Choosing the best eCommerce SEO Company can feel somewhat subjective, but even if you’re flying alone, there are things you can do to make the decision-making process easier for you.
Here are some things to look for.
A Proven Track Record (and Experience with Your Industry)
First and foremost, whatever agency you’re looking at is not the “best” if they don’t have experience working with a wide range of clients, particularly in your industry.
Between industry to industry, there are things that work and things that don’t. In a particularly saturated and competitive industry, for instance, good content may constitute the difference.
Be slightly leery if you come across an agency that has never worked in your industry before.
Positive (and Some Negative) Reviews and Testimonials
You’ll want to look for reviews and testimonials both on and off the agency’s website, and generally, the ones that appear off the website are more trustworthy.
However, don’t just read the positive reviews. If you want to know what it’s really like to work with this agency, you need to get to the negative ones, too.
A Collection of Case Studies
Any case study is better than no case study but ideally what you want to look for is a collection that includes case studies with data.
Specifically, look at SEO case studies that show increases in keyword standing, impressions, clicks organic data, and revenue, pulled directly from Google Analytics or Google Search Console.
A Visual Client Portfolio
For any eCommerce SEO agencies that work with clients for design and redesign projects, look for a client portfolio that actually demonstrates the feel and functionality of their clients’ websites.
Experience with Other Digital Marketing Channels
Often, SEO does not work alone, but alongside other digital marketing channels like email marketing content marketing, and organic social media marketing.
An agency that offers a full-suite of services is probably more proficient and capable (albeit less specialized) than one that doesn’t.
Agencies That Have Designers and Developers on Hand
Things like page security, speed, layout, landing page optimization, and user experience all influence SEO. They’re also tough for an agency to improve if they don’t have designers and developers that work for (or with) them.
Positive Organic Rankings
Any eCommerce SEO company that does not have at least some highly visible positive organic rankings is a major red flag. This is literally what eCommerce SEO experts do. If their own website doesn’t rank, neither will yours.
A Clear Methodology for Keyword Research
Keyword research is the cornerstone of any SEO strategy and without good research to lay the framework, nothing else is going to work well.
The company’s project managers should be quite clear about the direction they want to set for the SEO campaign and what keywords they want to target for your online store, with respect to search volume, difficulty, number of results, current organic standing in the search engine results pages, and overall attainability.
An Effective Backlink Strategy
Link building is often one of the weakest links of an agency’s SEO marketing strategies (no pun intended) yet without a strong backlink strategy it’s hard to grow organic traffic in the long term. Ask about their strategy and see a sample of the domains used for link building before signing up with any digital marketing agency.
A Demonstrated Ability to Optimize a Wide Variety of Content
SEO will not work without optimized content development, and content features on product pages, category pages, blog pages, CMS pages, the home page, and elsewhere on any website. Behind keyword research, it is without a doubt the most important aspect of SEO and eCommerce marketing in general.
The best thing to look for when shopping for eCommerce SEO services is that the agency has a team of writers on staff.
Now Go Find the Best eCommerce SEO Company
Not sure where to start? Begin your short list with a look at 1DigitalⓇ Agency (1DigitalAgency.com). They offer full-suite digital marketing services and have more than 10 years of experience putting SEO best practices to work for their clients.
Otherwise, start digging, you have a long way to go to satisfy all of these requirements.
