Monitor SEO Rankings -How To Hold Your SEO Company Accountable

Most companies that use an outsourced SEO company monitor their SEO rankings each month to see if progress has been made. In fact, this seems to be one of the few metrics that companies use to gauge the performance of their SEO firm. However, if you’re only looking at keyword rankings, you might miss out on some important factors that help you truly track the performance of your SEO campaign – and the overall performance of your SEO company. Don’t fall asleep at the wheel when it comes to monitoring your SEO firm…takes these steps to truly measure their results so that you can effectively “manage” them to success.

Step 1: Realize that Management is Necessary for Any Business Function

Would you ever just leave any of your employees to their own devices? Perhaps just let them send you a report one time a month? Most effective employers have formal mechanisms for measuring the results of their employees…and any outsourced providers should be help to the same standard – not the least of which are SEO firms. By checking in on key efforts and actions being taken, you gauge all of the steps being taken each month rather than just the end results.

Step 2: Monitoring Rankings Won’t Give You a Full Picture

Let’s face it…getting ranked on the first page of Google can take a long time if ever achieved for certain keywords. So if you’re only looking at the keyword rankings and see that no forward momentum is taking place, you may be apt to be disappointed with your firm, even though they may be doing a lot of great things to forward your business marketing efforts. While a lack of increase in rankings may be reason to question your SEO company, it’s not the best way of monitoring their success.

Step 3: The Squeaky Wheel Gets the Grease

Now, we’re not suggesting to be the perpetually complaint filled customer, but by following up with your SEO company throughout the month, you’ll be on their top of mind. We’ve found that one of the most crucial factors in getting results with SEO is consistent effort, and it’s easy for some SEO firms to “set it and forget it.” Check in with your provider throughout the month to see how things are going in order to keep the momentum moving forward.

Step 4: Know What to Monitor

Simply put, don’t just monitor SEO keyword rankings. You’ve got to take a full look at everything that they’re doing. And, yes, this is going to require that you start to have a level of understanding about SEO that gives you the necessary skills to talk with them intelligently. Would you ever manage one of your employees without knowing the full scope of their job functions? That would probably be a recipe for disaster. Similarly, you need to know some of the core things about SEO in order to hold your provider accountable. Some key things to look for:

• Relevant content that they’re creating for you each month
• Changes that they’re making to your site to help optimize it for SEO
• Content pushed and recruiting efforts engaged for social media channels if applicable
• The quality and relevancy of links targeted and acquired

By asking intelligent questions about these areas, you’ll get more and more knowledge about SEO in general, which will in turn help you not only hold them accountable better, but stay alert to new opportunities for SEO promotion going forward that you might have individually at your fingertips.