How important is an SEO agency to rank their Agency Site for Main Buyer Intent Keyword?



Chris M. Walker 👑🎩
Scale of 1 – 10
How important is if for an SEO agency to rank their agency site?
What should they rank for?
21 👍🏽2 💟24130 💬🗨

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Mughal
SEO agency.
I rank #1 for this term here.
Is it important? No.
Is it a powerful selling point? Absolutely.
Do some clients care? Probably.

Chris M. Walker ✍️ 👑 » Mughal
Is it a powerful selling point? Like you've had prospects tell you that's why they signed up?
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James » Chris M. Walker
I would not think that you need to hear that they chose you from that. That is a bonus, but it is the unspoken ones who did not choose you that cost you millions you will never know about.
Mughal
It's not why they sign up, they always sign up because they want the result of ranking.
It reduces friction in the sales process.
It doesn't stop you from being involved in "agency shopping".
James » Mughal
It 100% stops the agency shopping. If I am looking for an SEO agency I am 100% checking them out. I am also finding them via Google too because I have a need that I am googling. I am skipping 100% by Pay Per Click (PPC) to organic results for SEO services.


Edward
What has their own rankings to do with anything?
All that should matter to potential clients is how that SEO companies client sites rank, and what customers have to say.

James » Edward
I would assume those are not their clients' websites and it is a fake. We live in a fake world with people trying to scam people. If I cannot find them on the web then I am skipping. Sure you can make money from people who are not like me but there are a lot like me who want to work with an agency that has organic proof by their own website.
Edward » James
So, in short, then you appear to be saying anyone that doesn't follow your line of thinking is an assumed liar?
Cynicism is a dangerous trait, but can also be a good one.
Let me give you an example.
Let's say I was to give you a company like Adobe.inc as a reference, and also provide you with a contact within that company, you seem to be saying that no matter those facts being verifiable, you'd assume it is a scam?
On the other hand, if one were to use black hat methods to get the site ranking highly, or if they had employed a company to get the site ranking (I have clients selling SEO services) you'd assume they are good at their Job? 😃
As I said, cynicism is a double-edged sword.
Also as you said, there are people like you and there are others. In Yorkshire there's a saying "there's nothing as different as people, takes all sorts" That isn't the actual saying, I've paraphrased it as it uses the word 'queer' but in the traditional meaning of the word that being 'quirky/odd/different.
I guess there's no right or wrong way to pick a company, that's what makes the world such a fun place 🙂
James » Edward
I agree with you. The long of the short and the short of the long is that most people do not have on their resume Adobe. Those are the rare elk that people assume are a ghost because very very few only see it and when they do they do not have their gun, and the rest of us never see it. How many people in here have worked for Adobe as an outside SEO agency? The rest of the SEO people, need to have proof of quality. With this said you can make a living off of cold calling people but why not do Search Engine Optimization (SEO) on your own site and cold calling. Cold calling is hunting where having a website that does all of the talking for you is bass fishing. There are emotional purchasers and then there are ones who want the proof. You can collect emotional purchasers and I would guess those will fire you within 90 days and the juice will not be worth the squeeze. The issue with SEO websites is that there is a zillion of you so the ranking battle is a tough battle.
Edward » James
Agreed, that's why personal referrals are the best, as the person referred already has a relationship with the person that referred the company, and trusts what they have said as being accurate 🙂
James » Edward
Those and your friends yes. Who is or who will be the Zillow or Opendoor of SEO. Market disruptions occur and the little person in the business who only has SOI and past clients will struggle. A platform model like Legiit that spends a zillion dollars to be found will be the winner at the end. It can have agency-level and gig-level services.


Joshua
It's very important….. when I ran my first business I hired an SEO guy and part of the reason was because he was ranked 1st for my city + keyword. It might not be a selling point to every potential client but it can never be considered a negative so therefore it's a net positive.

