Queensland’s economy is growing, but it is also facing many challenges. These include geopolitics, the novel coronavirus, and bushfires. How can you make your business thrive in such conditions? One of the effective ways to ensure the success of your business is to hire SEO services.
Breaking Down SEO
What is search engine optimization (SEO), and why do you need it to promote online? As its name suggests, it refers to the process of improving a website using strategic keywords so that its pages appear on the search results.
Nobody visits a search engine such as Google for no reason. There’s always a motive, such as:
- Searching for information
- Shopping for products and services
- Looking for online reviews or recommendations
- Engaging with online business owners or other Internet users
Regardless of the objective, online searches are carried out using keywords. For example, let’s say you’re looking for an apartment for rent on the Sunshine Coast. You may go to Google and type “Sunshine Coast apartments for rent.” When you press Enter, it will generate a list of websites that best match your search query.
The purpose of SEO is to make your site appear in the search results and reach the top. If you work with an excellent agency, you may get to accomplish this.
Why is this important? The first page captures more than 70% of search engine traffic. Only a few people take time to click to the second page, more so the next pages.
SEO, though, is a complex process and can be confusing to people with limited technical knowledge, and is still vital to make a brand successful. You can choose the right agency more effectively when you know their area of expertise and the type of services they offer.
Some of the most common types of SEO services are:
- On-Page SEO
- Off-Page SEO
- Technical SEO
- Paid SEO
- Organic SEO
On-page SEO refers to the optimization you can do on the individual pages of your website, so it ranks high and generates traffic. Strategies include adding high-quality content, including original media such as videos and images, etc.
Off-page SEO, Off-page SEO, meanwhile, includes activities you do outside of your web pages to help boost your ranking. Some of the popular techniques are:
- Link building
- Social media
- Forum engagement
- Content marketing
Of these strategies, one of the most vital is link building. While nobody knows how the algorithm works, search engines take note of where you’re linking to and who’s linking back. It’s because when websites link back to you, it’s a vote towards your credibility and authority. It gives an indication to search engines that you provide trustworthy content. Also, when you link to credible pages, it helps search engines find relevance to your targeted keywords.
Technical SEO refers to optimizing the structure of the site for search engine crawlers. These are the ones that visit your site, browse through your pages, and then index them. This is how your updated content appears on the web. This way, when someone uses your targeted keywords, you appear on the list of search results as well.
Good technical SEO means that:
- Your site is fast.
- Crawlers can visit your website often so that they can index more pages.
- Your site is searchable and functional on mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets.
- It’s secure.
- The webpage doesn’t contain a dead or broken link, and you don’t have thin and duplicate content, which can confuse the crawlers.
Paid SEO Paid SEO describes the process of optimizing your website by buying links. A good agency won’t do this since it increases the risk of a penalty from Google.
Organic SEO is ranking pages naturally. This process takes time. You may see results only when you hit the sixth month.
Take Note
Some people may also use the terms “SEO marketing,” “digital marketing,” and “search engine marketing” interchangeably. However, these do not have the same meanings.
Digital marketing involves promotions or advertising through different digital means, not only through online. Search engine marketing, on the other hand, involves three methods:
- SEO
- Social media marketing
- Paid promotions, such as pay-per-click
How a Reliable SEO Service Helps Business to Grow
While you can try to do SEO by yourself, you may encounter the following problems:
- It will take you a long time to learn and apply the techniques correctly.
- Wrong strategies can jeopardize your website and ranking.
- It may turn out to be costlier when you commit many mistakes.
- You end up missing significant opportunities to boost sales and traffic because you need to do things through trial and error.
If you want to give your business the higher chances of succeeding, consider investing in a Brisbane SEO service.
The right team can help you in the following ways:
- They know what a search engine wants by keeping tabs on algorithm updates and industry trends.
- They follow best practices to ensure that search engines don’t penalize you.
- They help protect your brand and reputation, both online and offline. In a world where many of your potential customers can’t see you, credibility is everything.
- They can implement more specific SEO techniques, such as local page optimization. According to HubSpot, 88% of the people who browse a local business online are more likely to visit the business within the day.
- They have the tools that can help them improve your site in many aspects, from ranking to speed. They can also send you analytics reports to let you know the performance of their campaigns.
- They assist in building a strong and unique brand online from scratch.
Steps to Choose Right SEO Agency
By now, you already know the importance of doing SEO and how an agency can help you with it so you can grow your business and realize its full potential. You’ll come across many SEO agencies online who will claim to give you the first position on search engines and you may feel overwhelmed.
Here are the steps to help you narrow down choices and eventually pick the best Brisbane SEO service:
1. Check Their Website
Their website can reveal vital information about their capability and communication skills. You can assess its performance based on the following:
- Page speed (how fast the content appears)
- Design (Is It user-friendly?)
- Quality and quantity of content
- Portfolio, customer feedback, or testimonials
- Social media pages
You may also visit their contact us page and shoot them an email or give them a call. You can use this tactic to determine how responsive they are to queries and concerns.
2. Dig Deep Online
Impressed by their website? Then it’s time to delve deeper and learn more about the team outside their webpages. Check out the following:
- Online reviews and recommendations
- Feedback on their social media accounts
- Forums
- Comments from other digital marketers
- Reviews from business organizations and associations
- Information from the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC)
If you need information about their legitimacy, you can ask for credentials besides the portfolio. A legit agency isn’t afraid to show you more proof.
3. Request for a Free Website Review
You can also test their knowledge, best practices, and expertise by asking for a free website review or an SEO audit. How does this work?
An SEO specialist will visit your website and then assess your pages and keywords based on their checklist and tools. They will then send you an analytics report with recommendations to improve your traffic and ranking.
4. Ask SEO-Related Questions
You can already find useful checklists online, or you can use the following:
- Do you specialize in a specific niche?
- What are your link-building strategies?
- How fast do you rank a page?
- How do you choose targeted keywords?
- Do you also analyze competitor websites?
- Do you manage competitor sites?
- What tools do you use?
- How long have you been in the business?
- Based on my goal, what is your SEO plan?
5. Know Your Budget
Sometimes you get carried away by the need to do SEO that you forget about the cost. Online marketing comes with a price, and it may not be cheap.
It’s especially true with SEO. To avoid losing your spot in the search results and continue to boost traffic and ranking, you need to do it consistently. Otherwise, changes in the algorithm can hurt you.
These days, SEO agencies can give you packages or plans based on your budget. It can be unique for each client as per their needs and objectives. It is better to discuss your budget with the SEO agency before beginning to work together.
In 2019, over a billion people were active Google users. The extensive search engine, meanwhile, receives more than 60,000 searches per second. You can imagine the number of people and the millions of queries out there that are going to rise in the coming years.
All of these represent an opportunity to sell, inform, and persuade—only if you get SEO correctly with the right agency.
