How to choose an SEO company?

Question

Search Engine Optimization

Worked with one of the companies for 2 years. In parallel, the context was conducted with another company. According to SEO during this time, traffic has grown to 4.5 to visitors.
I am currently running a similar website. But he is not satisfied with the progress on the previous project. Some companies did a free audit and made it clear that no one worked with the crawl budget of the first site. Turned to new contractors. Those who are in the TOP in Ukraine say that it takes more than 12 months to bring the site to 5k positions, others say that in 5 months I will get a lot of traffic, and their clients usually get payback in 2-6 months. There is also a fear that if an SEO company has its own network of sites where they buy anchor links for me, then when I stop working with them, all promotion has flown into oblivion.
What criteria to focus on?

Answer 1

There are a hundred bad ways to run SEO and one good one.
I call this method the ladder of wisdom.
Typically, the development process looks like this:
Shit design is being drawn → yyyy need to move! → a SEO specialist comes, at best, don’t mess it up and reports: the structure is not complete, new sections are needed → it turns out that the so-called designer didn’t take into account in principle that this could happen and the layout breaks, you need to finish drawing and take this into account, among other things , in the mobile version (which usually looks like SHIT in 90% of cases) → and here is the long-awaited traffic! 3 months passed, there was a billion visitors, nooooooo .... sales increased by 0 whole x*th tenths. Then, suddenly it dawned on everyone: hmmm, it's about usability and texts! (at the same time, few people understood what usability is) → a copywriter-editor-marketer-contenter is looking for who read Ilyakhov iiiiii .... it takes another half a year until a respected client agrees on the text → the last stage is sediment: the client is not satisfied. The performer merges / he is merge.
A real performer always has his own personal method. You need to trust those who show concern, voice uncomfortable truths and are proactive.
A real performer understands that the client came with a negative experience and porridge in the head. His task is to hold the hand and explain how it happened.
Ladder of Wisdom:
Assemble SL → divide the keys into sections according to economics, accessibility and logic, what was not in the keys - understand, add → understand what is important first of all economically, create a semantic map of all sections and services → find a normal hosting, take into account the growth of traffic from the technical point of view, come up with a good domain name, when buying - check the history and bulkiness → create a content economy: what is the useful action? timing, cost → interaction design: the designer receives from the semantics the clustering of requests and the structure of the site, which the client approved with the semantics. Layouts are drawn that initially take into account such situations as: expanding the menu structure and sections, content overflow, adding new blocks to the page structure, mobile traffic. Initially, a guideline for the front is being prepared:
This approach allows you to initially make the site competitive, initially increasing the success of the advertising campaign.
if the site is commercial, then all these millions and billions of traffic do not make any sense. The measure of success: engagement and conversions. I don’t write that sales conversions, since it’s strange to require a sales conversion from a SEO, there are factors: the client’s price is expensive, the site is shit, the product is a slop, etc.
Payback of what? seo promotion? This is in the world of the performer, not the client. The client from this 0 benefits.
At one time, I told clients: we will purchase all links from your accounts, but if you ask for each link every time, we will transfer everything back to your account and send screenshots upon request. There was a leverage in this: SEOs argue with the client and take all the developments with them, including contextual advertising.
Focus on questions from the performer. Questions will make it clear who we are dealing with. There are no questions, but there are promises - a bell. In 2019, it is already obvious that SEO alone is not enough, you need to solve the problems of site speed, shitty design and accessibility.
A real performer knows what he does NOT know how to do. For example:
- Mitrofan, we looked at the subject of the site and the demand. SEO will solve such and such a problem, but now the site is not prepared: the pages weigh a lot, take a long time to load, the text is lousy and the interface is incomprehensible (we apply proofs). A year ago, we worked with a similar site for 7 months and did not show results: there was traffic, but the conversion did not increase. We figured out what needed to be done and we suggest that you first work out something and then SEO. We noticed that the service is being asked on VKontakte, but we are not engaged in SMM
etc.
If a client with a commercial streak, he immediately senses: they are not trying to sell him and sell him.
If the client is a zombie, then no sensible arguments will reach the littered mind: only the cost, only the timing, and only the promised trillions of fucking unnecessary traffic will be looked at.
I like to give an example with a tent in the market. Here is your site is a fruit tent in the market. Here you set the task: bring 100,500 customers. They brought.
The light bulb burned out, the seller is boorish, the fruits are poorly arranged and not fresh, the price tags do not weigh. The scales are broken. What is traffic here? Nothing. Everyone has come and gone. First prepare the resource, then any advertisement (-:

Answer 2

Well, you ask how they will promote that) and this will answer all your questions

Answer 3

The most correct way to choose here is to toss a coin