We’ve spent more than 10 years figuring out how to build our business, how to grow our culture, and how to create an awesome place to work. So we know firsthand that running a digital marketing agency is no easy feat.
It’s especially difficult when you try to do everything yourself. Whether you think you’ll be saving money and time or you simply like the idea of wearing many hats, the reality is that you’ll quickly become overwhelmed without support.
In many cases, joining an SEO reseller program can allow you to access the help you deserve while keeping costs low and maximizing client satisfaction. But do you know how to choose an SEO company for your agency? We’ll take a closer look at what an SEO firm like ours can do for your business, what makes white-labeled services different, and how to choose a white label SEO company that’s a great fit for your goals.
How Can an SEO Company Help Your Business?
Before we even delve into tips for choosing a white label SEO provider, you’ll first want to know what an SEO provider can do for your agency.
For one thing, an SEO provider can help to fill the knowledge gaps that might be keeping your campaigns from reaching their full potential. If you feel limited by your own skillset, you might not see the results you’ve been hoping for. That can lead to customer dissatisfaction, which can hurt your brand reputation and your ability to grow.
You might even steer clear of offering SEO services, which are always in high demand, due to your lack of experience in this area. Unfortunately, that might cause potential customers to work with a competitor instead.
When you try out some tips for choosing a white label SEO provider, you’ll be able to zero in on the company that can help you increase your knowledge and your product offerings. Rather than turn down clients, you can offer increased capabilities that will keep your customers around.
But what if you already have a solid foundation of search engine optimization and other digital marketing services? You might assume that you won’t ever need to know how to choose an SEO reseller. After all, why would you outsource when you’re fully capable of doing it yourself?
However, it’s important to realize that many of our agency partners come to us for reasons other than a lack of expertise. In fact, most resellers would theoretically be able to fulfill at least some SEO services on their own. Frequently, agency owners seek out fulfillment help so they can focus on other areas of their business.
We often hear from our agency partners that they want more time to focus on sales. They want to grow their business without being bogged down with onsite optimization and product delivery. They like talking to clients and want to scale, but they don’t want to write content, analyze websites, or monitor campaign performance all the time.
That’s when you need to know how to choose a white label SEO company. We handle all of the behind-the-scenes tasks and make it easy for you to access the campaign data you need. That’ll free up your time and allow you to grow your business in other ways. When you don’t have to worry about fulfillment, you’ll often get better results for your existing clients (which means higher retention rates!) and more resources for customer acquisition.
It’s also worth noting that choosing to outsource your SEO fulfillment can help cut costs. Although many business owners assume that DIY = savings, you could end up spending (or losing) more if you don’t have the in-house knowledge or resources to handle client demand. You could risk making a costly mistake or significantly adding to your overhead when you DIY or hire someone yourself.
By outsourcing your fulfillment to an experienced SEO company, you’ll gain instant access to the extra hands and the expertise you’re after at an affordable, wholesale price.
What is a White Label SEO Company?
Now that you have a better understanding of what a partnership with an SEO company could do for your business, you might be wondering about white label SEO.
White-labeling is a practice that’s found across a variety of industries. Most people are probably most familiar with this concept when they purchase a house brand item at a grocery store or pharmacy. Even if the product is labeled with the recognizable name of the chain store, it most likely wasn’t produced by that brand itself. Instead, it was sourced or manufactured by a third party. Before ending up on store shelves, it was “white-labeled” as the house brand.
This indicates a mutually beneficial relationship between the main brand and its vendors. The vendor gets to sell its high-quality products to a well-known chain and enjoy the perks of a long-term relationship with said chain. The chain, in turn, gets to increase its offerings to customers while maintaining its brand reputation. The customer never knows about the third-party vendor, but the products are sold and enjoyed.
White label SEO follows the same concept. When an agency owner joins our SEO reseller program, they gain access to our white label dashboard. This allows both our partners and their clients to track the performance of their campaigns, all while keeping our identity a secret. The dashboard will be branded with your agency’s name and logo to eliminate confusion and ensure a consistent brand identity.
