SEO is a hot button word for just about any company out there. So much so that it’s become a synonym for growth. At least in the digital age, no one can thrive fully without using SEO to their best advantage.
Companies are willing to get the best of the best when it comes to SEO. That’s why they’re often signing up with companies that can get them there fast. And once you find the right one, it’s often a good idea to stay with them.
You might be wondering what happens when you change your search optimization company. And there’s not good about it. But let’s break down what you’ll expect to see if you decide to go down that path for yourself.
First, let’s get it out of the way. You’re not going to be getting a lot jumping ship with your Calgary SEO company. Not only is it a bad idea for being effective with your SEO, but it can also be much worse than that. In a lot of cases, you can actually end up getting some negative growth too. Here are some of the biggest disadvantages to watch out for.
One of the biggest misconceptions about SEO companies is that they are all providing a 1:1 service. Many companies think subbing out SEO company will bring little to no changes. In truth, changing your SEO company isn’t like just changing your cellphone provider.
It’s more like hiring a contractor to handle some construction and changing them halfway through. You’re bringing in someone new to finish the job that someone else already started. That doesn’t mean the new company can just pick off without any problems.
When a new SEO company works with you, they have to consider the best options. That means having to spend time working with you and see what fits. It also means having to look at what the previous company did in their SEO implementation.
They’ll have to carefully decide whether the previous approach is worth continuing, whether it’s not worth continuing, or whether they have to undo everything and start from scratch. As you can imagine, this already takes up a lot of time and effort. And that’s all before they decide to work on their own strategy for SEO.
In the long run, you end up wasting so much time and effort that you could have otherwise utilized. If you end up sticking to one company, you can better use that time and effort to propel yourself in the rankings.
As a result, you’ll end up in a desirable space much easier and faster than if you decide to switch halfway. That’s kind of trade-off you deal with. And considering that time is of key importance in the SEO world, it’s pretty much a no brainer.
When thinking about SEO, it’s always important to keep your eye on the prize. And the ultimate end goal for any optimization practice is always the results that you get after all is said and done. So, when you don’t even get the results that you were so anxiously hoping for, does it even matter in the end?
Rankings have almost always been about consistency. You have to figure out the best approach, work with it, and continue it as long as it can last. After all, SEO isn’t just a short lifehack to success. It’s a long game. And playing by the rules for as long as possible is what gets you there.
This is where the problem comes with changing your SEO company at the drop of a hat. Whatever SEO rankings that the company built up for you can crumble at a moment’s notice, especially since so many of your competitors will be working to increase their advantage over you.
No doubt there will be a period of stagnation between cutting off ties with your old company and starting with the new one. Before they can even pick up the pace, you’ll be subjected to a period of time where you’re not keeping up with your SEO. Or at least, not keeping up with your SEO using the same approach.
It often doesn’t even matter how low or high your company’s rankings are when you make the switch. It’s almost always logically expected for you to take a dip in terms of your rankings.
That spells disaster for any company out there. But even more so when you talk about something like SEO. If it can give you exponential growth, then it can also give you exponential decline.
SEO isn’t just a one size fits all approach that works for everyone out for the box. But that’s not to say that it can’t be made to work for anyone. In fact, that’s fits in line with just what every SEO company does as part of the services it offers.
But making it work for you means having to keep a consolidated amount of knowledge about your business. This can extend to things like what kind of traffic you want to target, what approaches work best for you, the raw numbers that you could achieve before, and much more.
All of that builds up neatly into a business profile that can then be used to drive any further implementations or even keep track of current performance. It’s a valuable resource that you can always fall back on.
What happens when you change companies is the risk of abandoning all that understanding. Or worse, it can change as you enter different approaches and hit different targets. The aspect of consistency and predictability goes out the window. And you will have to start from scratch to build up all that knowledge.
Keep doing it enough, and you essentially have very little to no stability in the source of credible information to maintain such a record. Even if you do have a past record, it becomes very hard to frame it without the right context.
Understanding why the previous company did things a certain way or getting certain results can be a headscratcher in itself. It’s all new work that your new SEO company has to undertake.
