In this video Hernan Vazquez explains why most business owners focus on the wrong SEO metrics—backlinks, keyword rankings, and cheap backlink packages—when hiring an agency. He argues that the true goals should be visitor traffic, conversions, and revenue. Drawing on repeated questions he sees on Quora, he shares a story that his most successful clients were those who cared about results, not backlinks. He describes how SEO has evolved over the past five years from a backlink‑centric discipline to a 360° internet‑marketing approach that includes conversions, user interaction, social signals, rich media, and local SEO. Consequently, the best SEO agency is one that acts as a business partner, discussing traffic, conversion rates, and revenue rather than vanity metrics. He concludes with a call to action, inviting viewers to join his weekly “Humpday” SEO Q&A sessions at semanticmastery.com/humpday, a Facebook group, and his Instagram for further support.
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Hey guys, what's up? On this video, I'm going to show you how to hire the best SEO agency in the world, baby. So let's do this. Hey guys, what's up? Sorry about that, but I got really, really excited about you watching this video, so I wanted to thank you for that. And it's a bit of a clickbait so that you do not rage quit this video right now because I'm actually going to show you how to hire the best SEO agency for your business. You know, over the past couple of days I've been really playing and toying a little bit around with Quora.com. Quora.com, in case you're not familiar, in case you're some kind of alien and you're not familiar with Quora, Quora.com is a website where people ask questions and, you know, some of us called quote-unquote experts get to answer them. And it's been a ton of fun. I've been getting a ton of good feedback about it. And one question that I see repeating over and over and over and over again is, how many backlinks should my SEO agency build for me? Or how many backlinks, or how should I— how many rankings should I expect from my SEO agency to provide? Or even better, how can I— or can I expect good results for, let's say, $100 a month in terms of backlinks? And the problem that I see with this kind of focus when it comes to actually hiring an SEO agency is that you're focusing on the wrong things. Because let's be honest here, you do not give a fuck about backlinks. You do not give a fuck about rankings. You give a damn about visitors and conversions and money rolling in in the bank every month. If you're focusing on backlinks, if you're focusing on gaming Google or increasing your rankings for XYZ keywords, you're probably talking to the wrong agency, or you're probably hiring from the wrong point of view. Now let me tell you a story. The best clients that I have personally had when having my own— when running my own SEO agency have been the ones that haven't been fixated about backlinks. And conversely, those are the clients that I've delivered the best results. Because here's the deal, if you hire me to do backlinking for you, that's all you're gonna get— backlinks. And backlinks do not equal rankings and do not equal traffic. That's super important to have. I get hammered every day with SEO proposals, SEO packages, SEO whatever that are super focused on backlinks. And if you're ordering backlinks, that's all you're gonna get. All right guys, trust me, I've, I've sold backlink packages and I was really straightforward about this. If you're ordering backlinks, I cannot assure you that your rankings will increase or will drop. That's all you're going to get. You're going to get me doing your backlinking. Now, when you're trying to outsource your SEO, you need to understand that SEO has been increasingly— how can I put it— has been mutated during the past, let's say, 5 years, okay? Because SEO initially was, you know, backlinks, but now you have to have in mind conversions, you need to have in mind interaction, you need to have in mind social activity, you need to have in mind rich media, local SEO. So in terms of delivering results to a client, we had to turn ourselves from strictly backlink builders or SEO optimizers all the way up to internet marketers as a combo, you know, an all-around 360 internet marketer. And the way you hire the best SEO agency for your company is to talk with the guy or girl that you decide to contact in terms of traffic and in terms of conversion. Because have in mind that, you know, you can get a ton of traffic but that traffic may not convert. You can get a ton of rankings and those rankings will not equal sales and those kind of things. So the best SEO agency in the world for your business will be the one that talks with you as a business partner. That is, we will increase rankings but also we will increase traffic and most importantly we will increase conversions and money rolling in the bank every month for your company. So instead of focusing on backlinks, you know, budget for backlinks or rankings, those kind of things, those are vanity metrics. Focus on what's really important and you will find the best SEO agency in the world for your business. Okay guys, I hope you have enjoyed this. I hope I have shed some light on this subject. I see these happening time and time again in Quora. So I think this is a pressing issue for many, many business owners that they want to outsource their SEO and they do not have the time to actually learn the ropes. If you want to come and ask me and my team SEO questions, you can come to semanticmastery.com/humpday. I'm going to leave a link below so that you can join us live every Wednesday, 3:00 PM Eastern. We are there to answer your SEO questions. And this is a question that we get a ton as well. I hope I have, um, helped you guys. If you're into this, you can join this Facebook group right here. You can follow me on Instagram over here and all the shebang, and I will be more than happy to answer your questions as well. Thank you guys for watching, and I'll see you on the next video. Bye-bye!
