We’ve audited more than a few SEO campaigns, and found some startling realities. Chances are, you’ve engaged a company to provide some level of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) service, either through your marketing agency or Web design service building SEO capabilities into your new/existing site, or hiring a purely SEO focused agency. Perhaps some of your marketing team is trained in SEO and you have some tools. But many SEO campaigns see limitations. Here’s some of our observations on the changes happening in SEO and how to ensure your SEO agency lives up to your expectations.

The rules are constantly changing, just as the Web is evolving. Standards are so hard to develop because the technologies, search algorithms and strategies are evolving so fast. But trying to constantly be at the forefront can be stressful, and not always helpful. Most SEO agencies focus on re-writing large amounts of your copy, and finding outward links. Some add ludicrous amounts of “pages” to an extended Site Map for Google to crawl.

SEO agencies today should provide more than link programs, some PPC management (often PPC is separate as a service, and that’s good) and page optimization. But keywords and terms are becoming increasingly expensive, and harder to leverage due to costs. Unless you pay an SEO agency a good monthly premium as well, you’re likely to lose your ranking fairly quickly if you’re in a highly competitive space online.

A good SEO agency will offer the basics of page optimization and linking as a start. From there they should be able to offer you organic optimization help and know how to leverage social media, such as social networks like Facebook or Bibo. An SEO agency should fundamentally understand that if your content really is good, and your value proposition very compelling, people will want to link to it and share it. Unfortunately, most SEO agencies focus on page optimization and writing content aimed at spiders and simplified search terms and a little PPC management. This is a short term fix and doesn’t benefit the longer term requirements.

The demands on SEO agencies will only increase in the near future, and “organic optimization” should be a key component of what they’re offering. You may also want to audit the efforts at the end of a campaign or project and have at least one of your team familiar with the trends in SEO. This helps to ensure you’re getting what you pay for. When effectively combined and integrated, mixing paid search optimization with organic will set you up for better long term results and make budget expenditure both more effective and more measurable.