SEO is always changing. As your business grows, so do your SEO agency’s requirements. Your growth will be influenced by the tools you choose.

It’s crucial to keep up to date with what’s happening in the industry so you can decide if a new tool is right for your business.

It’s important to prioritize what is most critical to your business needs.

Many factors are at play here.

• You may not have known that some SEO platforms can solve your problems. To identify these, it is important to keep up with the latest developments in the industry.

• Some tools solve a specific problem that you already know about. In these cases it is just about choosing the right tool for your agency.

• They offer seamless experiences that help you optimize your SEO workflows.

• They offer pricing and features that are competitive.

Interviews with top SEO agencies around the world have given us a wealth of insight into what factors most affect the decision to switch to a core SEO tool.

These are the signs it is time to begin prospecting for new SEO tools in your toolbox.

Your current tool isn’t giving you the right data or functionalities

SEO professionals face the greatest challenges with their tools: accuracy and functionality.

Is your current solution providing enough data? Is it providing the right data? You may not be able to achieve your SEO goals if it does not.

These are two problems that you may have encountered.

Incomplete or unreliable data

While some SEO platforms offer more data features than others, others charge extra for specific metrics such as: 

• Google’s “(not provided)” data.
• Segmentation of organic traffic by brand and non-brand
• Mobile vs. desktop traffic.

This data is vital for SEO professionals. However, for smaller agencies, it can be very costly to obtain this data.

By mapping traffic data from Google Analytics, and matching it to the keyword data from Google Search Console, you can show clients how SEO affects other business goals such as increasing rankings for keywords.

This type of data can be a huge advantage in SEO platforms, as it will help you to acquire and retain clients.

It could also be an issue with unreliable metrics, such as opaque or misleading calculations, issues related to technical changes, and not your SEO performance.

Consider the Visibility Metric. It can be calculated as an average number of positions for a list of keywords. Then changes based on adding and deleting keywords will cause the score to fluctuate.

Innovation is key to how an SEO tool calculates key metrics. It’s even more important if the agency was using spreadsheets to calculate a key metric and spent hours researching it before discovering an efficient one.

Wood stated that it is more exciting to suddenly discover a tool out there that does something that your team did not consider. It’s a moment that changes the way you think about things and how you organize your work. Then you can start to work differently.

This is how the best SEO tools should function – solving agency problems, even those you didn’t think were possible.

Functionality issues

SEO is all about speed.

For search professionals to be able to track results and implement campaigns, they need accurate and up-to-date information.

You need to fix your software problem quickly.

It is important to evaluate the support offered when choosing an SEO tool.

You should have access to a dedicated account manager who you can contact for immediate resolution of issues as needed. Also, regular support calls are necessary to review the needs of your agency.

Paul Friend, Head of SEO, and Ben Foster, Managing director, decided it was time to change the core SEO tool. They scored ongoing and ad-hoc support among the “hundreds” of relevant aspects in selecting the right tool.

This was a key point in their decisional matrix. It needed to match key functionalities such as keyword features, universal rankings, overall market visibility scores, and content insights. Forecasting and reporting capabilities are also available. Link-building capabilities and competition insights are all part of this.

When you are evaluating or contemplating upgrading your tech stack, it is important to evaluate how well the solution performs according to your agency’s needs.

You want to be a leader in innovation

SEO professionals must keep up to date with the latest developments in Miami digital marketing to stay competitive. Agencies must be innovative and constantly looking for new technologies to differentiate themselves.

Paul Wood states that they make an effort to review the tools available at least once a year.

• They make it easy to export data.

• They facilitate collaboration between clients and internal teams.

• It is amazing how many functionalities can be integrated into one platform.

SEO Works emphasizes the importance of being alert and keeping everyone informed. A comprehensive training program is in place to ensure that everyone is familiar with not only the tools but also the methodologies used by the agency for creating top-notch SEO strategies.

SEO Works, an agency, has developed proprietary tools that show how its innovative approach can give clients a competitive edge.

