Factors to Help You Determine the Right SEO Outsourcing Partner

Due to the growing Internet custom in India and the rising popularity of Smartphones, local and multinational businesses alike are looking to leverage online marketing to boost the effectiveness of their overall marketing plan. This means that clients that have been served by traditional advertising agencies and marketing consultants are demanding the inclusion of Internet promotion activities to their traditional marketing mix. Therefore, agencies and marketing firms, which do not have the online marketing know-how, face a tricky scenario wherein the clients demand online marketing expertise in form of search engine optimisation (SEO) and pay-per-click campaigns.

One feasible solution for the marketing firms can be to partner with an experienced SEO outsourcing company that can translate the overall marketing and branding objectives of their clients into high-impact SEO plans. Whilst engaging with a white label online marketing firm can be opportune, deciding whom to partner with can be quite challenging. The following factors may well help the traditional marketing and ad agencies choose the right SEO outsourcing partner:-

1. Integration of SEO with the larger marketing plan

The most important question that needs to be asked to the SEO vendors is how well can they integrate the search engine optimisation (SEO) activities with their overall marketing strategy. A common pitfall is to treat SEO as an isolated activity which is not in sync with the overriding offline and online marketing plan. Combining forces with an SEO provider who understands specific goals assigned to different elements of the client’s marketing mix and hence the specific role of SEO within the larger landscape can reap positive results.

2. ‘Perceived’ SEO success metrics

Since SEO objectives for different businesses can vary, it is important to check with your potential vendor as to what he/she considers to be a ‘successful’ SEO campaign. In case the SEO outsourcing company only considers search engine ranking positions (SERP) as the sole criteria of success, you may want to reconsider partnering with the firm. Whilst SERPs are important, they should not form the only factor in assessing the success/failure of an SEO campaign. Other metrics, including periodic traffic, online enquiries, lead generation and post-campaign phone calls are just as important.

3. Content strategy and planning

Whilst content is often confused with textual assets (including website text, articles, blogs and news releases), there is more to it than this. Essentially, content is everything that informs, educates and entertains your target audience so as to bring them a step closer to your business, products, services, or activities (in case of the non-profit sector). It includes articles, blogs, web content, news, videos, infographics, images, illustrations and audio, amongst others. Before deciding on the outsourcing partnership, ensure the SEO company has the experience of planning and strategizing content marketing activities keeping in mind the strengths and weaknesses of individual modes. Ideally, the vendor should have the in-house creative resources to develop multifaceted content that appeals to both search engines as well as the end users.

4. Link building expertise

In addition to developing search optimised content, building high-quality links is quite essential for boosting the online visibility of your clients. It serves well to gain an in-depth understanding of the link acquisition and link building procedures followed by the prospective vendor. Utmost importance should be given to firms adhering to white-hat SEO techniques whilst those following unethical and paid link building strategies should be outright rejected. Some of the ethical link-building channels include high PR general directories, niche B2B listings, search engine submissions, article submission sites, popular social media sites and video submission sites.

5. Regular monitoring and reporting of SEO health

Considering that your firm has limited know-how about SEO and online marketing in general, you would want to join hands with an offshore provider that has a transparent and timely SEO reporting/monitoring structure in place so that you, in turn, can accurately inform your clients without any delay. Your SEO vendor should be able to provide you with the key factors that can affect the SEO health of your clients, including bounce rate, site security issues, crawl errors, server error logs, sever response time and mobile device usage, amongst others.

6. SEO success track record

Any reliable SEO services provider would be able to substantiate their success by providing you access to case studies as well as clients for whom they made an important impact in the online space. If the potential vendor cannot justify its claims, it is better to look for alternative providers.

Bal Rai is an Internet Marketing Consultant at eTrack Media, a leading SEO company in Redditch, UK.