully implemented. You could also let the SEO team implement the suggestions as they would be able to do it better.
- Link-building Report: This report can provide a list of links that the SEO team has created over some time. This report should be checked carefully. It would show details of each link that is built and linked to your website.
- Weekly/Monthly Work Report: The SEO team would provide a weekly or monthly summary of all the tasks they did. This would include meta tag creation, link audit, link building, site audit and various other tasks they did for the website.