Putting your automotive SEO into the hands of someone else can be difficult.
How do you know if that agency is actually help you, or if they are just taking your money?
Most people who choose to work with an agency do it because they do not have enough time to manage their SEO strategies themselves, but you still want to know if what tactics they are using are actually working.
How can you make sure you are getting your money’s worth?
Here are some of the ways that you can tell that your automotive SEO agency is actually helping your website rank:
1. They can show you what they have been doing.
A lot of SEO firms will rely solely on analytics to prove that they are actually doing something to help your website.
A really good SEO frim will be able to show you exactly what they have been working on and how it tangibly improves your ranking. For example, they should be able to show you where they have placed backlinks.
They should be able to show you the initial audit that was performed of your website, the new content they have either produced themselves or had produced for you, and an overall report of what exactly they have been doing.
No firm is capable of just magically providing you with better rankings.
They actually have to take steps to get you those rankings. The best SEO firms will be able to show you exactly what those things are.
2. They tell you exactly what they need you to do.
There is an assumption that when your hire an automotive SEO agency, you will be completely relieved of any and all responsibilities related to optimizing your website.
The truth is, however, that the great SEO firms will ask a lot of you as their client.
They are going to need access to lots of your information and they are also going to make recommendations to you, which you will have to decide to implement.
For example, they might recommend asking you to start a social channel, to integrate a content marketing strategy, to add more content to your website, to rewrite or revise the content currently present there, to make a sitemap, to improve the speed of your site, to get rid of backlinks that look like spam, etc.
Your firm may be willing to take on all or most of these tasks, but you have to give them go ahead before they do.
You still have to be involved in the strategy—just not as involved.
If you are not being as active in the strategy as your firm needs you to be in order for SEO to be successful, that firm might actually dump you as a client.
3. You can see your rankings improve.
This is, of course, the main reason you have hired someone to take over your automotive SEO strategy—you want to see better rankings and you do not have the time or the resources to do it yourself.
If your ranking improves, the work that your firm is doing is probably actually working.
But how do you know if the actions they are taking are legitimately improving your rank?
Look at your target keywords.
Are you seeing a higher rank for those keywords? Are you inching your way towards the first page of relevant search results?
Are they taking their time to make sure that you are ranking for the increasingly important long-tail keyword?
Are those rankings staying generally consistent over time?
Your position might fluctuate, but you want to, in general, see an upwards trend, even if you occasionally see a drop in rankings.
4. You are seeing higher profits.
The entire reason behind having a search engine optimization strategy is to improve your search rank, not just to have a higher slot, but so that you get more customers on your dealership’s showroom floor, so you can make more sales.
You might actually see less traffic to your website, but if you are seeing more profits and you can directly relate those profits back to more qualified traffic on your dealership’s website, the SEO is working perfectly.
Especially when you first start working with a SEO agency, you might see your rankings drop.
This is only really an issue if you do not see your revenue increase.
Great SEO’s goal is not just to get more people on your website, but to get more people on your website who are actually eventually going to buy a car from you.
If you are seeing more sales, the work your firm is doing is probably working.
Do you really need to keep tabs on your automotive SEO firm and what they are doing?
At least for the first few months, while you are first getting to know one another, you definitely should.
It can be hard to tell the difference between a low quality SEO firm that just wants your money and a great one that really wants you to succeed, until you have started working with them.
Looking at this criteria is a great way to make sure that you have chosen a firm that actually wants you to succeed and is not just using the fastest, most underhanded techniques to get you a high rank and, eventually, a penalty or removal from the search results.
Once you have found an agency that
