Instant results: When you enlist the help of an SEO agency and they promise instant results, you should run. SEO can take up to several months before you see an improvement in Google search rankings. If someone is promising instant results they either don't know what they're doing, or they're ripping you off.
A lot of links: Link building can be very capital intensive for an agency, and it's more about the quality than the quantity. One good link from a quality SEO firm can be worth 100 buy links now you'd find on Fiverr. If you're spending less than $250 per link, I'd be very wary of the quality.
Cheap SEO Packages: We're one of the best SEO firms in the nation and we stopped offering SEO packages under $2,500/month because we found it tough to get great results for our clients for less than that. When you're working with a professional SEO agency, you're getting link building, content creation, content editing, press release writing, content writing, technical SEO, and more on a month to month basis. SEO requires a lot of deliverables to move the needle, If an agency is doing all of the above on the cheap, you're probably getting what you pay for.
One-off SEO: If you come across a firm that's offering to optimize your website once and a few months from now it's going to rank...run. SEO is a long term investment in the health of your website and company. Furthermore, SEO isn't a one-off service, it's something that compounds on itself over time, and only after months of ongoing work are you going to see results.
They don't do in-depth keyword research: If you're working with an SEO expert on your SEO campaign that isn't doing in-depth keyword research, that's a huge red flag. Your website needs additional landing pages to rank. Those landing pages need competitive based keyword research to get your site to rank higher in search results. Boom.
They aren't focusing on business goals: If you're working with an agency that isn't focusing on your overarching business goals, that's not a great sign. Most agencies stay away from business goals because they're too hard to track, or they don't know what it takes to move the needle. Most business goals revolve around leads, sales, and ROI. At TGA, we focus on the business goals that matter to your organization and work off a mindset where the business comes first, and marketing comes second.
They don't do content writing in-house: Most agencies outsource their content writing overseas. It's a cheap way to get content written for a client site. The problem is, it's terrible for your site and customers. Poor content throughout your site can be bad for SEO, and if there are a ton of misspellings, bad for business. We do all of our copyrighting in-house, so all the content we write for your site will be too.
They don't have true SEO specialists: When you're considering enlisting the help of an SEO to increase your search engine rankings there are a lot of options. Make sure that whatever SEO company you choose, they're able to show you SEO success metrics from past clients.