The field of SEO is always changing, but one thing that stays the same is the importance of producing quality content as a strategy to improve rankings.  Regardless of how many times Google changes their algorithm, valuable, authentic content should always be the foundation of your SEO link-building efforts.  But you can’t just write content, post it on your website and expect your rankings to skyrocket.  Your content must be optimized to its fullest potential in order to positively impact your SEO, and THIS is why many businesses are hiring content services companies.  Most of the time these services don’t come cheap, so if it’s something you’re considering for your business make sure you do your research ahead of time.  What should you expect to get when hiring a content services team?  What are some red flags that tell you it might be time to look for a new company?  Read on to learn more!

What does it mean to optimize your content?

Just in case you’re not convinced of the merit of ensuring your content is optimized on your website, know this- even the most successful SEO companies use content strategy as the basis for all their other SEO efforts.  It is near impossible to rank well on Google or any other search engine without having a well thought out, organized content strategy.  That being said, you should never pay someone to do something that you don’t completely understand yourself.  Optimized content means that it contains keywords that have been researched for their search potential and competition (check out Google Keyword Planner for this), it’s high quality (no spelling/grammar errors, the information is valuable, etc.), it contains internal links to other content on your site, and it’s authentic (not copied or duplicated from your site or anyone else’s).  While it isn’t necessarily difficult to do this (as long as you’re comfortable with writing and keyword research) it CAN be incredibly time consuming, hence why so many content writing services are popping up online.

What to look out for when hiring a content team

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Any content services team worth their salt will need information from your website before they can begin.  They should ask for access to your Google Analytics account, Adwords account (if you have one), and all your social media accounts so that they can do an assessment of what content is already performing well and what isn’t.

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Prior to doing any keyword research, they should ask you what keywords you want to rank for.  In addition, they should ask what your goals are for your company and use this information to determine a direction for the keyword research.

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I always recommend doing an audit of your website before you implement any new strategies.  You don’t want to be 6 months in to a new marketing strategy only to find out that you’re not seeing results because Google isn’t indexing any of your pages.  So either you need to do a complete website audit before bringing on a team and then share your results with them, or they should offer to perform the audit for you.  If you go with the latter, make sure you receive an extensive report of everything that’s working well as well as what isn’t working.  The audit should help set a direction for your marketing plan going forward, including your content strategy.

A content services team should be very transparent about their methods and their findings.  If you find that you’re not receiving good communication from the team, it might be time to look in another direction.  They shouldn’t be secretive about anything they’re doing, and while sometimes it’s hard to discuss SEO without using some jargon, overall they should communicate their methods with you in a way that you can understand.  Beware of any lofty promises; no one can guarantee you the first slot on a Google results page.  In addition, SEO takes time to see results, so be cautious of anyone promising quick progress.  They should give you (at the minimum) monthly performance reports with an explanation of all the figures they present to you.

To sum it all up:

1) It’s imperative that you have a solid content strategy developed in order to optimize your search engine rankings.  If this isn’t something you feel comfortable creating on your own, then it’s recommended that you hire a content services team.

2) If you decide to go with a team, make sure they are up front and transparent about all their goals and strategies, and that these things are communicated to you in a way that you can understand.

3) They should be using up to date methods to optimize your content and nothing should be shady or secretive.  These methods should be developed after an extensive analysis of your Analytics, Adwords, and Social Media accounts.

4) Keyword strategy is a huge element and should link back to your overall goals for your business.

Have you had experience hiring out for content services?  What did you like/ not like about the experience?  Are there any additional services you wish they would have offered?  Comment in the section below!

Image 1: analytics.google.com

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Image 3: ads.google.com