Holding a Search Marketing Agency Accountable for B2B SEO Strategy

Avoiding Black Hat SEO Agencies

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is difficult to understand for many B2B companies. Understanding SEO is made even more difficult when there are SEO agencies over promising and practicing “Black Hat” SEO. So, how do you know if you have a good B2B SEO agency? 3 steps that you can take that will hold your B2B SEO agency accountable are:

1. Make Solid Keyword Choices
2. Follow More Than Rankings
3. Define Your ROI

Solid Keyword choices

Every good B2B SEO program begins with solid research. Much of the research performed will be put to use when selecting keywords used to help increase visibility in search engines.With that said, do you know what criteria your SEO agency had in place when choosing your targeted keyword phrases?

It’s very important that your keywords match audience or searcher’s intent.When a keyword or phrase that you are optimized for is searched, the user should be looking for your specific service.

Are the search volume figures(the average number of monthly searches for that keyword or phrase) for those keywords decent? A B2B Search agency should decide which keyword are appropriate based on applicability to your service, search volume, and level of competition. Tools such as Google’s free Keyword Tool are a good resource for determining search volume and PPC competitive data. On top of this research your SEO agency should research and analyze your key online competition and understand your business.When they combine all of the data and research they should be able to recommend the best keywords and phrases to incorporate into your SEO program. Don’t get left behind, it’s important that you’re involved with this process. You’ll want to understand why keywords are being chosen, jump in and ask questions.

Rankings Look Good But I’ll Take The Traffic!

Your search agency should include tracking results of their efforts as part of your B2B SEO program.This means looking at more than just rankings. Better rankings are a good step in the track to SEO success, it’s not 100% reliable data point due to factors like localized and personalized search.Search results can vary from place to place, you may perform a search from your home and then at your office and the results will be different because of the location.

Organic traffic is a more accurate measurement for SEO success. You can find these results in any analytics provider, of course only if your company in fact set up analytics. Analytics should show increases in traffic from search engines, if your B2B SEO agency took the right steps in choosing keywords and implementing your SEO program. This stat should see an increase as well as you should be seeing traffic coming from your chosen keywords and phrases.

Can You Track ROI?

One of the biggest challenges in B2B SEO is determining if in fact you have received a Return on Investment (ROI) with your B2B SEO program.Analytics give you many insights, B2B companies have a difficult time tracking final conversion rates because of they have such a long complex sales cycle. So, how can you hold your Search Marketing Agency accountable to your ROI when most end conversions take place off-line as opposed to on your website?

Conversion goals!B2B companies will find the value of a lead and then use that to determine the success of their off-line marketing like print and television advertising. Your analytics should be programmed to monitor your users actions such as downloading a whitepaper, filling out a contact form, signing up for a newsletter, or reading a case study.

These actions can’t necessarily convert a user to into a client, the do however become more engaged with your company and can be considered a prospect.You can start to measure if your B2B search agency has given you ROI on your SEO investment by giving each different prospect a value.

You can also use this as a way to hold your agency accountable for traffic quality. Goal conversions will also help determine the targeted keywords and phrases that are driving high quality traffic to your site.

Good Expectations to Hold Your B2B Search Agency Accountable

You can hold your B2B SEO agency accountable on delivering results even if you don’t know every detail of your SEO program. You can detect a great search marketing agency if they start every project with proper expectations. With those expectations you should also get a consideration for your program goals.Can your company benefit?What’s the best way to track your success? It’s important to insist that your agency gives you the data and thinking for selecting your keywords.You need to make sure that when it comes to getting results you see more than just search rankings as an indication of success. Track activity on your site and assign value to prospects to determine your ROI. Put yourself in the action and you won’t have any problem holding your agency accountable.