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George
Ranking your agency is always a big plus when selling SEO services. Not much needed to show to client if they find me first on local see + I show them a couple of country wide rankings of clients .
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Ben Allen 🎓🎩
I've received a LOT of leads from ranking #1 on Maps for digital marketing. But no prospects have straight up mentioned my rankings as a selling point one way or the other. No one turned me down because I didn't rank for "SEO Agency".
And I wasn't even trying to rank #1 in Maps for digital marketing, the other agencies were just incredibly bad at it.
Rick
it's 10/10 important. If you're a fitness instructor yet you're a slob or have the disgusting habit of smoking then nobody should hire your for fitness. Same for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Be THE evidence of the very thing you're trying to sell. How's the logic go with some of these responses? I'm so busy getting OTHER people in shape I haven't' had time to get in shape myself. Gmafb.

Andrew » Rick
Literally means zilch to have your own site rank. If you do good enough work you will get referrals for work regardless. I put 0 effort into my own site because I get everyone referring me work.
Rick » Andrew
Re: "literally means zilch to have your own site rank." You're not intelligent enough about this particular subject to speak about it. Clean up the hyperbole then start over.
Andrew » Rick
Maybe if you could actually read and not be a douche you could understand what I'm talking about. Clearly you don't do good enough work to get leads via referral so maybe you should go back to school to learn both?
Bowie » Rick
It's not important to prove yourself to clients. They don't check your SEO. It's more important for a healthy marketing mix to include the channel.
You proof your strategies through analytics and case studies, not if your site ranks or not.
A person looking for a personal training can see if their trainers strategies work. It's surface level. Not so much for a site being on the Search Engine Result Pages (SERP)s.
James » Bowie
It is important. I am a consumer and I 100% look if they rank or not in competitive key phrases. Referrals are important but I know people who get enough referrals in life to live in their dad's basement and act successful and they are not. If it is a real business netting millions of dollars a year they will most likely have things that look like a business. I get cold calls and cold emails and cold PMs all the time, and I ignore them. I know others do not ignore them. If you are looking to land companies who will trust you and let you run with it and pay you $5,000, $10,000, $100,000 a month, etc then you probably are going to need a resume that proves your work. Word of mouth 100% can do it when you are that great, but most will need to have a website that proves it. If SEO is important for your clients to use it then it should be important for you to use it on yourself. Not here to convert your mind. I am just a consumer of Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Bowie » James
That's fine, you won't change my mind. You're definitely an anomaly as far as clients go. I'm not shooting from the hip, nor am I a freelancer with a couple of years of experience- I'm speaking as someone who has been directly linked to closing sales and client management over the last 10 years at multiple agencies. I've worked with everything from billion dollar medtech companies and cloud based software companies to small ma and pa shops.
The reality of it is that the budget does not matter. People don't check 99% of the time to see if their agency ranks. As a consumer, you don't know their keyword strategy, what their kpis are or if they are focused on lead gen from other channels in their marketing mix. Without this knowledge, it doesn't really matter what you see them rank for. Are they focused on white label services for most of their book of business or are they looking for direct clients? You don't know.
They want to see evidence of past clients that look like them or a SOW that outlines the work they already know needs to be done. The key here for the vendor is to bring qualified traffic that their site qualifies by doing the heavy lifting before the sales team speaks with them. That's all they care about.
James » Bowie
This leads me to wonder how big of a market are people like myself. I understand working for proven agencies and their resume of service. Yet, I know most people do not have the same benefit of that, so they are stuck either prospecting (cold calling) or marketing and or advertising. Skeptics like myself to people who call me and people I find on Pay Per Click (PPC) do not earn my attention. This leaves two groups for me (referral and organically found).
Bowie » James
Are you doing commercial or residential?
James » Bowie
Residential. Why?
Bowie » James
The approach is often different. Residential, you have fair housing laws to abide by on ads. Commercial, not so much. Also you'd use different channels for marketing commercial.
I'm surprised PPC didn't work better for you- are you using any of Zillow's services? I've been curious about their marketing stack offers for the apartments I market currently. My personal real estate broker uses NextDoor and has a pretty solid lead stack off of that, but our market is small.
Also, are you guys doing any traditional marketing? Postcards, etc. If you ever want to try Hulu ads, I have a decent cost effective self service platform for streaming services.
Side note- I'm endlessly fascinated by the real estate market. The Pacific Northwest saw home values skyrocket during the pandemic due to lack of inventory…curious if it's the same for you guys?
James » Bowie
I actually own multi companies. My model is constantly changing. Within different markets my residential business is different. Some markets is prospect based, others is ppc, others is relationships like Zillow, etc. where in the NW are you? Oregon is home to me.
Bowie » James
I grew up in PDX! I'm just a little north now- bought a house in Longview WA and currently commute to PDX for work. What part of Oregon are you from?
James » Bowie
Eugene area. My family is from the blue river area ti be exact.
But family in Dundee and tigerton or something like that. Small town by Portland.
Bowie » James
My dad lives on the Mckenzie. I know the area well
James » Bowie
Very nice. My great grandfather and great uncles went from Ireland to the USA then by horse and buggy across the Oregon trail to claim their land there.


