Should You Fire Your SEO Agency? 3 Signs The Time Has Come

Is your SEO agency driving growth or just draining your budget?

Many businesses stick with underperforming agencies out of habit, but the cost of complacency can be steep.

If you’re not seeing clear ROI, it might be time to reevaluate the partnership.

The problem? Most marketers don’t know how to directly attribute revenue gains to SEO efforts.

Here’s how to decide if it’s time to cut ties and take control of your search strategy and how to ensure clear ROI from your agencies’ efforts.

TLDR;

• Watch for warning signs from your SEO agency – if they didn’t set clear expectations from the start in terms of forecasting against traffic and conversions (demos/trials), this is likely a bad sign.
• Knowing when to cut ties is important, and it is also crucial to know when to allow enough time to achieve the expected results.
• Select a new agency based on the core signals and factors to consider, preferably one that only works within your space or industry.

Time to Fire Your SEO Agency? Here Are The 3 Key Indicators

Problem #1. Misplaced Focus and Priorities

Some agencies concentrate on activities that seem significant but don’t contribute to real growth.

For example:

• Overemphasizing domain authority
• Overfocused on technical SEO when its not a mover or driver for the vast majority of SaaS/tech businesses when it comes to conversions
• Charging for frequent audits that aren’t necessary for your site

These tasks can inflate costs without providing real value and simply waste time to result.

For SaaS businesses, proper content strategy, SERP research, and quality links will drive 90%+ of results.

Everything else, mostly, will be a waste of time when it comes to owning SERP rankings.

The Solution:

Here at Rock The Rankings, we work to map out our core priorities, which will have a real short-term impact on driving demos and signups.

The SaaS SEO roadmap tackles the common pain point of misplaced priorities often seen with SEO agencies by focusing on impactful, conversion-driven strategies:

Unlike agencies that waste time on low-impact tasks like fixing 404 errors or creating excessive new content, this roadmap emphasizes four high-priority actions: reducing index bloat, optimizing product pages, leveraging competitor comparison pages, and improving existing content.

Each step targets specific areas that drive measurable results, such as boosting high-intent traffic and improving rankings for key terms.

By realigning efforts toward these proven strategies, businesses can achieve faster, more meaningful organic growth without waiting 12+ months for outcomes.

Problem #2. Limited Communication and Transparency

When working with an SEO agency, having clear and open lines of communication is crucial.

This can be a red flag if your agency isn’t regularly updating you on its efforts or progress.

They should provide detailed reports about their activities and results, ensuring you understand the real impact on conversion metrics – not fluff, vanity metrics.

Additionally, a lack of communication can lead to a breakdown in trust, making it difficult to effectively collaborate.

Remember, it’s your business or your marketing team, and you deserve to know how your SEO efforts are being handled.

The Solution:

Any agency should be providing clarity on direction and progress, including how we work at Rock The Rankings:

1. Clear deliverables & forecasting pre-kickoff: We build a custom marketing strategy for every client we work for, pre-engagement to map out the exact step-by-step action plan and forecast off the back of that to understand the impact in terms of conversions we can expect and set clear conservative conversion goals for the campaign, not traffic goals.
2. Weekly check-ins & Slack support: We can be reached via Slack for quick questions and consulting. Otherwise, we have weekly check-in calls to ensure we’re making progress and taking time to dive into the details.
3. Attribution setup: A solid agency should be able to get proper attribution set up, to track and tie against SEO efforts to actual conversions driven.

For low ACV, PLG-focused products, when leveraging GA4 we always set up direct conversion tracking via custom reports:

GA4 will provide direct conversion metrics when properly configured to track out SEO conversions from the initial landing page to sign-up.

Problem #3. Ranking for Non-Beneficial Keywords or Traffic Growth but No Conversions

SEO success isn’t just about keyword rankings.

It’s important to target keywords that bring right-fit traffic to your site.

Some agencies might fixate on vanity metrics, celebrating rankings that don’t meaningful traffic or conversions.

It’s quite common to see a jump in organic traffic, yet you find out the agency has been overly focused on winning easy TOFU (top-funnel) rankings where searchers are likely no where close to looking for a product or service, rather consuming informational content.