Are You Growing or Scaling Your SEO Agency? 

According to a McKinsey Global Survey, digital adoption has increased globally by at least 3-4 years in just a few short months.

The trend towards a digital-first approach to business is expected to continue. This means that SEO agencies will need to scale up to meet their growing needs.

Agencies need to be able to scale their operations while remaining competitive to meet the growing demand for SEO services. It’s a great time to test your tools to see if they offer the right functionality to support and promote growth.

Agencies that are rapidly growing need more capabilities.

• More users: You need tools that let you have unlimited users, ideally at no additional cost, and allow for collaboration between teams.

• Unlimited API Access Your SEO tools must work in harmony with other tools to grow your technology toolkit. We’ve made it easy to export large amounts of data via the Kobe Digital API. This allows you to pull the campaign and keyword-level information into your preferred internal systems like Klipfolio and create client reports.

• More efficient workflows Operational dashboards, integrated systems, and organizing capabilities of your client portfolio all make a big difference in helping you see the status quo.

According to many SEO professionals that we spoke with, the greatest value an SEO platform could bring is helping you not waste your time.

While the right tools can help you accomplish this, ineffective ones could lead to your team spending too much time on technical processes. This will severely hinder your ability to scale.

Your Tool isn’t Customizable or Collaborative Enough

Stable processes and methods are essential for SEO professionals. This is how the best software is created.

When choosing SEO tools, agencies should prioritize collaboration and customization. This is possible because of many features, such as:

• Multiple user accessibility Unlimited access for clients and team members, with custom client view permissions. 

• Collaboration features Real-time annotations, comments, and sharing capabilities for clients and teams. 

• Tracking metrics A centralized agency dashboard that allows teams to monitor and align on goals.

• Personalization: There are many options you should be aware of, including the ability to filter campaigns by account managers and to edit mode that optimizes time for keyword management. You can also save customized report templates across agencies.

An effective SEO solution that combines multiple functions in one platform can optimize internal workflows and give agencies a complete view of agency operations.

Your tool is not cost-effective

Budgets for different agencies will vary depending on their size.

It is important to optimize costs, especially for agencies that are scaling. To handle a greater number of clients, you will need to hire more staff and make more use of your resources. You also have to reduce your costs.

When evaluating the cost-efficiency of a tool, here are some questions you should ask:

Is it flexible in pricing and resource use?

Many SEO software solutions come with a fixed subscription cost. This includes a certain number of keywords and domains. However, if you use the tool’s resources in fluctuating amounts from month to month your pricing will remain the same.

Some platforms allow agencies to upgrade or downgrade every month. This means that you only pay for what you use. Agencies can evaluate their expenses more accurately if there is no predefined plan. This allows them to focus on the volume of campaigns within a given time frame.

Are there additional hidden costs?

While some tools are attractively priced, there may be hidden fees and additional charges that add up quickly, especially if you have to onboard many new clients or manage larger campaigns. These include:

• Per-user charges: Can you add unlimited users (including clients), at no additional cost, to facilitate internal and external collaboration?

• Migrating fees: Are there hourly or fixed rates for migrating your system to a new tool from an existing one?

• Integration cost: Do you have multiple integrations with important tools (Data Studio, Google Sheets API Access, etc.)? Included in the price

If your current software doesn’t make financial sense for your business, it might be time to try a new version.

What is the best time to start prospecting for a new SEO tool?

Answer: You should never stop critical analysis.

Innovation is a continuous process in this ever-changing industry. Your core SEO tool must keep pace with the times and be constantly updated.

These signs may indicate that your current solutions are not serving you well.

• If you don’t have access to the correct data or functionalities.

• Innovation is key to being a leader in innovation. You need to have innovative methods.

• You need to have more resources when you are growing or scaling your agency.

• Or if you are looking to save money.

We know that the core tools of an SEO agency are essential in winning more clients and managing them efficiently.

Kobe Digital’s team is dedicated to helping you manage and acquire relevant customers.