{"id":2122,"date":"2021-03-26T10:22:32","date_gmt":"2021-03-26T14:22:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sharpinnovations.com\/blog\/?p=2122"},"modified":"2021-03-26T10:33:01","modified_gmt":"2021-03-26T14:33:01","slug":"how-to-choose-the-best-seo-company-lancaster-and-surrounding-areas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sharpinnovations.com\/blog\/2021\/03\/how-to-choose-the-best-seo-company-lancaster-and-surrounding-areas\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Choose the Best SEO Company"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We get it. You are simply looking to improve your rankings\nin Google and want to pass that responsibility off to the experts in their\nfield.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before you trust your valuable brand to just any company,\nwe\u2019ve compiled a list of common mistakes business owners make when selecting a\ndigital marketing firm to handle their organic search optimization efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

By helping you filter all the noise, you\u2019ll be left with a\nlist of only those firms that meet the standards required to help you\nsuccessfully improve your search rankings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Red Flags When Choosing an SEO Company<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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1. No Case Studies or Referrals<\/strong> \u2013 If the company\nyou\u2019re considering cannot at least provide case studies of past work with\nclients, or work recently done, don\u2019t partner with it. Google the company\u2019s name\nand read reviews from past clients. Ask the company for some clients who may\nprovide referrals on its behalf. This extra step can save you several months of\nheadaches as you contract with an unscrupulous vendor. BONUS: <\/strong>Avoid SEO\ncompanies with unrecognized \u201ctop 10 SEO\u201d badges. Often these rankings are paid-for\ninclusion, so those companies are already starting off by being disingenuous. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Guarantees<\/strong> \u2013 A common red flag in the organic search industry is marketing \u201cexperts\u201d who guarantee page one rankings. If you have a highly competitive term like \u201cinsurance\u201d that you need to rank on page one, the likelihood of your local firm outperforming large national brands with massive marketing budgets is near zero. So how can that SEO company guarantee<\/em> page one rankings? Often, you\u2019ll find they consider any term ranking on page one as fulfilling their guarantee. This can be achieved with your business name or even some obscure, long-tail keyword that potential clients may never look for such as, \u201ctsunami insurance in Lancaster\u201d. You\u2019ve technically received your guaranteed page one listing, but what benefit does that have to your business?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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3. The SEO Quick Fix<\/strong> \u2013 Organic optimization can be\nquick, but often it takes a few months to ramp up. Each industry is unique. A\ntrustworthy SEO company will inform you of this right at the start. Depending\non how competitive the market is and how well your competitors are doing, you\nmay see success in the first quarter of your optimization program, or you may\nbe waiting several months before traffic and referrals start flowing steadily.\nFor most industries, we recommend a 3\u20136-month timeframe to get a good gauge of\nhow your organic optimization program is performing. For those in a more\ncompetitive space, this can stretch to even a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Google\u2019s own Senior Webmaster Trends Analyst, John Mueller, echoes\nthis:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEven if you make big changes with the design and the functionality, and you add new features and things, I would definitely expect that to take multiple months, maybe half a year, maybe longer, for that to be reflected in search because it is something that really needs to be re-evaluated by the systems overall.\u201d<\/p>

\u201cLow-quality pages tend to be recrawled much less frequently by Googlebot \u2013 it is not unusual for six months to go by between Googlebot crawls on low-quality pages or sections of a site. So it can take an incredibly long time for Google to recrawl and then reevaluate those pages for ranking purposes.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

4. The Hands-Off Approach \u2013 <\/strong>If you\u2019re genuinely\ninterested in getting the best performance out of your organic SEO program,\nthere will need to be active participation between you and\/or your team, and\nthe firm you hire. Think of the SEO company as an extension of your marketing\nteam. Providing up-to-date information on your business, any upcoming\npromotions, news, or events, and other information is vital to ensure content on\nthe website reflects what is occurring in your business. Content needs to be\nreviewed for accuracy and relevancy to your markets, your clients\/customers,\nand your business. Because organic SEO takes time, any sales or promotions need\nto be planned at least 3 months in advance so you can get those details crawled\nand indexed well ahead of time. You don\u2019t want to wait until spring to plan\nyour spring promotions; you should have those planned in winter or even before!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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5. Be Aware of Black Hats \u2013 <\/strong>Black hat SEO is an\nindustry term for techniques and practices that aren\u2019t approved by the search\nengines that rank your content. Firms that employ these types of techniques\noften don\u2019t advertise that they are a black hat firm, so there are some warning\nsigns for you to watch out for. Some common things that should set off alarms\ninclude:<\/p>\n\n\n\n