If you have a business, you probably have a company website. If you have a website, you’re probably aware of SEO. But what does SEO really mean for your business?
If you’re exploring the idea of working with an SEO company, you might be weighing up what they can offer to your business. Find out exactly what an SEO company does and whether it’s the right fit for your business with this guide.
What Is SEO?
First things first – Search Engine Optimization is the process of increasing organic traffic to your website through search engine results. In other words, enabling more of the right people to find your website through the terms they put in their search engine (not through paid ads).
When you search for something on Google (or your other search engine of choice), the engine crawls all of the pages it can find online. Then, it creates an index to match data up with your search term.
Google’s algorithm measures many different variables when determining whether a piece of content is a good match for a search term. Tweaking these variables is a holistic process, which all falls under the SEO umbrella.
Types Of SEO
Due to SEO’s evolution in the last couple of decades, the ways in which the different components are defined and labeled varies. However, to broadly summarize, an SEO company practices several types of SEO, which can be categorized into the following groups:
- On-page SEO: Optimizing your website pages with researched SEO keywords.
- Off-page: Techniques to position your website as a credible authority in its field.
- Technical: Making sure your website meets the technical standards of search engines.
- Local: Ensuring your website is optimized to be found by local searchers.
How Has SEO Changed Over Time
As Google evolves and fine-tunes its algorithm, SEO practices respond accordingly. The Panda update of 2011 was one of the most significant search engine developments for the rise of SEO as we know it today. This made keyword stuffing and “blackhat” SEO obsolete and paved the way for quality content instead.
Further updates have led to the growth of link building and guest posting as we now know them. Local SEO has also come to the fore in recent years following a big update in 2014.
One of the benefits of using an SEO company is that they keep abreast of the latest changes and update your SEO strategy accordingly.
How an SEO Company Works to Transform the Digital Marketing Landscape
The growth of SEO has had a huge knock-on effect on the digital marketing landscape. As search engines started to favor quality, original content, the demand for content marketing grew.
The introduction of Google Ads led to an increase in PPC across the web. Even social media and email marketing strategies draw upon SEO to create a strong approach.
How an SEO Company Can Help Your Business
The first-page Google search results are understood to get the vast majority of website traffic. The better your website is SEO optimized, the more likely people are to find it on the first page. The more traffic you get, the more sales, sign-ups, and business you generate.
One of the benefits of hiring SEO services is that you’re making it easy for your target audience to reach your site.
What an SEO Company Does
An SEO company will offer a range of services, usually allowing you to pick and choose which ones you’d like to take advantage of. A full SEO service company will take a top-down view of your business and identify its SEO needs.
The on-page SEO will make sure your web pages are optimized with SEO keywords, metadata, and alt text. Off-page SEO will propose a link-building strategy to build your website’s domain authority.
Technical SEO will audit all of the back end of your website, making sure that URLs are crawl-able, site structure is solid, and page load time is minimal. Meanwhile, local SEO experts will be ready to put your business on the map.
Your SEO company will be able to provide valuable insights that you can use to inform other areas of your digital marketing, from social media to email marking.
SEO professionals not only set up an initial SEO optimization, they also manage the ongoing SEO maintenance. Search engine algorithms are updated 500-600 times per year. Your SEO company will have its fingers on the pulse of algorithm changes and can change your SEO settings accordingly to keep your keywords ranking high.
Hiring SEO Professionals vs DIY SEO
If you’re wondering why you need an SEO company, consider the following. It’s entirely possible to DIY your SEO, provided that you have access to professional tools and have a deep understanding of the technicalities of SEO and the broader implications for digital marketing.
If you have all of these tools and you have the time to pour into your company’s SEO, then you’re in a great position to undertake your SEO needs yourself. Otherwise, calling on an SEO company means that you’re receiving a holistic digital marketing service with incomparable insights.
Working with a professional SEO company means you can rest assured that the experts are keeping your website up to date with the latest algorithm changes. This leaves you free to focus on other things, like running your business.
Working with an SEO company gives you access to a wealth of data analysis that can fine-tune your business. The experts will know what the figures mean and recognize areas of growth or adjustments you can make. With this depth of insight, the possibilities are endless.
Why Hire an SEO Company
Working with an SEO company can bring more traffic to your website and boost the profile of your company and grow your business. Investing in expert SEO services can transform your online and offline business presence.
To find out what our full-service SEO company can do for you, get in touch for a free quote.