Writing reviews of SEO reselling services is very difficult. First off, everyone has a different definition of SEO. For some, search engine optimization is a technical experience of tuning a website. And for sure, this is part of the deal. But if you consult the Moz Ranking Factors, you will see that on-page SEO is only 20% of what makes a small business website rank on page 1. Offsite SEO is a huge part of what gets a business to the top of page 1.
SEO resellers are in the back-office fulfillment for many digital agencies. The reason for this is that agencies are often too small to be able to complete search engine optimisation work with any efficiency. For this reason, they look to outsource to an SEO reseller. When making these important business decisions, they read reviews.
Reviewing SEO resellers is then, twice as tricky – especially if they are white-labeled. Specifically, a white label service will not have a large brand following. Making things even more complicated, agencies that use a white label SEO service are not likely to want to share this information because they view it as a competitive advantage. For example, why would I write a public review of HubShout when I don’t want the world to know how great their service is.
Firms like HubShout have a serious uphill battle when it comes to public-facing reviews. They have to protect the white labeled nature of their service while trying to support their brand with positive customer service reviews. Tricky.
Luckily, many firms ARE willing to share their story. In fact, the stronger resellers have enough confidence to proudly display customer service reviews, with their company name on them.
Criteria for selecting a great White Label SEO Reseller
1) Great customer service.
In our opinion, the more important factor in selecting a firm to outsource SEO to is customer service. In this area, HubShout has recently released some new customer review and testimonial data that should be reviewed. Let’s start with the responsiveness of their Account Management team. The entire account management team is in Rochester, NY. There have been poor reviews of their customer service capabilities in the past. But the recent data is very encouraging.
This trend shows that the HubShout review scores from 2017 are well into the 4.3 / 5.0 range – which is strong. I would guess that review scores from 2015 were easily in the 3 range. This fits with the recent push to improve both the employee and customer experience of the HubShout product.
and customer experience of the HubShout product.
2) Strong SEO Results.
No SEO firm can guarantee page one rankings, and HubShout will be the first to tell you that. They believe in Integrity and talk openly about the risks and pittfalls of search engine optimization with their partners from the very first discovery call (which their co-founders often participate on, incidentally). That being said, the page 1 rankings that HubShout has been able to achieve are impressive. They use Lean Start Up methodologies (notably: Cohorts) to justify their month-over-month improvement in small business website visibility in the search engines. This is a rigorous approach that is highly auditable and transparent.
3) Ease of Onboarding for New Agencies.
This is another area where HubShout has made a significant investment. Specifically, earlier reports were that onboarding with the firm was difficult. Similar to customer service friction, this is a killer for any service business. An agency outsourcing business needs to have a smooth approach to bringing on new clients. This has clearly been a focus for HubShout in 2017. Their recent data on their onboarding calls shows that agencies are responding well to the new process.
These customer service scores have reached as high as 4.7 / 5.0 – which is extremely strong. The CEO often joins on-boarding calls himself in an effort to build a relationship with new agencies and ensure a smooth transition to the service. Again, these small touches have a big impact on customer service and small business owners notice.
Conclusions.
HubShout has made many changes to their service offering in the last year. They have embraced the Lean Startup movement to innovate their product, their service and their overall philosophy with customers. The data speak for themselves. Higher scores in pretty much every category. While there is still more work to do, it is clear that the firm is listening to customer reviews, responding to feedback and building a stronger offering for their next 10 years.
Hubshout Reviews on Their SEO Reseller Plan
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