Working with an SEO agency can be a game-changer for your business’s online visibility. However, it can be incredibly frustrating when you’re not seeing the expected results, especially after investing time, effort, and money. So, what do you do if your SEO agency isn’t delivering the promised results? Let’s go through how to assess the situation, address your concerns, and take the right steps to get your SEO strategy back on track.
Assess The Situation: Are Expectations Realistic?
First, you need to assess whether your expectations were realistic from the start. SEO is a long-term strategy, and significant improvements in rankings, traffic, or conversions typically take months rather than weeks. If you expected immediate results, adjusting your timeline and understanding what SEO can achieve in the short term might be worth adjusting.
Ask yourself:
- Did you clearly outline your goals with the agency at the beginning?
- Were the goals realistic based on the competition and the state of your website?
- Have you given the agency enough time to implement and optimize its strategy?
If your expectations were too high, it might be worth recalibrating your goals. However, if you feel the agency hasn’t made any progress over a reasonable timeframe, it’s time to look closely at its performance. Then, you can hire professionals to improve your organic ranking in Birmingham.
Analise The Work Done: Are You Seeing Any Improvements
Take a step back and review the agency’s work so far. Have they been transparent with their process? Are you receiving regular reports and updates on their actions? It’s important to understand exactly what they’ve been doing to improve your SEO and whether the work aligns with your agreed-upon strategy.
Key areas to review include:
- Content creation and optimization: Has the agency been producing and optimizing content regularly, targeting the right keywords?
- Link building: Are they acquiring high-quality, relevant backlinks?
- Technical SEO: Have they addressed any technical issues on your site, such as site speed, mobile-friendliness, and indexing?
- On-page optimization: Are meta descriptions, title tags, and headings optimized correctly?
If you do not see any improvements in these areas or the work done doesn’t seem to align with your original goals, it may indicate that the agency isn’t putting in the effort required.
Communicate Clearly With Your Agency
Once you’ve assessed the situation, it’s time to open up a direct line of communication with your agency. Avoid jumping to conclusions without having a conversation first. Sometimes, delays or lack of results may be due to unforeseen challenges, industry changes, or issues out of the agency’s control.
Here’s how you can approach the conversation:
- Be direct but polite: Explain your concerns and share your expectations in a clear, calm manner. Use specific examples of where you feel the work isn’t meeting your expectations.
- Ask for a detailed explanation: Request a breakdown of the work completed, including any changes or obstacles they encountered and how these may have impacted the results.
- Get clarity on the strategy: Ask them to explain their approach and why it should take time to produce the desired results.
A good SEO agency will be open to discussing issues and should be able to provide clear reasons for the lack of results. You’ll need to consider further action if the conversation reveals a lack of strategy or effort.
Set Clear Milestones And Kpis
Now is the time to start if you’re not already tracking key performance indicators (KPIs). Working with your agency, establish clear, measurable goals and a timeline for delivery. This ensures that both parties are on the same page and that progress can be measured.
Some useful KPIs to track include:
- Organic traffic: A steady increase in organic traffic is a key indicator of SEO success.
- Keyword rankings: Track how your target keywords are ranking over time.
- Conversion rates: Ultimately, traffic means nothing without conversions. Ensure the agency is focused on improving traffic and your website’s ability to convert visitors into customers.
- Backlink quality: Measure the quality and relevance of backlinks acquired.
Having these KPIs in place will help you evaluate the agency’s performance more objectively and give them a clearer target to work towards. This can also help avoid misunderstandings in the future.
Conclusion
Not seeing results from your SEO agency can be incredibly frustrating, but addressing the issue with patience and a clear action plan is important. By assessing the situation, communicating with your agency, setting clear milestones, and seeking a second opinion if necessary, you’ll be in a better position to either turn things around or make an informed decision to move on. Remember, SEO takes time, but if you’re not seeing progress after giving your agency the necessary resources and time, you need to take action to protect your business’s growth.