1- Ensure they have all tools required to succeed: 

SEO doesn’t work on one particular aspect. This means the agency you decide to work with must have a toolkit of manpower and skills so the job can be done right. A reliable SEO company will not only have SEO specialists in India but also developers, skilled content writers, graphic designers and even PR specialists.

This means the job of a reliable SEO agency is to ensure your website is visually pleasing and optimized to its core.

Typically a good agency will have a technical setup, a team of content writers and outreach specialists.

Technical Setup: Besides having a seasoned team of experts, the agency will also be backed up with technical tools and resources. This shows that your work will be done perfectly as per the SEO perspective with the usage of the latest tools that offers the best results.

Team of content writers: Your website needs content almost everywhere. And all of this content needs to target keywords and answer search intent to convert. A reliable SEO agency will use content to help you reach the higher on the Google SERP as well as target the customers to convert them into consumers.

Team of outreach specialists: This is something you definitely want your SEO agency to offer. Lucrative links can only be achieved by producing great content that is appropriate to the topic and will help in attracting links from online publications that are relevant to your industry. Only a good team of outreach specialists are capable of doing the same to get as many organic links as possible.

2- Inspect their link building method: 

When it comes to link building, “quality over quantity” matters greatly. You certainly don’t want links coming from domains with low quality. So that means in order to succeed, you need a proper balance of part quality and part quantity.

And in order to rank higher organically by staying in Google’s guidelines, you will require having as much authority offered by the links as the top-ranking site or the main domain; plus, these links need to come from high-quality domains.

Relevant links from quality domain help Google recognize your website is legitimate and has information that is useful for the audience.

Here are some types of links you will get for your website.

1. Automated links: If you are offered this type of links, then you should avoid working with the agency. This is because automated links are low-quality links produced by automated tools and is typically considered spam by Google. With such links, your site is prone to penalty.
2. Mass paid links: Again, Mass Paid Links are also against Google’s guidelines as it involves creating such links in batches by paying a supplier. These links will also result in a penalty.
3. Free site link farms: Free site link farms is a process where SEO companies create multiple pages with low-quality content on free websites to link back to your site. This method is also considered unethical, resulting in a penalty.
4. Link Baiting: Link baiting is an ethical technique where a company employs a capable team to build link by writing research that is sent to databases of journalists. These journalists use this research and link back it to your site through an article.

3- Check if they contribute to their industry: 

Always inspect the website of the company you wish to work with. Keep an open eye on finding originality and signs that the company invests time in thinking outside the box.

A reliable SEO agency will ensure to contribute to their industry every now and then. They will experiment with methods to get their clients on the top. Likewise, the agency must also continuously investigate the ever-changing and evolving concept of SEO.

4- Understand the pricing you will be paying: 

When you search for SEO agencies online, you will come across various estimates. Some may charge INR 6000/- per month, while some may charge INR 25,000/- per month. This extreme difference can be highly confusing and even result in you thinking if paying more will offer better results.

Generally speaking, an unreliable agency will never charge you a lot. This is because low-end SEO agencies do not have a budget to afford experienced employees or purchase professional technical tools to carry out the job perfectly. So, you must consider before working with an agency that just has two to three employees.

Likewise, time invested in the project matters too. Optimizing a website isn’t an easy task. In order to do SEO right and as per Google’s guidelines, the SEO specialists will need to be patient, meaning the project will require a good amount of days. But a bad agency may try rushing your project by doing little possible job for the little money invested. These agencies may also use black hat tactics, resulting in your website eventually getting a Google penalty.

Later, if you wish to pay more and get the mistakes tackled, it may get challenging for a reliable SEO agency as the damage is already done. So, it is better to wait a good amount of time in researching the best and working only with a good team of experts who offer value for every penny invested in the project.

So, next time if you find an SEO company charging a certain amount, make sure to understand the pricing you will be paying.

5- Ask the right questions: 

Another thing, just research isn’t enough to determine whether the service provider is right for your website or not. It is important that you raise questions that bother you in order to know more about the SEO India agency.

Here we have compiled a list of questions that you must raise when finding an SEO agency:

• Can you provide me with a reference of at least five to ten companies you have worked in the past?
• Can you share the link examples you have managed to earn from your clients?
• Can I get a few samples of content created by you in the past projects?
• Can you give me some examples of keywords that you have ranked for some of your main competitors?
• Do you proactively contribute to experimenting with the new things of SEO?
• How is your agency different from other SEO agency?
• How can you help me in determining which keyword is best for my site? Will these keywords impact the growth of my business in a positive way?
• Does your agency has any keywords? If so, what is the keyword? (They should have a highly ranked keyword. If they don’t, then how will they rank yours?)
• Do you work with freelancers or outsource certain services? (A reliable agency will do every in-house)

The agency must also be keen in asking you questions to learn more about your company, expectations and goals.

6- Keep your eyes on the red flags: 

Well, we have already given you details on what to look for in an SEO company when choosing them. But, there are things you must avoid too. So, here is a list of red flags that you should keep an eye on:

• The company isn’t proactive in offering details of how they obtain the links. (This certainly means that they are using all the wrong techniques and avoiding Google’s Guidelines.)
• The company is offering you link-building package upfront. (Well, this is something that a reliable company won’t be able to guarantee).
• SEO is a highly complex concept. This means it requires a team of experts who work on various aspects. So, if someone says he can handle SEO single-handedly, well, that is a lie.
• If the company shows technical audits or reports of your site through the free website, then it means they are trying to scare you so you can sign a contract.