SEO is a major part of many business’ online marketing strategies, however, there are also some misconceptions about SEO, how it works, and about the agencies that are hired to do it. In fact, there are many agencies that get calls from would be clients who have to waste time explaining things that are really just a misunderstanding. To help avoid this, businesses should familiarize themselves with the common myths about top SEO agencies.

1. SEO Will Automatically Make Money

Some businesses are under the impression that all they have to do to make money online is to hire an SEO agency, and then the money will come rolling in like a tidal wave. This isn’t the case unfortunately. SEO is designed to deliver hot, buyer-ready traffic to a client’s website, but that on it’s own doesn’t mean that the website will be capable of converting the traffic into sales. There are a lot of factors in play when it comes to making sales, and SEO is just one of them.

In order to avoid this issue, a business should work on optimizing their website, and their sales funnel as a whole, in addition to hiring an SEO firm. This will allow the SEO to do it’s job, and the traffic to be converted into revenue for the business.

2. SEO is a One Time Thing

Another prevalent myth about SEO agencies is the fact that some businesses believe that they can hire them once, then just forget about it as the SEO does its job. The truth of the matter is that SEO is an ever evolving strategy. This is because Google and the other search engine are always changing their algorithms, and SEO changes with it.

Dealing with this issues is actually quite simple though. Many top SEO agencies have on going plans where they can audit their client’s website on a regular basis, and make tweaks to the SEO as needed. This allows the business to make sure that their SEO is always optimized, and won’t experience any unexpected dips in traffic due to using outdated techniques.

3. Local SEO Firms Only Do Local SEO

This is a huge myth. Many businesses think that just because an SEO firm is located in a certain city, that they only do SEO for that area. Thanks to the power of the Internet, an SEO company can do local SEO for just about anywhere. For example, a dentist in Detroit might hire a San Diego SEO firm. That said, SEO firms tend to know their own area very well, which may give them an advantage when working for local clients.

4. SEO is All About Keywords

SEO is complicated, and is getting more complex all the time as the algorithms change and are updated. Many businesses think that hiring an SEO firm will be all about finding the right keywords to get to the top of Google, and rake in all that valuable traffic. The thing is, that’s just a small part of the plan, there is a lot of other stuff the firm will have to do in order to give a business the biggest advantage possible.

In addition to finding and targeting keywords, SEO firms will need to work on directory listings, meta data, site maps, navigation structure, and even make sure the website is mobile friendly. It’s a lot of work, but ultimately it’s also fairly straight forward. A business should be aware of what all goes into an SEO campaign before hiring an agency.

5. SEO Firms Will Help the Competition

One thing that businesses tend to be concerned about is hiring an SEO agency, only for them to help their competition later. To counter this problem, there are non-compete clauses in contracts that will prevent the company from working for a direct competitor. For example, a doctor in Denver may hire an SEO agency to work on her sight, and have the firm sign a document preventing them from working for any other doctors in the area. Of course agencies tend to charge more if they are going to be contractually bound like this.