How To Find A Reliable SEO Company In Markham

Finding a reliable SEO company in Markham isn’t easy, especially if you’re not familiar with SEO conventions and companies.

Not only are you risking your company’s online presence, but you might also be wasting a ton of money for the wrong company.

So, here, we offer some tips you can use to find the right SEO company for your business.

Define Goals Clearly

The first step in any decision is to define your goals clearly. So, know your goals before searching.

Do you need a full-service agency?

Or do you need an entire SEO Markham company working on your website?

Which areas are you trying to improve?

Go by Word of Mouth

Word of mouth advertising may be an old-fashioned way, but it’s still as powerful as ever.

Apart from searching Google, ask your professional circle for any recommendations. Make a list, and use that as a starting point of your search.

Look at Past Performance

A savvy investor often looks at past data before investing in an asset. In searching for an SEO company, you become an investor too.

Analyzing the company’s past performance can tell you what to expect from them.

Check Their Website and Portfolio

Part of looking into the company’s background and past performance is checking their website and portfolio.

Checking their Website

See if their site is search engine optimized. Check their website for results they promise.

Checking their Portfolio

While portfolios can easily be exaggerated or manipulated to look better than they actually are, you can still get a feel of the company’s performance just by browsing.

Ask Past and Present Clients

Dig deeper and see what other clients say about the company. If you can find testimonials or in-depth reviews, better!

Gather insights, ask their strengths and weaknesses, strategies, problems encountered, and other important processes.

Meet Them and Ask These Important Questions

The final step is also the most exhaustive — meeting the company and asking tons of questions. Whether it’s in person or via video calls, meeting with them and talking real-time is important.

The questions you should ask must include the following:

Who will do the SEO?

SEO Markham companies can easily claim they employ experts. But do they?

Know the specific teams or groups of people who will handle your website.

Ask for their experience and the results they have achieved and how well they know all of Google’s guidelines.

How do they track progress?

Optimizing a website isn’t a one-time project. It goes on for as long as the website is live.

So progress tracking is crucial.

Ask how they monitor results and how they report findings.

How do they build links?

You cannot rank high on Google — and maintain a good ranking — without organic link building.

Make sure the SEO company offers quantity and quality — high authority links and an adequate number of them.

Are their practices up to date?

Google, along with other search engines, updates its algorithm often.

Some changes are so minor that websites barely feel the impact, but many are huge, and change search engine results drastically.

It helps if you have background knowledge, so when you ask their practices, you’d know if they’re in touch with the latest changes or still using old methods.

When do you pay?

SEO audits are paid in advance. But full SEO services often aren’t.

Make sure you ask them about the payment setup.

Can they provide a draft plan?

Lastly, ask them to offer a draft plan of what they’ll do on your website to optimize it.

The plan should cover at least the next three months, and it should mention the activities they will do, along with the cost of each service or activity.

Some Red Flags to Avoid

And just like any other industry, the SEO business also has its red flags.

So, when choosing an SEO company, make sure you watch out for these mistakes:

• Link building strategies that violate Google’s policies, such as
  • Automated links
  • Free site link farms
  • Mass paid links
• One-man armies — good SEO is a team effort
• Keywords search results without search volume
• Unbelievably cheap offers
• “Black Hat” SEO agencies

Overall, you must be deliberate and meticulous when searching for an SEO company.

That’s because SEO can either make or break your website’s performance — and you don’t want to waste resources on unworthy SEO companies.