SEO company – what they won’t tell you about positioning

What does positioning depend on?

A website’s visibility depends on several hundred factors, many of which are hidden. The exact operation of the algorithms is a secret Google keeps close to its chest and no company has any influence on them.

However, we can accurately define the search engine’s interest: it wants to display pages that are useful to users. As a result such valuable website is visited more often, and along with its popularity, profits from, among others, increase in advert revenue.

So, overall, the effectiveness of SEO agencies depends on how much they increase the perceived value of your website. If their work involves using ‘SEO tricks’, then do not expect long term optimal results.

What actions are important?

Increasing the value of a website is not easy and simple, because it depends on time-consuming, comprehensive work carried out by specialists in their industry. These activities are not limited to the above-mentioned SEO tricks, but depend mainly on:

• content – which determines the usefulness of the information contained on the website. Specialized blog articles strengthen positioning, while the glut of subjective marketing content (which does not add value to readers, e.g. frequent phrases about the best offer, low price, high quality) effectively suppresses it. We are dealing here with an important proportion that you need to determine on your website: what part is devoted to useful, professional information, and what part is empty, baseless praise of your own services, etc.
• UX – on which the experience of the user who stays on the website depends. In this element, you need to make sure that the structure is transparent and that the desired information is easy to find. It is worth remembering the three-click rule, which states that the user should have access to every part of the website in three “clicks”. If some important information is buried too deep, it adversely affects the user experience.
• credibility – other websites that link to yours give a clear signal to the search engine that the content is worth recommending. At least that was the situation until Google found better ways than link profile analysis to support this assumption. Questionable websites that often link are no longer taken into account. Natural, industry-specific websites with valuable content still remain important. Let us remember, however, that the purpose of a search engine is primarily to objectively assess the credibility of a website, hence such websites will also lose their importance with the development of alternative analytical methods (including, above all, behavioral indicators). At the moment, acquiring links is still a reasonable strategy, but we can no longer consider that positioning activities are limited to this only. Google has long been warning against artificially manipulating links, and it’s only a matter of time before it effectively enforces the consequences.
• technology, security – page loading speed, SSL certificate and privacy policy are other elements that are constantly gaining importance in the context of positioning. If you use customer data, clearly specify the conditions for its processing (which is an obligation under the GDPR).

In other words, its advisable to take care of the quality of your website so that Google picks an interest in displaying it in search results. You won’t do it with baseless boasts, a complicated structure and a slow page. Instead, share valuable information, provide access to other interesting content, and pay special attention to user safety. In this way, your website will be considered valuable, which will translate into an increase in position.

How can an SEO company help?

The validity of positioning activities should be interpreted in relation to the above-mentioned aspects. Will a company that intends to increase traffic to your website contribute to a real improvement in the quality of the website? Or, on the contrary, will you commit to an annual contract that will solely involve tracking your results and crediting your actions as “credit” for them? Don’t overdo it, it happens often, so we’ll discuss how to avoid it.

Transparent contract

Stay away from long-term, binding documents in which the subject of the contract is the general term “positioning activities”. In such a case, you do not specify any requirements for the agency’s work, which makes it impossible to later pursue claims for improper performance of the service.

Ask them to provide specific actions based on the list discussed above. Examples of provisions that we believe are worth including in such a document:

• How much content will the company provide you (with say N1, 000,000 or N3, 000,000 a month?) Will they only deal with expanding the blog or will they also take your offer into account? Ask for samples in advance to assess whether the agency fits the style of your brand.
• What activities will the SEO company carry out on your website (How many graphics do they intend to use to diversify the subpages? Will they perform internal linking? Will they minify the code?)
• How will it acquire external links (Within what budget? Will it use its own resources, create catalogs or outsource publications to intermediaries?)

We already know that positioning requires comprehensive activities, so there should be no secret about what the agency will do for you.

This will help you avoid disappointment and ensure maximum results within your budget.

This is particularly important when it comes to acquiring links – we know that there are significant differences in strength here. The link obtained from the backend is much weaker than the link obtained from publishing an article on a well-known industry portal.

Active cooperation

If you want to optimize your results, you can’t assume that the company will do all the work for you. Even if you allocate a large budget for positioning and the contract is clearly specified, as an entrepreneur you are still responsible for the overall image of the company. Reliable customer service, and with it regular users, is another signal to Google that the website is worth displaying high.

Even the best SEO company cannot provide you with positive reviews and returning customers if you do not take care of the quality of your offer. For this reason, treat SEO activities as a system that is a relief, and not a relief itself.