Sydney SEO: 6 Vital Questions To Ask Any Company

Identifying a Sydney SEO expert to partner with can be a difficult task if you’re not equipped with the right information.

Following conversations from business owners with concerns about this very thing, we have decided to write a list of questions that you should ask before partnering with any Sydney search engine optimisation agency.

1. Who exactly will be performing the tasks for my website?

When an SEO consultant signs you on as their client, they will either perform the associated campaign tasks themselves or outsource parts or all of the tasks to third party organisations in countries like India or Philippines.

This practice can be damaging for your website, as these organisations are using outdated practices that will most certainly bring upon a google penalty and they only offer low wages for their employees, which results in low quality work.

To be sure you’re getting the best quality work and to a level that will not get your site penalised, you are best to ensure the SEO agency completes all tasks in house.

2. What will you be doing to my website?

The term “optimise” or “optimisation” is heavily used when expressing what an agency will do to a website for the purpose of getting a high Google ranking. But what does those two terms actually mean?

Well we like to explain to our clients that optimising their website consists of two sections:

• Overall Website SEO (On-site)
• Individual Page SEO (On-Page)

Asking this questions will determine whether or not the company is up to date with the latest ranking guidelines from Google. They should be able to categorise the two and address the following points.

Overall Website SEO (On-site)

Reputable Sydney SEO agencies will understand they need to have a process of optimising the structure and functionality of your website as a whole. This process should be the first they engage in.

Overall Website SEO consist of:

• An audit of the site.
• Creating a site architecture that will ensure maximum domain authority flows through each page.
• Identifying incorrect URL structures
• Identifying any indexation issues
• Identifying any duplicate content and either removing it or correcting it to become unique.
• Identify pages with 404 error codes and broken links
• Performing a site speed audit and improving the load speed of all pages
• Utilising correct schema mark-up for understanding the purpose of the website.
• Identifying if the website is mobile friendly. (Will adapt to any size screen on any mobile device).
• Implementation of a Sitemap.

Individual page SEO (On-page)

Individual page SEO is the process of auditing and correcting (optimising) any content and technical elements on each individual page.

Optimising individual pages should only be considered once the overall website SEO is complete and satisfied to meet Google guidelines.

This process should include:

• An audit of all pages (Including standard pages like Contact, About, Testimonial etc.)
• Identifying any Meta information issues. Meta information are things like the page title and the brief description of what the page is about. Every page should be centred around a specific search term or phrase.
• Identification of any duplicate Meta information
• Keyword Placement. Google understands what a page is about by looking at words or phrases in specific locations on a page. Placements that hold the greatest value are the Title Tag, H1-H6 Header Tags, text within the first and last sentence and the first image on a page
• ALT Tags on images. Google cannot see images nor can they read text on them. Attaching ALT tags to images provides a description of the image in code that Google can understand.
• Keyword Density. (The use of the same word within the content). A now outdated practice used in the past was to repeatedly use the same keywords within the content to manipulate Google. Now such practices will get your website penalised. Specific words and phrases should not exceed the density of 1-3% on any single page.
• Internal Linking. Placing relevant links on one page to another within your website is considered best practice to help guide your visitors to other important pages. User engagement a factor in Googles ranking process to evaluate your websites worthiness of high rankings.

3. What type of backlinks or link building process will you create?

Backlinks are the fundamental elements of any successful SEO campaign. They can be viewed as up votes if created correctly and can be detrimental if not.

Asking your prospective SEO specialist what type of backlinks they will be building is critical for the sustainability of rankings for your website.

Reputable agencies will follow Googles guidelines and focus their campaigns on acquiring in-content editorial links from relevant websites. “In-content editorial” links are evaluated by an editor before being acquired.

Building backlinks is a slow process that requires the creation and use of quality content.

If your prospective SEO firm say’s there going to build comment links, mass directory links, web 2.0, submit to article directories (e-zine articles), mass press releases, then you need to be aware this is a red flag and you should move on.

Acquiring links from these categories can be fraught with danger and will end with your site being penalised.

A term used with backlinks is 1^st tier and 2^nd tier links. Tier 1 links are the type coming to your site. Tier 2 links are the type that are coming to the site that is linking to your site.

Both the tier 1 and tier 2 websites need to be relevant to your website.

So essentially the only type of authoritative backlinks that actually work in 2016 and beyond are those from relevant sites (tier 1 & tier 2) and are in-content editorials.

So such examples of these links are industry related blogs, industry related resource lists, and branded links from high authority sites. For instance a business coach working with other SME’s would mean we look to high authoritative sites like Smart Company & Flying Solo to acquire links from.

Our Sydney SEO company has partnered with the most technically minded within this space, to ensure we are only performing tasks in a manner that get long term sustainable results

4. Do You Think Fresh Content Is Important?

The foundation of every SEO campaign is built from Content.

If the prospective SEO company doesn’t believe fresh content is necessary, then this is another red flag. Fresh content means adding new articles to your website blog on a regular basis. Depending on your market and competition this can be every week or every 3 months.

Either way, producing content is critical and cost effective. Fresh content can be used not only for SEO campaigns, it can be used for social media channels and other marketing strategies.

It’s evergreen and will drive continual leads to your business.

5. How do you determine the effectiveness of the SEO campaign?

Most SEO agencies will perform the SEO campaign and get your website ranking high for specific search terms. They will then consider their job done.

The best Sydney SEO companies will declare a successful SEO package when the business has a profound increase in revenue. An increase in traffic is well and good, however if it’s not converting to sales and an increase in revenue, then it’s practically useless.

Quality companies understand that keyword research and ranking for commercial search terms is key and any increase in traffic is just the first milestone.

Make sure to ask your prospective company “How will organic search engine growth improve my business revenue”.

6. Do you have client referrals?

Every successful business should have customers / clients that have received quality products and service and would be happy to recommend them to others. Ask the names of other business owners they have worked with so you can get feedback.

You now have in hand some important questions to ask any prospective Sydney Search Engine Optimisation Company.

If you want to work with a reputable Sydney SEO firm, then get in touch now.