Everything you need to know before you hire an enterprise search engine optimization firm

What does a 90-day plan look like for a large, complex site?

A good 90-day plan for a large site should help you understand what is holding growth back. In most cases, the first three months are used for audits to find untapped opportunities. The findings are then put into a clear action plan.

A 90-day plan should:

1. Review the site’s technical setup to find crawling, indexing, rendering, and performance issues
2. Analyze key page templates and sections that influence large parts of the website
3. Audit content quality, internal linking, duplication, and keyword targeting across important page groups
4. Use analytics, Search Console, and other SEO data to identify where traffic and revenue opportunities are being missed
5. Separate low-effort fixes from larger issues that need design, development, or product support
6. Prioritize actions based on impact, level of effort, and importance
7. Set clear KPIs tied to traffic, conversions, revenue, and visibility
8. Create a plan for the next quarter or two with defined owners and priorities
9. Put reporting in place so progress can be tracked from the start

How to choose the best enterprise SEO agency for my operations?

Consider these steps when hiring an enterprise SEO company:

1. Outline your objectices
   Define your SEO needs, business goals, target KPIs, and budget.
2. Prepare a request brief
   Put together a list of the markets, page volume, number of business units, and technical optimization you need covered.
3. Determine if you need a full-service
   Determine whether you need support with technical SEO, content strategy, international SEO, site migrations, governance, or all of them.
4. Research enterprise SEO firms
   Browse potential agency partners on Google, DesignRush, and other trusted directories, referrals, and credible industry sources.
5. Check their own ranking
   Review their own website, search visibility, and content to see how well they rank for their expertise.
6. Ask about accolades
   Check certifications, awards, and recognitions, but treat them as supporting factors rather than the main reason to hire.
7. Review past work
   Look at case studies and client reviews, especially for large, complex, or multi-market websites.

What red flags should I watch out before hiring an enterprise SEO company?

Before hiring an enterprise SEO company, pay attention at how they work and what they promise. The biggest warning signs usually present as vague answers, inflated claims, weak technical depth, and no clear link between SEO work and business results.

Warning signs to watch for when considering enterprise SEO firms include:

• Promises of guaranteed rankings or traffic growth within a fixed timeframe
• No tangible experience with large or multi-market websites
• Heavy focus on rankings, with little attention to conversions and revenue
• Generic audits and recommendations that could apply to any company
• Weak technical knowledge around site architecture, rendering, indexing, and migrations
• No clear process for working with product, engineering, legal, or other internal teams

What questions should I ask these specialists when I interview them?

Ask enterprise SEO companies the following questions before hiring them:

Relevant Background

1. What SEO certifications and awards do you have?
2. Have you worked with enterprise companies? What type of SEO did you do for them?
3. Can you share examples of enterprise SEO campaigns with measurable results?
4. How do you stay updated on the latest SEO trends and search engine algorithm changes?
5. Are you working with any of my competitors?

Services and Processes

1. What enterprise SEO services do you provide?
2. What’s your process for customizing an enterprise SEO strategy?
3. What key performance indicators (KPIs) do you usually target in enterprise SEO strategy?
4. How do you adjust your strategies to algorithm changes?

Related to Your Project

1. What enterprise SEO tactics would be the best for my business and why?
2. How will you integrate your enterprise SEO strategies with my overall marketing?
3. Who will be working on the project and who will be the point of contact?
4. How often can we expect meetings and updates?
5. How often will you look at analytics and data? How often will we get reports?

What does the client onboarding process look like?

Here's what you should expect during the client onboarding process:

1. Contract signing
   After finalizing project details, you and your agency sign the contract, formalizing the terms of service, payment terms, and any clauses about the ownership of work.
2. Initial consultation
   Schedule a kickoff meeting to discuss in-depth your goals, concerns, and expectations so the agency knows what to prioritize first.
3. Data collection
   For a full audit, provide the enterprise search engine optimization company access to your website, subdomains, current performance data, and analytics.
4. SEO audit and strategy development
   The agency conducts a thorough SEO audit, including keyword research and competitor analysis, to create a custom optimization plan.
5. Strategy presentation
   The team presents the new SEO strategy for your approval, outlining campaign objectives, key deliverables, and expected timelines.
6. Campaign launch
   Upon approval, the agency begins executing the SEO strategy and regularly updates you with progress reports.

Sources

DesignRush sustains a directory of over 40,000 agencies categorized by service category, location, expertise, and reviews. We build our database in two ways:

• Our dedicated team of agency experts actively searches the web for top-performing companies. We then pull information from their websites, online presence, and client testimonials to verify their status and qualifications prior to listing.
• The agencies listed get notified of their profiles on the website and they can choose to claim it or not, which suggests their availability for more collaborations.

Agencies can also reach out to DesignRush and must go through the verification process prior to being listed.