It’s happened to many businesses across the world. You invest time and money in an SEO specialist to take you to the dizzy heights in Google, but a year later you’re no nearer your SEO goals. How can you get the best from your SEO specialist? SEO consultant Mark Reynolds from GrowthbyTrust, a Leamington digital marketing agency, offers his advice…
Article by: Mark Reynolds, the founder and owner of GrowthbyTrust. Mark first applied SEO to a small business website in 2002. In every role since, he has used SEO to grow web enquiries for small businesses. He’s a trusted speaker, delivering SEO/Google Analytics workshops for Coventry & Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce and other organisations. Today he’s here to help you. Need Mark’s help? Get in touch.
- Read time: 3 mins.
- Who will find the most value? Small business owners, marketing directors and marketing managers looking to build towards SEO success in 2025 and beyond.
As the months of your SEO campaign progress, make sure whoever is managing your SEO is completely transparent. You need to hold them to account.
Transparency and accountability are critical to SEO success.
If they’re not totally open with you, you may be investing time and money into SEO, but be no nearer success.
Your SEO specialist must tell you everything you need to know about your progress. You need an honest appraisal of progress and of their efforts.
Too often the employee, SEO consultant or agency’s interests come before yours. That’s not good enough. It’s up to you to make sure that’s not the case. You do that by choosing the right person for the job and by holding them to account.
If your SEO consultant or employee is not open, honest and forthcoming, then take the work away from them. If they’re an external SEO company/agency and they’re not being transparent, fire them. Simple.
There are too many SEO companies or freelancers who are happy to take your SEO money for 3 – 6 months, with no real progress. I’ve seen it so many times. It’s almost like it’s their business model. They often just give you a line like “you have to be patient”. They don’t mind if they get fired after 6 months. They’ll move onto the next company.
Get a Basic SEO Understanding
If you’re a small business owner, director or manager, maybe you don’t know the ins and outs of SEO. There’s nothing wrong with that. But by having a basic knowledge, you will increase your chances of holding your SEO employee, consultant or agency accountable.
How Long Might It Take Your SEO Specialist To Succeed?
Even if the success of your SEO campaign can’t be judged fully until 12-18 months, you should see some progress in Google during months 3-6. You should rank well for some keywords in months 6-9, and yes, you’ll have to wait until months 12-18 to really shine.
The key during that 18 month journey is that you don’t just wait in the hope of success. You don’t simply agree with your SEO specialist when they say “you need to be patient”. If SEO is going to work for you, you need to have the right conversations.
7 Top Tips To Get The Most From Your SEO Employee/Agency.
- The key is to work together in a trusting relationship.
- Have constructive conversations with your SEO specialist.
- Be 100% clear on what SEO work has been carried out in the previous month and what the plan is for the next month. It’s important you get this information in monthly meetings or reports. If not, you’ve got the wrong specialist.
- Do research to find the right questions to ask your SEO company every month.
- Regularly ask for the specialist’s expert opinion of how well the SEO campaign is going (make sure their opinion is not sugar coated). This can be difficult because if your SEO company says their work is not getting the results they had hoped for, they might think you’ll stop paying them, but you want honesty from a trusting relationship. The best types of SEO company are those who are honest, transparent and who will shift strategy if they think something isn’t working. It’s important to shift strategy rather than let an approach continue, as that will end poorly for everyone.
- REPORTING – You’ll normally expect to be given monthly reports showing whether the SEO is performing. Find out how to get the most from your SEO reports.
- Make your SEO specialist accountable – it’s one of the keys to SEO success. Without transparency and accountability, the months could just roll by without you being any nearer to your SEO and marketing goals.
Get in touch / send me an email if you have any questions about whether SEO will work for your business, or if you need any other SEO help. Or you want to speak to me on the phone for an informal discussion, call me, Mark Reynolds (ProfitReach founder) on 01926 356300 or 01454 858754.
It’s time for you to get the best from your SEO specialist to get SEO success.
Over to you. Make SEO work.