Choosing the right SEO package can be challenging for businesses considering different agencies offer different pricing and inclusions. There are several things you will need to consider to choose the right SEO package for your business.
You will need to consider your goal, marketing budget, high-quality SEO vs general SEO, hours included in the package, work updates, reporting & more.
In this guide, I have listed some key points to consider while choosing the right SEO package for your business.
Table of contents:
- Define your SEO goals
- Avoid guaranteed SEO
- Cheap SEO vs quality
- The campaign manager
- SEO audit
- Hours of work
- Copywriting inclusions
- Topical authority
- Link building
- Technical SEO
- Reporting tailored to your needs
- Competitor analysis
- Analytics & tagging
- Agency history & case studies
- What’s not included
- The exit strategy
Define your SEO goals
Before you think of choosing the right SEO package, first define your goals.
Without a clear goal, you can not set the expectations right and if you don’t know what to expect then it’s hard to allocate the budget.
You may consider the following while defining SEO goals:
- Long-term quality SEO vs short-term quick gains
- Number of sales or leads you may need in 6 months as an example
- You will contribute to the SEO effort with content production and let the agency do everything for you
- Realistic traffic expectation in 1, 2 or 3 years time-frame
Once you have clarity on the goals and responsibilities, it will become a lot easier to choose the correct SEO package.
Avoid guaranteed SEO
You should never expect or buy an SEO package with guaranteed SEO attached.
It is against the fundamental principles of SEO. The ranking is impacted by hundreds of factors and they change regularly. While the fundamental principles remain the same due to the changing nature, it should never be guaranteed.
Visit the detailed guide on why guaranteed SEO should never be considered and its impact on your business.
Cheap SEO vs quality
Generally, it’s easier to get attracted to cheap SEO offers. In most cases, cheap SEO leads to trouble due to poor quality of work, time waste and importantly you may get hit by Google with unethical SEO practices.
Why is cheap SEO offered?
- Gain clients: This is the main reason why people offer cheap SEO. Many agencies have certain KPIs to gain clients and often they are not focused on delivering quality SEO
- To boost cash flow: The process is very simple keep getting new clients to have regular cash flow and they don’t care if they leave.
- No idea about quality SEO: There are many so-called SEO agency have no clue about serious SEO and often they are generalists, not SEO experts
Quality SEO
- It comes with moderate expectations as even with the best efforts, it can take time to achieve the desired result
- The cost is planned purely based on the effort and avoids guaranteed ranking
- Reports are shared as planned that will make sense to you and not random analytics screenshots or numbers
The campaign manager
Working with a reputed SEO agency is critical as it provides you with a sense of security.
However, it is equally important to have a skilled SEO manager who will do the actual SEO work or manage the work and report to you.
In many agencies, you may notice new faces regularly, it is difficult for everyone. You as a business owner need to understand the working style of the new SEO consultant. A frequent change in SEO manager may impact your SEO effort as the new person needs to learn all from the start.
So, working with someone reputed for a long time is important to achieve SEO goals.
SEO audit
SEO audit is the foundation of doing quality SEO. If you don’t know what has already been done, its quality and the impact then it is hard to either do the cleaning operation or build high-quality authentic content to rank better.
It starts with the SEO audit process.
The SEO audit is a time-consuming process especially when deep analysis is needed.
Including an SEO audit in your package will ensure you get reports on past work and learnings to improve to make it better.
A quality audit provides actionable recommendations and a clear roadmap so that responsibilities can be assigned to the team and set deadlines accordingly to achieve the desired outcome.
Hours of work
Getting an insight into the estimated hours of work monthly can bring transparency to both sides. The actual work can be a bit more or more but it provides a rough guide and what to expect.
It can also help if a client needs to choose a higher SEO package to get more done to speed up the SEO journey.
Copywriting inclusions
Content writing is the foundation of SEO and the demand for quality content is higher than ever.
Building well-planned high-quality content is one of the best ways to achieve SEO success.
Producing compelling content with search intent in mind is a challenging and time-consuming process and comes with a cost.
Some businesses work in a partnership where they produce content based on the instructions provided by the SEO consultant whereas others pay for the entire service including the copywriting.
While choosing the right SEO package, you should consider this seriously. If you need to build a high flow of content then you will have to choose a higher SEO package. If you plan to contribute then you need to have the resources available to get trained and follow specific guidelines while producing content.
Random content production vs Silo or Topical Authority approach
Producing content regularly even randomly can help SEO but to achieve better success you may need to have an SEO silo or topical authority approach included in your monthly SEO package.
