If you’ve had a lot of experience working with SEO companies you’ll understand that trying to find one that fits your business and operating style can be difficult. Oftentimes, an SEO company will make all kinds of promises (usually around high traffic amounts), which don’t align with your business objectives and quite honestly don’t drive revenue. Every part of the SEO plan should be carefully designed to target those in your market. Period. Ask them what they know about your niche. Ask them what they know about the media consumption and where your customers are hanging out. What I’ve found is if an SEO company gets nervous by you asking questions, you better bail. 

Most importantly, they must know how to effectively communicate what internet marketing and what SEO is to you. No offense, internet marketing is a massive discipline. I’ve logged over 40,000 hours in internet marketing and I still have so much to learn. Internet marketing is the future of business. We’d even double down and say “Localized Internet Marketing is the future” and we’d probably be right.  Here are 5 things to consider when looking for an Idaho SEO company:

#1: Your Business Objectives Drive Their SEO Strategy

It’s not about them, it’s about you. If a potential SEO company you are working with is only talking about themselves, their results, who they’ve worked with in the past, and it’s all “Me Me Me Me”…then run away. And fast too. Definitely don’t give them any money. An expert at SEO cares about your objectives and they will design their entire SEO plan around your business objectives. They’ll want to know about revenue, so don’t be shy when they ask. They’ll offer to sign an NDA (or should have one immediately available before a consultation begins). A local SEO company should care about your business more than theirs. You’re probably thinking, “Who cares about another’s business more than they’re own?” An Idaho SEO company should, because your success is tied to their reputation and in the world of SEO agencies, word of mouth advertising is going to get you the best clients. Period.

So they’re going to ask you questions about such as:

• What’s your annual revenue?
• Where are you currently getting customers?
• Do you have a website? Do you have a marketing budget? How are you spending it?
• Do You Have a Google Business Profile?
• What problems are you trying to solve in the market?
• Have you ever worked with another SEO company before? How was that?
• Who are your competitors? How are you different from them?

#2: Your Google Business Profile Is A Priority

Google My Business optimization is going to be massive. It should be a priority for your company. It should be a priority for all SEO companies. This applies more to companies emphasizing targeting customers in a local region. And this one is a bit tricky because just recently Local SEO has been such a huge part of search engine optimization. In fact, most SEO companies are just now beginning to warm up and really take local SEO seriously. An SEO company is going to ask you questions about your Google Business Profile, how you’re communicating with your prospects, how you’re communicating with your customers, how you communicate with customers dissatisfied with your products or services, how your logo looks, business address and phone number are accurate, etc. 

One of the most important items they’ll want to know about is if your business has a review strategy. Local marketing is the future of SEO. Local results matter a lot. And one of the most effective local SEO strategies is how you curate reviews. Reviews are the lifeblood of local search engine results. If an SEO company is promising you all kinds of rankings results and increased traffic and leads WITHOUT mentioning reviews, then it’s okay to be a skeptic.

#3: Your Customers Matter To Them

Your customer’s problems should be extremely important to an SEO Company. You want to find an SEO company who values the problems and pain points in your market, knows how to target those problems, and can create messaging around your business, product, or service as the solution. An effective SEO specialist cares about the problems in the market. That’s why I’d be super hesitant if the SEO company isn’t massively passionate about research and discovering your market’s problems. 

Massive amounts of traffic aren’t an issue to them. Your customers and prospects are who they want to target at the core of their SEO plan. Anyone can drive traffic to a website or a business profile. At least the experts can. But what if that traffic isn’t the type of prospect you want? We’ve always said it’s more important to target a group of thousand people ready to buy vs 10 million people who are just cruising the web looking to be infotained. Quality over Quantity matters. 

#4: Effective Communication

If I had a dime every time a business hired an SEO company, paid them for services, then didn’t hear back from that company for over a month, I’d be a very wealthy individual. This is all too common in this industry. It’s sad it happens. It pisses me off every time I hear someone tell me they got screwed by an SEO company. Quite honestly, these shady SEO companies are bad for the industry and are a major reason why business don’t like to spend money in this niche. It’s led many people to believe that “SEO is dead!” and “SEO doesn’t work!” Nothing makes me more irritated than hearing those two phrases. They’re just not true. We can prove it. But our SEO strategy is not all about Google. It’s deeper than that. We’d love to tell you more. 

But an effective SEO company after you hire them will tell you what they’re going to do each month and provide deliverables. They’re upfront about results (good and bad). They’re transparent in their strategy. They won’t slap on any hidden fees or extra marketing cost. If they want to spend a little extra budget somewhere, they’ll tell you before doing so. When you make a phone call, they’ll actually answer and talk to you. When you send an email, you’ll get a reply within 24 hours. Communication is important to them because it’s how they talk to work with you.

#5: Do They Offer A Consultation Or Some Freebie?

The old adage in life that “nothing is free” is kinda true. But on the other hand, effective SEO companies who have a highly optimized front-end and back-end marketing approach will know how to leverage freebies into lifelong, loyal customers. So when looking for SEO services in Idaho, ask them if they do free marketing consultations, free audits, free mini-content plans, or don’t even mention pricing in your first initial chat. I bet I never mention our pricing in 99.999% of the initial conversations. Honestly, it’s because I don’t know because I may not know enough about your business. But in reality, it’s because I don’t care about the revenue. Making an impact on your business is the only currency I care about. At Idaho Internet Marketing, that’s why we tell prospects that we can find them $200 in free advertising and marketing at no cost to them. Completely free. Find those freebies!

Local Idaho Internet Marketing: Your East Idaho SEO Solution

Our local SEO campaigns are built to target only those in your market. We care about eyeballs, but only the eyeballs that are going to be loyal customers. Along with our clients, we make a deep dive into what problems your brand can solve in your industry and align your local products and services with your community’s local needs. Idaho Internet Marketing understands the world of SEO and all its crazy intricacies! We understand the marketplace of ideas and what people search for. We know search engine algorithms. We know search engine optimization. We dive into their patents. We know what makes Google click. We have SEO principles that have been tested and tested and have withstood all the Google updates that have literally killed businesses overnight. We build campaigns for the long game. We value long term viability along with short SEO wins so your strategy doesn’t cost you $$$ before you see any ROI.

We help you devise and execute a plan of attack when it comes to SEO, both local SEO and broad, universal SEO. Quite frankly, anyone can drive traffic to a website, business listing, or an ad. But how effective are marketers at targeting the right eyeballs to turn prospects into customers? That’s where we come in. Contact Idaho Internet Marketing to find out how we can help your business.