It’s crucial to partner with an agency that focuses on generating quality traffic that aligns with your business goals.

The Solution:

Prioritizing bottom-of-the-funnel (BOFU) keywords in your SEO strategy can significantly drive conversions and generate better ROI.

Bottom funnel keywords are where searchers already know that a solution like yours exists, they simply need to know that you exist and understand better that you get their core pain, that you can solve that pain, and provide them with their desired outcome.

How to Rank for Bottom of the Funnel Keywords

To successfully rank for bottom-of-the-funnel (BoFU) keywords and boost conversion rates, you need to create well-crafted content that targets audience searching with high purchase intent.

1. Perform SERP & Intent Analysis

You can assume a keyword’s search intent – which is where many writers and marketers go wrong.

Before ever building a page that’s meant to rank in Google, you always first want to analyze the SERPs to ensure that you’re building the right type of content to meet the search intent:

How to do it?

Simply Google your target keyword, and take note of the top 10 ranking pages:

• What is the searcher looking for? Information? Solutions?
• What kind of content is showing up in the SERP? How-to articles? Landing pages? Listicles?

When you try to optimize an article or landing page for SEO, including keywords won’t be enough, you need to ask yourself these fundamental marketing questions and make sure that content resonates, but also is built to be able to rank in Google.

If you try to rank a how-to article when all of the competing articles are listings for that given keyword, you’re likely going to fail while.

2. Page Structure Design

Designing the structure of a webpage plays a crucial role in ranking for bottom-of-the-funnel keywords, which are integral to driving conversions.

Effective page design incorporates various elements that align with content strategy and emphasize user experience:

• Navigation: Clear and intuitive navigation ensures that users can easily find what they are looking for, which is particularly important for service pages and landing pages offering webinars and demos.
• Content Layout: It should be organized logically with headings, subheadings, and bullet points to improve readability. This organization guides users through the content, from highlighting the features of a service to directing them toward a call to action.
• Use of Multimedia: Integration of relevant images, videos, and infographics can help explain the service or product in more detail, making blog posts and content more engaging and persuasive.
• Call to Action (CTA): Strong CTAs are prominent and well-placed, encouraging users to take the next step, whether that’s signing up for a webinar or requesting a demo.

Throughout the design process, focus on creating a user-centric page that facilitates a smooth path to conversion.

3. Craft Compelling Copy and Content Around The Core Problem

The Problem

To properly structure your page, it all starts with your potential customer’s problem.

What is the number one thing that’s keeping them up at night?

What’s causing them pain and agony during their workday that they’d pay any amount to solve?

B2B SaaS customers purchase a product because it solves a problem.

If you can clearly state the problem that your product solves:

1. You’re giving them an actual reason to sign up for a trial or a demo of your product
2. You’re reminding them of the specific problem they have and reminding them how badly they want to fix it ASAP

You need to truly understand the primary problem they have, which is the one they’re willing to pay for to fix with your solution.

Further Reading: Copywriting Best Practice for SaaS

The Desired Outcome

The next is focusing on the desired result or outcome they’ll feel after using your product.

They have a primary problem they’re looking to solve, right?

By solving this problem, what’s the desired outcome and result?

Here are a few examples:

• Save over $X during the next 6 months
• Increasing revenue by X% in the next 4 weeks
• Reducing canceled subscriptions by X% over the next 12 months

What is it they want to achieve by solving this specific problem?

The more you can quantify the cost of not fixing the problem itself, along with the more you can help your potential customers understand the desired outcome they want to achieve and visualize how you’ll help them achieve that – the more you’re going to connect and be able to convert.