Using SEO without proper knowledge isn’t ideal at all. To build your rankings or your qualified traffic, you need to have a basic functional understanding of SEO and how it works. And a lot of that knowledge comes from past performance and analytics.
Because let’s face it, SEO is a long term game. Anyone that tells you otherwise doesn’t realize how it works. Doing the necessary work means you won’t be seeing the results until weeks or even months afterward.
But once you do see the results, it can be helpful to realize which approaches worked and which didn’t even make a dent. And this is data that can be used to roll over in your next SEO implementation. Each time you do this, you go in with more and more knowledge about what the right course of action should be.
On top of having a good understanding, you also need time to build up that knowledge over time. The longer you do it, the better your chances are. This applies equally to your SEO company.
Up until now, your previous company was able to build a good understanding with you by working over a specific period of time. And it’s not only the successes of your performance that matters here either. The shortfalls are equally as important as part of the understanding that’s needed.
For the SEO company, that knowledge now needs to be relearned all over again. For you, that knowledge hits a pause for a long while. Until you can get back up again, you’re essentially stuck in the dark about where you’re at and what you need to do.
Even once you do start working back at filling your SEO knowledge, there might be a lot of things that have changed since then. As a result, you’ll have to throw out any outdated knowledge.
SEO is all about approach. You could have all the necessary tools at your disposal. But until you have the right approach, it can rarely count for anything. And the problem here is that everyone has a different approach that they end up following.
On its own, that might not sound too bad. But when you apply it to something like changing your SEO company, things start to get dicey. Those approaches will undoubtedly clash and cause a big headache for everyone involved.
Think of it as hiring three different artists to work on the same painting or three writers to write the same book. It doesn’t matter how talented they might be individual. When you have a clash of different styles and approaches, that makes everything a jumbled mess.
The same can be said for SEO., Especially considering that SEO isn’t perpetual at all. Each time Google rolls out an update for Google Ads or tweaks its search algorithm, there’s a change to how the system works, how SEO companies choose as their best approach to dealing with these changes, and the dependence on them.
You’re already head to head with your own competitors in the same space, with each of them using their own different approaches. The last thing you need is to be your own competitor by having an internal conflict with your SEO practices.
Not only does your risk diminishing returns, but you can potentially ruin all your hard work, time, and effort. And if that wasn’t enough, you might end up with results worse than you might have before doing any SEO.
The fact is, the system is already complicated enough as it is. And changing SEO companies make it that much more obtuse. That runs very real risks of possible SEO contamination for your brand.
Now that you’ve seen the potentially disastrous effects of changing SEO companies let’s focus on the lighter side. There are also some benefits that you can gain from sticking to the same SEO company apart from just avoiding any particular disadvantages. We’ll be looking at some of these benefits below.
SEO knowledge is something that goes beyond just understanding the pure basics. It has continued to grow and evolve over time. So, it only makes sense that you should grow and evolve with it. At worst, you’ll stay firm in your current position. At best, you’ll be several paces ahead of where you used to be.
This is far from a novel concept. When you make up a strategy for your SEO, you have to channel in data from the past to help complete the puzzle. Getting an audit for your performances is one of the first steps for long term SEO growth.
As you use your SEO techniques, you build up your results and rely on a reliable source of data. And this can only help your SEO company serve you better. You see, it’s not just about having that data on hand, it’s continually updating it and adding to it.
By keeping your SEO in the long term, you ensure that your data never goes to waste. It can continually be used without there ever being a period of stagnation in between that needs to be ignored or overlooked.
And as the backlog of data gets larger and larger, so does the knowledge that comes with it. SEO companies can keep tweaking and fine-tuning their methods based on your growth cycle and adding failures and successes to the log.
They’ll also be able to give you predictions for future results that are more specific and accurate to you. You open the door for more personalization down the line, and any issues faced in the SEO department can be swiftly ironed out at a moment’s notice. That’s something that counts for a lot for growth factors.
Modern SEO can be a lot different in its current state than it used to be a couple of years ago. Improving ranking can get as complicated as it’s possible in a lot of stages. And while using simple basic practices might yield some results, it’s often necessary to go a bit deeper than that.
