Gaining visibility in search engines is an increasingly complex task. It requires a broad skill set that spans technical know-how, marketing and communications expertise, and strong business and data analysis capabilities. When you start looking for an SEO professional, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and struggle to make a confident decision.
To help businesses navigate this process, Google published a video with useful advice on how to choose an SEO agency.
To make the decision even easier, Registros.com wants to add a few extra tips — especially for those with limited experience in online marketing or technical topics.
AVOID SNAP DECISIONS AND ANYONE WHO PROMISES QUICK RESULTS
Unlike other online marketing activities, the results of an SEO strategy take a significant amount of time to materialize. It’s rare to see meaningful results in less than 4 months from the start of implementation (Google’s video even suggests it can take up to a year to see the full impact of your efforts).
Hiring a digital marketing agency with a shorter commitment makes little sense, and since it’s a big investment, it’s worth taking the time to make sure you’re working with honest and qualified professionals.
So treat any promise of fast results as a red flag. While it’s technically possible to achieve them quickly, it often involves black-hat tactics that carry a high risk of being detected and penalized by Google.
WARNING SIGN: SAYING YES TO EVERYTHING
As we’ve noted, SEO grows more complex every day. What works well in one industry may completely fail in another. For that reason, a good SEO professional can promise consistent, dedicated work and a steady improvement in your site’s chances of ranking well — but they cannot promise you’ll achieve everything you ask for.
The rise of artificial intelligence in search ranking systems means the rules evolve faster than ever, making good rankings a continuous process of testing and refinement. On top of that, your business doesn’t operate in a vacuum — both your competitors and the search engines themselves play a major role in determining where your site appears.
WARNING SIGN: ONLY TALKING ABOUT KEYWORDS
There was a time when SEO revolved almost exclusively around keywords — the search terms people use to find a product or service.
Keywords still matter, but SEO now goes far beyond them. What you always need to keep in mind is that Google’s core goal is to deliver the result that best answers your query.
What does that mean in practice?
- If you’re searching for a product, search engines want to direct you to reputable online stores where it’s easy to find and buy what you’re looking for.
- If you want information, their goal is to send you to the most reliable and accurate resource on that topic.
- If you’re looking for entertainment, they’ll try to match you with the content that best fits your preferences.
A few years ago, search engines relied on “signals” to determine whether a site was a good match for a given query: the site’s content, the frequency of certain words, inbound links from other websites, and so on.
Today, search engines have access to a vast amount of data. They can track how long a user spends on a page, whether they return to it repeatedly, and in theory could even determine whether a user ends up making a purchase.
All of this means that at the foundation of any SEO effort lies a single principle: making your website work effectively for the purpose it was built for.
Ranking highly for a keyword only pays off if users actually find what they’re looking for and have a positive experience. Otherwise, search engines will gradually lose confidence in your site and reduce its visibility over time.
GOOD SIGN: GENUINE INTEREST IN YOUR BUSINESS
As Google’s video points out, it’s very hard to do good SEO work without understanding the goals of the website you’re helping to promote. An agency that doesn’t ask who your customers are, who your competitors are, or what makes your products special will struggle to help you in any meaningful way.
Contrary to what many people believe, high-level SEO requires strong communication skills and a real understanding of the business. It’s not just about making your website speak the language of your customers — it also involves building relationships within your industry and, above all, understanding the company’s goals and strategy.
GOOD SIGN: STRONG COMMUNICATORS
Especially on larger projects, an SEO professional needs to communicate and collaborate with a wide range of people: designers, marketing and communications teams, developers, senior management, and more.
Part of the work in this field involves educating different parts of the organization about how search engines work, making it easier to align and coordinate efforts.
That’s why an SEO professional who can explain a complex ranking strategy, metric, or task in terms you actually understand is usually the real deal.
GOOD SIGN: TRANSPARENCY
Any provider who tries to lock you in at all costs when they’re not delivering results is not a good partner. In the world of online marketing agencies, this often shows up as attempts to confuse clients with jargon-heavy language, skewed data, or reports too complex for anyone without specialist knowledge to follow.
A good professional, on the other hand, understands that their work may sometimes deliver results below expectations. After all, there are many factors outside their control — from the product itself to the company’s internal dynamics and market conditions. In those cases, the smartest move for an agency is to give honest advice and redirect resources to a project where their efforts can be more effective. This approach lets the agency focus on projects with real growth potential, retain clients longer, and avoid the conflicts and reputational damage that can harm their business in the long run.
For all these reasons, a good SEO professional or agency will always help you define and track the metrics that are straightforward for you to understand and follow. The most basic ones are:
- Number of visits from search engines (from users who spend a meaningful amount of time on the page).
- Revenue growth from organic search.
- Improvement in rankings for specific keywords.
Beyond that, SEO involves a great deal of experimentation, and progress is made in part through trial and error. Clear, transparent metrics allow everyone to quickly spot when something isn’t working and take corrective action.
TIP: ALWAYS START WITH AN AUDIT
As Google recommends, a good way to begin is by requesting an initial audit (which may come at a cost). While it requires an upfront investment, it will always be less costly than committing six months to the wrong agency.
An agency that delivers a poorly structured audit with vague suggestions and hard-to-verify metrics is unlikely to be capable of guiding you toward a better user experience or improving how your site communicates with both search engines and your own customers.
In the audit, what you’re asking the agency or professional to do is:
- Assess your current situation.
- Identify the main weaknesses and opportunities on your website.
- Suggest specific actions, with a clear explanation of the expected outcomes.
- Define metrics to determine whether the recommended actions have worked.
- Outline a general medium- to long-term strategy for improving your website’s visibility.
Ideally, as Google suggests, each recommended action in the audit should be backed by a link or document — either from Google itself or from a reputable source — to support the suggestions.
Whether due to lack of knowledge or other reasons, outdated or flawed SEO strategies get applied more often than they should — and they can seriously harm your business. That’s why any external information that validates a recommendation ultimately benefits everyone.
Illustration: Designed by roserodionova / Freepik
