Selecting a great SEO agency for your digital marketing campaign can be a difficult task. You will find lots of agencies around who focus on Search Engine Optimization, but how can you trust that each will really push your Google rankings to the very best?

It always pays when looking for an SEO agency to not only look into their past and current client base, but in addition to ask about their achievements. What Google rankings have they attained for past clients? How long did it take? And how much did the website traffic increase? Commonly, it may take around 3 months or maybe more for rankings to improve on Google and traffic should increase from about 50% upwards. At this stage, you might also want to inquire in the event the agency offers any subscriptions for post-optimization maintenance. An excellent company should, since maintaining high SEO rankings requires ongoing care.

Additionally, it helps to look for an SEO agency that offers a full array of services. 'On-page services' like website analysis, content optimization, page optimization, internal link building and ranking and traffic management should be offered. 'Off-site' SEO services should include keyword research, competitor analysis, external link building, and off-page promotion. It might also help to ask your prospective company if you are required to approve anything before they go ahead with it. If they say 'yes', it is a good sign they're honest and willing to work closely with you. To improve your rankings, an SEO agency needs to employ quite a few tasks, not only one or two, so be wary of companies that only offer limited or dodgy services.

The correct SEO company is essential to provide the proper SEO services and features to the business. Not every SEO can handle all of the different kinds of businesses in the market. Hence, some SEO agencies tend to specialize in certain niche markets to hone their skills and creativity. There may be special requirements from certain niche markets which only skilled and creative SEO agencies can handle. These may cost a little more than the other general SEO company providers. It depends on the SEO industry vision and modus operandi.

Every SEO company will operate differently based on their modus operandi and business objectives. Although most have similar offerings and services, some may stand out more than others when it comes to service standard and creativity.

Something else to consider is any agency that offers to increase your rankings through suspect methodologies like spamming, keyword stuffing, hidden text, high-ranking doorway pages and link-farming. These are often referred to as "black hat SEO" and can also get you banished from internet search engines, which is often hugely detrimental to your business. Also keep an eye out for automatic, bulk submissions to search engines. Automatic submissions are not considered best practice and it is must more beneficial for you if a business conducts manual submissions. Always make sure that an SEO agency is open about their methodologies used - any secrecy could mean they are using "black hat" techniques.

You need to keep in mind that high prices within an SEO agency don't necessarily mean the top quality. Instead, choose a business based upon their client base, reputation and their very own site optimization and Google rankings. Similarly, if a business is offering you "guaranteed" #1 rankings for a ridiculously low price, it is probably too good to be true. Collecting several quotes is an excellent way to start and always ensure quotes are backed by a contract, so you know exactly what you are getting for your hard earned money. It's going to also help to ask what their payment terms are and whenever they have any fees for early termination.

Finally, a trustworthy SEO agency should offer and conduct thorough and specific keyword research as a part of their SEO services. Many organizations shall include keyword research as a given, but be wary associated with any company that asks you to provide the keywords for their work. While they might ask for your opinion, the keywords used should be based upon their research, analytics and competitor scope, not about what you tell them. Simply, they are meant to be the SEO experts - not you! "Guessing" your keywords isn't efficient and also a great SEO agency will research your keywords thoroughly before recommending them.