It’s safe to say that if you’ve enlisted the help of an SEO firm, then you’re aiming much higher than just what some basic tips or tricks can get you. What you’re looking for is professional experience and understanding that can be channeled to suit your individual SEO needs. And that comes at the cost of time. A lot of it, in fact.
It’s also why it’s almost never recommended to keep jumping from company to company to fulfill your optimization needs. Because realistically, you’re talking about a practice that doesn’t net you results until a month later at the least. And you might need several of these cycles to test different approaches and evaluate the right one.
That’s why you should have a dedicated SEO company for longer periods of time. They’re able to hone in on the specifics of vision and what implementation works better for your use cases. When you have a dedicated SEO guy on your team, he’ll be able to give you more personalized offerings.
Even if you have a rock-solid lead on your ranking numbers, there’ll always be room for improvement. And the longer you spend time with the SEO company, the better they’ll be able to identify key areas where your SEO needs improvement and offer personalized suggestions that apply specifically to you. Having that kind of service can be a blessing, especially for businesses that struggle with getting their SEO in order.
Analytics is a holistic part of your SEO plan. Without them, you can not go far. With them, you have the potential to exceed your expectations and plan for future growth.
But it’s not only your analytics that matter. It’s also the kind of analytics you get from SEO as a result. Things like user data, crawl errors, and more increase after you hit a good standing on your ranking and traffic hits.
It’s a cycle that staying with your SEO firm helps you navigate. The more you grow, the more analytics your receive, and the more you can grow from those analytics. Your SEO company will able to help you track them and use them for a fast path to greater success.
Trust and credibility are important in the SEO business. It’s something that’s involved in all facets of the industry. It doesn’t matter if you’re an SEO company, someone looking to increase SEO or even a search engine that sets that tone for how SEO plays out. Trust is key.
If you’re going to be doing business with an SEO firm, you need to know if they’re reliable enough to get you the results that you need. There are plenty of horror stories around for companies that offer high promising goals with vague wording and under deliver on their promises.
Or worse, they can even affect your SEO in negative ways. All it takes suspicious links back to your site or a bad case of keyword stuffing to end up on the blacklist. And that’s when the search algorithms start trusting you less or remove you from results entirely.
It’s that kind of damage that isn’t just hard to roll back but can be permanent and irreversible in the future. That’s something you never want to have to face.
That’s the kind of thing you can expect if you keep switching companies again and again. You’ll never know if you can trust the next one. It’s almost never worth the risk of tainting your SEO and credibility or possibly even receiving penalties in the system. So why do something that risky for the little payoff?
Keeping with one firm will give you much better chances in the long term. That’s because if you know they have been delivering on their promises so far, then there’s no reason to doubt that they won’t continue to do so in the future. You get to lock down your performance without putting your site in jeopardy. For something like SEO, that counts for a lot.
Optimization is a constant practice. The idea is never just to let yourself go. If there’s room for improvement, then it needs to be acted upon, especially in the fast-moving and evolving space of SEO.
Here’s a simple fact. If you’re thinking about using SEO to get ahead, so are your competitors. Even if you occupy the number one spot, it takes just a brief moment of pause for them to pull in ahead of you.
Many companies and individuals have the smart idea of only enlisting SEO companies when they need them. They then let them go when they get the desired results and wait to decline to enlist someone else. This almost never ends up working in their favor.
SEO isn’t a simple on again off again thing. It’s a perpetual battle and one that you might not win by sitting idly. If you’re not keeping up, someone else is. And they’ll be more than glad to take your spot if you just let them.
This is why you need the support of a tried and tested SEO firm that contributes to your growth. Keeping with the same firm guarantees you those benefits over a sustainable period of time. Because at the end of the day, if all you wanted to be cheap momentary growth, it would probably be easier just to drop some money on Google ads.
My name is Michael Chrest , I am the owner of MRC SEO Consulting , I have been working with websites since 2005 and started with a technical background in IT. Having worked with hundred of websites , doing design , technical work and search engine optimization I know what is required to get your website ranking. I spend a lot of time learning new SEO practices to keep up with the constant change Google put in place. Give me a call and let me show you what I can do for you.