For our part, we’ll take care of deliverable fulfillment based on the SEO plan you choose. Our plans can include everything from initial audits and added website copy to monthly blog posts, link-building services, phone tracking, keyword research, and more. You’ll no longer have those responsibilities on your plate and we’ll always ensure on-time delivery. What’s more, your clients will receive the services and support they expect all under your own agency’s label.
What Should You Look For in an SEO Provider?
Now that you understand what a white label SEO company does, it’s time to learn how to choose a white label SEO company for long-term growth. Here are just a few of the factors you’ll want to look for as you go through the important process of choosing an SEO fulfillment partner.
- U.S.-Based Services: If your agency is located in the United States, it’s usually to your benefit to work with vendors who are also located stateside. Generally speaking, this can make it much easier to communicate. But it’s also important to make sure that all of the firm’s employees or contractors are also U.S.-based. This can impact everything from content quality and keyword research to company culture.
- Transparency and Integrity: When you outsource your SEO, you’ll have a lot of options available to you. But it’s important to remember that cost shouldn’t necessarily be the top determining factor in your decision. Certainly, affordability will be a priority for your business. However, values like transparency and integrity should also be at the top of the list. Be sure to ask your possible providers about the values that guide their organization and how they approach mistakes or customer service issues. Do they conduct autopsies without blame? Do they jump on a call to make things right? Will they admit when they’ve made an error? This can tell you a lot about their commitment to customer service and how they’ll behave when something inevitably doesn’t go totally according to plan. If you feel the provider shies away from accountability or doesn’t seem to be forthcoming about the optimization methods they use, keep looking for the right fit.
- Hands-On Communication: Communication should be a huge consideration when learning how to choose an SEO reseller program to join. Some SEO companies will communicate with you only up to the point where you sign on; from then on, you’ll be lucky to hear from them every few months. In order to maximize your campaign success, both parties need to be willing and eager to keep the lines of communication open. The resellers who fare best with us want to communicate on a regular basis. We offer monthly or even weekly calls with our resellers to ensure we stay on top of progress and make any necessary changes to provide the best possible outcomes. If you haven’t even signed with an agency yet and you’re having trouble getting them on the phone or getting an answer to your email, assume they aren’t the one for you.
- World-Class Reviews: With so many SEO providers out there, how can you be sure you’re making the right choice? Online reviews are a great place to start. Any reputable SEO company will be invested in managing their own reputation. So if you come across a firm with very few or only negative reviews, beware. Check out the most popular platforms (like Facebook, Google My Business, and Yelp) to see what current and former customers are saying. You’ll want to see how they respond, as well. You might even look for reviews from employees on platforms like Glassdoor to get an insider’s look at their culture and business practices.
- Proof of Competency: There’s really no guarantee with SEO, but you’ll understandably want some kind of proof of the agency’s competency before you join a reseller program. You might have the opportunity to connect with other agency owners who use these outsourced services, which can provide you with some first-hand knowledge of what the program is like. You may also be able to access some case studies, which can tell you a lot about the firm’s expertise and the results they’ve gotten for their clients in the past. Of course, you’ll want to ensure that the agency is following all of the best SEO practices. Other resources like white papers, webinars, and even free tools can showcase the provider’s caliber of competency and put your mind at ease when making this decision.
- Aligned Goals: When entering into any partnership, you’ll want to make sure your goals are aligned. You should have some specific goals in mind for your own agency, whether that involves getting more website traffic or bringing on more clients within a specific niche. But you’ll also want to know more about the goals of your agency partner and whether they’ll be able to support you as you scale. At Semify, we believe that growing together creates the freedom to be more. We don’t partner with just anyone -- and we wouldn’t expect you to, either! Making sure our goals are aligned will set both of us up for success. Talk to your list of providers about what their goals are and how they’ll support you in achieving yours. If they can’t provide you with specific enough answers, keep looking until you find a firm that does.
Knowing how to choose an SEO company to grow your agency isn’t always simple. It can feel extremely daunting. It’s essential that you give this decision careful consideration, as the partner you select could have a huge impact on your business as a whole. But with these tips in mind, you’ll know how to choose an SEO company that sets you up for long-term growth. To learn more about joining our white label SEO reseller program, get in touch with our team today.