The later options make the entire process so much easier, they are more targeted and you can expect better results.
Topical authority
The semantic SEO approach is the most sophisticated & powerful way to plan topical maps and build content to boost topical authority to gain SEO ranking.
The process involves an in-depth understanding of the business and core revenue categories and building the topical map to create content for the main entities and then support those entities with relevant sub-topics.
Semantic SEO packages are often expensive simply because they require more time to plan, importantly this process requires a significantly higher number of pages to build the topic and relevance.
You should consider this option if you are investing in long-term quality SEO.
Link building
Link building is one of the most powerful ranking factors for SEO ranking. It is also the most challenging job to execute but if done well you can expect great results.
Caution: Poorely implemented link-building practises can lead to a ranking drop and a penalty from Google which is very hard to recover. This is another reason why you should avoid cheap and guaranteed SEO services.
When you plan to sign up with an SEO package, you can seek information about the link-building process and the risks associated.
If you are embarking on the link-building journey then use a safe strategy otherwise go hard with a content strategy like semantic SEO.
The cost of link building is generally high because it’s hard to acquire quality and natural links.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO should be one of the first items to be included in the SEO package while selecting the right agency. Technical SEO includes addressing website architecture, crawling, indexing, rendering, website architecture & more.
If your content is not structured well or if search engines can’t crawl your content then you have no SEO. This is the fundamental building block for quality SEO.
While the advancement in CMS systems has made technical SEO much easier this is still critically important to include in the SEO package.
Backlink cleaning & disavow service
This comes in the advanced technical SEO to clean poor quality links or disavow them in the Google Search Console.
The step should be done with care and requires expertise level knowledge to do it properly.
The process involves a detailed review of the existing link profile, identifying links that could potentially be harmful that could lead to a ranking drop.
Technical SEO is a must for any SEO package, you can’t begin SEO without this.
Reporting tailored to your needs
Have you received an SEO report and just closed it? You are not alone.
Many SEOs create reports in a very technical manner including screenshots of Google Analytics etc and sometimes way lengthy documents. Business owners don’t have the time or expertise to understand tech stuff.
The reporting should be created in simple language and short which can make it more sense and easy to process.
Find out how SEO will be reported while choosing the SEO package.
Competitor analysis
Competitor analysis is important in any marketing journey and SEO is no different.
If you want to beat your competition then you need to know enough about your competition from an SEO point of view.
An SEO package that includes competitor analysis will be more complete to carry out detailed research, find the gaps and build a strategy to fill those gaps and go bigger and better.
Various insights can be gathered while doing competitor analysis:
- Website structure
- Top performing pages
- Domain authority
- Link building history
- Content quality
- Their SEO effort & speed
These are vital when it comes to doing quality SEO.
Analytics & tagging
You may already have all taggings placed correctly and you may need assistance while starting the SEO journey.
Check if the analytics and tagging are included in the SEO package or if there is an add-on cost for doing this.
Data should be your friend these days with marketing initiatives.
By gathering key data and statistics, the SEO effort can be tailored to meet the business objectives.
Agency history & case studies
Working with a reputed SEO agency is important who has a proven record of producing results. Don’t just go by the words, check their case studies, and client’s feedback to understand better.
Why does agency history matter?
- Proven Expertise: Working with an agency with a track record of quality work and producing quality results is important.
- Customer Service: You can’t achieve quality work without communication, you should be able to reach easily when you need help.
- Industry Reputation: Check their reputation online, and read reviews, especially negative ones.
The significance of case studies
- Their Work: Case studies offer a glimpse of their work qualities, process and results. Check their case studies to learn more.
- Research and Innovation: You can learn from their case studies if they are a creative agency or a very flat while executing the work. No business is the same and hence the strategy should be tailored accordingly. You may be able to get some glimpses of this in case studies.
What’s not included
Avoid surprises, and ask what’s not included in the SEO package.
Once you have the list of inclusions and exclusions, you can communicate better during the SEO journey and it can also help you choose a higher SEO package or reduce based on the needs.
The exit strategy
You should always be ready for the worst-case scenario. If things don’t work out well then you should be able to move on and find another agency who can deliver the work you may need.
Just by knowing the exit strategy, it will be clear to you from the start and when you need to take that action the process will be smooth.
Always read the fine print.
Need help?
We provide holistic SEO in Melbourne and across Australia. Our SEO packages are affordable, if you would like to work with a trusted SEO agency then you have come to the right place.
