Modern SEO requires ongoing analysis and accurate implementation. Yet, most SEO companies provide SEO advice only and rely on you or your developer to actually implement their recommendations. Before you sign a contract with a marketing agency, be sure to clarify who will be implementing their SEO recommendations or the following will probably happen:
- your SEO costs spiral out of control as you have to pay your web developer to implement complex SEO recommendations they don’t understand
- your web developer doesn’t implement the SEO recommendations correctly and you have to pay your SEO company to re-check the work the developer does
- you spend a lot of time project managing your SEO provider, copy writer, web developer etc!
- your SEO company lacks accountability for their work, everyone else gets blamed!
- your SEO company starts using unethical SEO techniques as a work around to achieve short term results (read this related article about linkbuilding)
Unethical work arounds
We recently wrote an article, Content is King, Technical SEO is the castle, that highlights why ‘technical SEO’ is the foundation of any SEO strategy. Good technical SEO, whether you’re targeting local Auckland SEO searches or NZ wide search terms, requires expert developer support or implementation by a team of SEO implementation experts, such as those employed by Clickthrough.
However, most technical SEO recommendations don’t get implemented for the points raised earlier in this article. As a consequence, SEO companies find it easier to focus on building SEO-backlinks to your website, a shortcut that is forbidden by Google, rather than build the technical, design and content skills required to implement SEO best practices.
SEO contracts, don’t be misled
Look out for terms and conditions in an SEO contract that highlight exactly what SEO implementation work will be done by the SEO company. If you’re not sure then ask the SEO company for clarification BEFORE you sign the SEO contract. The chances are the SEO company will be providing advisory work only, leaving you to manage the implementation!
Is your web developer SEO friendly?
Most web developers are geared to do project work, rather than service SEO requests. To be fair, SEO has become a very specialist task that developers shouldn’t have to specialize in; most technical SEO recommendations should be implemented by your SEO company. That said, we recommend you check the following with your web developer before putting pen to any SEO contract:
- that they are willing to work with your SEO company
- that they have the time and skill to implement any SEO recommendations
- what their hourly rate for implementing SEO will be
For further advice, call one of our SEO implementation experts on 021 344 050, click here to contact us or learn more about SEO implementation at one of our popular SEO training courses.
FAQs
Why is technical SEO considered the foundation of any SEO strategy?
Technical SEO is considered the foundation of any SEO strategy because it focuses on optimising the technical aspects of a website, such as site structure and code, which are crucial for search engines to crawl, index, and rank the site effectively.
What happens if web developers don’t understand the complexities of SEO?
If web developers don’t understand the complexities of SEO, it can lead to incorrect implementation of SEO recommendations, potentially resulting in poor website performance and wasted resources.
