How to Spot the Best Local SEO Companies: Things to consider before you hire a Local SEO Agency

Are you looking for the best local SEO companies? This should help you suss out everything you need to know about separating a good SEO Agency from a bad one. Additionally, we’ll review the major things to consider when you are picking a local SEO company and some questions you’ll want to ask them before hiring an SEO expert for your business.

Table of Contents

• Checklist of things to consider when you are picking Local SEO Companies
• Questions you should ask an SEO agency before consulting
• What to expect from an SEO-focused digital marketing agency

Checklist: Things to consider when you are picking Local SEO Companies

• A solid reputation

The Local SEO Agency you’re considering should have a good reputation, which can be demonstrated by outstanding case studies, recommendations from happy clients, top-notch reviews on search engines like Google, or fervent social media recommendations. Make sure they have a track record of being dependable, maintaining their promises, and exerting constant effort.

• Makes reasonable promises

Experienced local search companies won’t promise to “get any site to the first page of Google”. They’ll help you keep your expectations in check and connect campaign outcomes to the aims and objectives of your business. This includes doing keyword research and looking at your current online presence to see what’s the best outcome you could expect for your local SEO campaign.

• Consistently produces results

Local clients are attracted to an established agency. They are aware of the significant pressure local businesses are under, many of which are battling to remain open. Experienced businesses concentrate on producing results that will boost the prosperity of their local clients.

• Uses innovative strategies and tactics

Local SEO is always changing. The developments that are taking place in the industry should be known to your agency. They should be able to explain both the updates or modifications they’ve decided to make and why they did so. They must also be able to cite several sources that explain the changes they track.

• Highly-skilled experts

Their employees must have several years of experience and have managed many local search campaigns. Your account shouldn’t be managed by inexperienced interns, and your agency shouldn’t be required to learn the ins and outs of local search at your expense. You should verify that employees are certified, regularly trained, and skilled in their positions.

• Uses Data Security Best Practices

From a security and reputation management perspective, it’s best to not work with a full-service marketing company that doesn’t take data security seriously. They will likely be warehousing valuable and potentially sensitive user data from your Google Analytics, Google Search Console, or looking at other confidential aspects of your business. Beyond those concerns, about loss and accidental disclosure it’s important that they understand how to comply with data protection regulations, including GDPR, and CCPA to guard user privacy so you can avoid regulatory fines.

• Effectively Communicates 

A reputable agency keeps customers informed on a regular basis about the success of their campaign and any pertinent market changes that may have an impact on their company. They’ll collaborate with you to develop a timetable (weekly, monthly, etc.) and keep you informed of the project’s status. In the event that something goes wrong, they will contact you right away to explain what transpired, why it occurred, and how they plan to avoid it in the future. Additionally, if anything goes well, they’ll do this.

When a company you’re contemplating doesn’t exhibit these qualities, it’s a huge warning sign. These qualities are the prerequisites if you want to partner with a marketing firm.

Questions you should ask an SEO agency before consulting

Have you worked with companies in our industry?

Are they familiar with companies in your industry? Ideally, the answer to this would be, “yes, and we can tell you how we got them local search results.” If the response is “no,” it’s not necessarily an immediate reason to write the business off.

They might have experience with brands that are comparable to yours and be qualified to support the development of your business.

The case study examples they offer are crucial in this situation so that you can decide whether the work they accomplish for others would be advantageous to you.

What kind of local SEO Strategies and programs have you created before?

This question is related to the one about but a bit more specific. Ideally, they would have helped a business in your industry and deployed a local SEO program that was targeting similar SEO objectives or metrics that were successfully met. It might also be helpful to understand their ability to use out-of-the-box thinking (Walmart link) to solve complex SEO problems. 

Can you promise results from Local SEO?

Many SEO firms attempt to assert that they can guarantee results or in some other way have a “proven” connection to the search engines. Guaranteed page one ranking for any term within the first six months is a ubiquitous line in SEO when asked about forecasting results.

You don’t want an SEO agency that simply makes unrealistic promises or sets unrealistic expectations. They should be clear, honest, and communicative about what you should expect.

So, their answer should be something like, “There is no way to promise immediate SEO results but we do provide data-backed strategies and methods that have produced successful results over the medium- to long-term.”

What Search Engine Optimization components should we think about outsourcing?

The SEO agency should, in a perfect scenario, be able to manage any SEO work that is assigned to them. It will simplify communication and project management if they can handle any part of the process.

However, they ought also to be able to offer you some suggestions on particular areas where you may start working with them. For example, this might include:

• Link building
• Local listings management
• Local content creation
• Technical Audit

Even local SEO has many facets, so if not a red flag if they outsource some minor things.  However, you might want to ask so you know who your point of contact would be for various components and how involved your internal team does or doesn’t need to be.