Fredrik
There's no relevance between ranking their own site and what the SEO Agency can do for you. A non-ranked Agency, a SEO-newbie can be the perfect match for you, your niche, your goal and you budget. If someone here says the opposite then please explain why the # 1 SEO Agency don't have all the # 1 sites that ever paid for SEO and Ranking in their Portfolio? They don't, do they? Well. That's the answer and it's that it has 0 (zero) importance.
Agui
If you have no problems acquiring clients through referrals, social media, and Pay Per Click (PPC) ads, then you probably don't need it. Less work. Why not? Business owners are more impressed with case studies of brands in their category that you've successfully handled than your own success story on ranking for SEO keywords.
Chris M. Walker ✍️ 👑
Its interesting to me that the bulk of the answers are "Yes absolutely 100%" or "No. Literally not at all" with very few people in the middle.

Holgate 🎩 » Chris M. Walker
Okay I'll be that guy and change my score to a 5 then 😋

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Holgate 🎩
7… A lot of agencies started out as freelancers and had to hussle to get work at first and never got round to ranking their own site. Then they were too busy to work on their on website when established… I know a lot of multimillion dollar agencies who've never ranked their own site.
Many also get work directly on social media these days, meaning the need to do it is less.
I've also found the quality of client to be far less coming directly from ranked SEO or even Web Design websites and most agencies know it's not necessary a good Return of Investment (RoI) to rank their own site compared to other methods so it goes to the back of the que… I know this sounds hypocritical but some niches are just better than others for ranking.
I think case studies are far more important and especially if you specialise in a niche.

Kumar » Holgate
I agreed. I never promote my website. but we are working with a lot of clients.
We will focus on our clients projects, and Keywords ranking.
Shafiq » Holgate
Agree… About 10% to 20% agencies pay attention on their own website and SEO other either get busy with client projects or never get any project.


Pizano
5. I'm 50/50
I have a Google My Biz (GMB) that I've optimized for my business but normally I never get asked about my own rankings just what I can do for a potential client. I show real results that I've generated for my clients and that usually closes them
Brian
Absolutely it's the only proof that you know what you are doing if you haven't got yourself up their in the rankings you are living a lie. Check me out yourself the proof of the pudding is in the eating NO?
DzuniLu
Most digital agencies who are bragging they rank for their business keywords are either pretty large corporate handling 200+ accounts with team they can spare for their own site OR someone who aren't busy enough for their clients because they can't deliver shit.
So many agencies today are hiring people from 3rd world country and they're actually doing the real work and literally the ones ranking their clients, which means many (not all) don't have the skills to deliver results.

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