4. Optimize On-Page SEO

Optimizing on-page SEO is a critical step for ranking bottom-of-the-funnel keywords, which are instrumental for any content marketing strategy aiming at conversion:

• Keyword Placement: Strategic placement of organic keywords is essential. The central areas include the title tag, headings (H1, H2, etc.), introductory paragraph, concluding paragraph, and within the body text where it reads naturally. Bold or italicize keywords occasionally for emphasis, but do not overdo this as it can appear manipulative to search engines.
• Meta Descriptions and Tags: A compelling meta description with the targeted keyword encourages click-throughs from the search engine results page (SERP). Meanwhile, meta tags should clearly define the content’s subject matter, employing relevant bottom funnel keywords without stuffing.
• URL Structure: URLs should be concise, readable, and include keywords. Complex URLs are not only challenging for users to comprehend but can also diminish the SEO value.
• Image Optimization: Any included images should have descriptive, keyword-rich file names and alt text, improving accessibility and reinforcing the page’s thematic relevance.
• Internal Linking: Internal links to content further down the funnel can keep users engaged, reduce bounce rates, and help search engines understand the site’s structure.
• Content Quality: The content must be detailed, accurate, and valuable to the user, reflecting best practices in the content marketing strategy and bolstering the keyword’s relevance.

Further Reading: On-Page SEO Guide

5. Build Links!

The final ingredient in the recipe is building links.

Without links, you’re going to struggle to be able to rank in many cases due to competition in the SERPs.

Links include both:

• External backlinks: links from third-party websites that link directly to your BOFU pages.
• Internal links: internal links that connect your BOFU pages and other relevant content.

Getting “natural” backlinks to your bottom-funnel pages is easier said than done.

There are different ways to approach landing links to these pages, but generally, getting backlinks to other pages and properly internally linking can also help to satisfy the links required to rank in the top positions of the SERPs.

Key Qualities of an Effective SEO Agency

1. Concentrates on Return on Investment

Return on investment should be a focal point for any SEO agency.

Choose an agency that emphasizes measurable returns (demos, trials, pipeline) and holds itself accountable for demonstrating the value of their efforts.

Any SEO agency worth their weight should be:

1. Forecasting at the beginning of an engagement
2. Walking back their actions against the forecasting
3. Setting clear conservative goals of what’s achievable over a given time in terms of conversions
4. Working agains that goal, and reevaluating and setting new goals at the end of the given period.

2. Delivers Steady Outcomes

Successful SEO requires consistent effort and results over time.

Quick wins might be exciting, but steady progress is what truly builds success.

Instead of pursuing short-lived spikes in traffic, an effective agency will aim for gradual and continuous growth.

If you’re starting to plateau, it might be time to get a second set of eyes on your current efforts.

3. Prioritizes Your Company and Its Needs

When choosing an SEO agency, finding one that treats the partnership as more than just a transaction is vital.

Look for an agency that genuinely invests in your company’s growth.

You don’t want an agency that assigns you a junior account manager with 1-2 years experience, juggling 30-40+ accounts at a time.

The right agency will take time to grasp your business dynamics, dedicate time to crafting a strategy that will result in real business impact, and be available to consult and offer guidance when needed.

4. Embraces Adaptation and Innovation

Search trends and techniques can shift rapidly, so it’s crucial for an SEO agency to keep pace with these changes.

An example of this is the recent shift in Google’s AI overviews, as well as the emergence of SearchGPT.

A progressive agency should experiment with fresh tactics and be on top of algorithm changes, as well as what’s coming down the pike.

SEO and search will continue to evolve, and any great agency will be on top of those changes.

5. Communicates Transparently and Regularly

Effective communication is the backbone of a successful partnership with an SEO agency.

You want an agency that over communicates keeps you informed about campaign progress and wins – this is imperative for internal team motivation, especially knowing that in some cases, results may not always be short-term.

Again – the best thing you can do is to avoid those that assign you to overloaded account managers who rarely update you.

This is the typical experience you’ll find with larger agencies, that are often times churning and burning clients.

Final Thoughts on Firing Your Agency

If your SEO agency isn’t driving clear ROI, it might be time to cut ties and take control of your strategy.

Watch for red flags like misplaced priorities, such as focusing on vanity metrics or low-impact technical fixes instead of driving conversions.

Effective agencies prioritize actions that lead to tangible business outcomes, like demos or signups and maintain open, transparent communication with regular updates.

To ensure success, choose an agency that focuses on your specific industry, adapts to evolving SEO trends, and consistently delivers measurable results.