What Metrics Should Be Analyzed and Which Should Be Given Priority?

Ultimately this is going to be dependent on your business goals but it’s likely to involve improving:

• Lead Generation
• Sales
• Rankings 
• Organic Traffic
• Backlinks

Remember that SEO is about more than just enhancing your traffic or rankings or lowering bounce rates and enhancing user experience. There’s tremendous potential in SEO for conversion rate optimization, discovering lucrative and untapped organic queries, and implementing an SEO strategy to capitalize on that research. 

Which Reports or Monitoring Updates Can We Expect to Receive?

So, you’ve found the best local SEO Company ever, what now? Well, if they’re the best local SEO company but they are bad at communicating progress, obstacles, and status updates then you might be better off with the second best. 

Hopefully, they have a defined Point of contact that is responsive and has a thorough understanding of your local strategy so they can answer any questions that you or your stakeholders have. 

Another nice feature that LSG employs for clients is custom dashboards. This allows you to track the real-time progress of your SEO program and marketing strategies for a high-level view and zoom into the granule details. You can see clicks, impressions, rank tracking, and even filter by funnel stage so you can see just how keywords in each section are performing.

What Are a Few of Your Best Customers or Case Study Examples?

Again, the case studies you will want to see will depend on what metrics and local SEO services you need help with. Obviously, you’d want them to show local SEO chops in the specific areas they will provide to you (i.e local content marketing, link building, local listings management, citations, etc). For example, LSG case studies  look something like this:

1. Reciprocity Case Study – B2B SaaS – SEO Content Strategy & Link Building
2. AutoNation Case Study – Multi-location – Local Market Research, SEO Strategy, & Local Content

If they don’t have case studies that match the specific SEO marketing strategy you had in mind there are other questions you may want to consider in lieu of a case study:

• What creative SEO Strategy or marketing solutions have they employed with other clients?
• Are they able to craft custom local strategies and SEO packages or are you going to get a one-size-fits-all consulting treatment?
• Can they create content for local customers that targets your potential customers successfully? How have they targeted a local market, local audience, or specific online searches in the past?
• How experienced are they with local listings and directory sites like Google My Business, Yelp, Bing, or Yellow pages?
• Can they work well with your other online marketing channels like pay-per-click (PPC), Social Media Marketing, etc.?
• Have they won awards for SEO marketing campaigns or other digital marketing services?
• How does their pricing compare to the return they’ve been able to achieve for other clients?

It’s also valuable to get a general understanding of a local SEO company’s typical kind of client and the brands that they’ve worked with beyond just asking if they’ve worked with companies in your industry. Their ability to work with larger brands might give you an indication of their ability to produce consistent results.

What to Expect from an SEO-focused Digital Marketing Agency

Your Digital Marketing Agency should have a demonstrated Knowledge of Local SEO and Ranking Factors. A good local SEO company will have the staff, procedures, and assets required to present you to local searchers. Your plan will be developed by a trustworthy provider using the following local search ranking factors:

• Google My Business or Google Business Profile: The keywords for your business title, description, and proximity, as well as the primary and secondary categories. This helps Google’s algorithm match how relevant your business listing is for local rankings and what SERP to show for a user’s given search query.
• On-page signs: On-page SEO can address ranking factors like domain authority and NAP consistency issues—NAP stands for your business name, address, and phone number (NAP). When your NAP information is outdated on your site or Google my Business then it creates problems for your ability to rank properly in Google search & Google Maps. This is particularly important for multi-location businesses with many business locations.
• Link Signals: Examples of link signals included the Inbound anchor text, connecting domain authority, and linking domain quantity.
• Local Citations: These can be from generic, niche, and hyper-local sources. Citations should be consistent, accurate, and clear. Citations come from directories, social networking or review websites, in applications, and on a variety of other websites.
• Online Reviews: Reviews are considered by looking at review recency, quantity, quality (i.e the number of positive reviews), velocity, and diversity. The impact on local search performance increases with the strength of your review profile.

The local search firms you’re thinking about will go into detail about what they’ll do for your business. Along with explaining why they are doing it (i.e., to appear in Google’s local pack), they will also describe the outcomes they anticipate for you. They won’t overburden you with technical speak. They’ll maintain simplicity.

They’ll explain the ranking factors to you if you’re unfamiliar. Each of the aforementioned factors will be discussed in as much (or as little) detail as you require. They should also give you any samples or supporting data you need to see how these ranking elements are applied.

The best local SEO companies will connect all of this to revenue or your primary business objectives. They’ll show you how their work will enhance the traffic, leads, and sales for your business. Lastly, they should be able to provide you with accurate predictions and predictions that get better over time. 

If you’ll looking for Local SEO help that’s chat. Local SEO Guide has been helping big enterprise brands, startups, and multi-location conquer Google since 2006.