Having a vast presence online is crucial for any business if you are looking to drive more traffic and more sales to your website. One of the most crucial factors in creating a strong presence online is making sure your website is search engine optimized which is where SEO comes in play. However, SEO is definitely very tricky and full of intricacies which is why it is important to have an expert guide you. Now, if you are wondering how to go about finding the best SEO professional who can help you scale your website to potentially greater heights, this article is for you.
What is SEO and Why Does It Matter?
What exactly is SEO, and why should you care? SEO stands for search engine optimisation, and it’s simply the art of improving the visibility of your website in search engine results pages such as Google’s. The more optimised your site, the higher it will rank, and the more natural, organic traffic you will receive. In the same way that traffic lights don’t make you buy a car, SEO won’t automatically return you new customers. But it does bring people who are interested in your products or services to your site – and those people are not just looking for an online distraction, they are looking for value. SEO is all about increasing conversions (visit to sale) and downloads (visit to demo download) because that is the key to growing an online business.
Benefits of Hiring a Professional SEO Specialist
SEO is a key component to bringing in business online to your organisation, as a savvy SEO person will be able to achieve high rankings for your website. Here’s few reasons they will achieve this by helping with your website.
More Organic Traffic: Follow the right rules and your site will appear higher on Google, so more visitors will click through to it.
Better user experience: While keywords top the list, user experience is not far behind. A good SEO professional will help structure your site into something that users will love.
Better conversions: Better targeted SEO drives the right kind of traffic, and attuned user experience leads to more conversions.
solid growth over time The SEO strategies mentioned here will help grow your site for a long time!
How to Choose the Right SEO Specialist
Finding the most qualified SEO professional to optimise your online business is an important decision. Here you’ll learn the essential and helpful steps to quickly find the best fit.
- Define Your Goals You can’t recruit anyone until you know what you want from SEO. Sure, you might want more traffic, better local search results, or more organic sales, but do you understand what your goals and KPIs actually are? Having a set of goals that you and your prospective candidate understand will mean that you’re able to communicate much more effectively, too.
- Look for Proven Experience First of all, be certain that you’re hiring a specialist, which means their portfolio of similarly successful projects should demonstrate results. Reputation and a history of results stand as the most common items in any list of hiring factors. Sure, business and convenience alone will draw many SEO specialists into your world, but are they the strategic partners you need, and can they do quality work? Ask for case studies and references; ask for examples of sites they’ve worked on or written for. Besides, test their proficiency at SEO-specific tasks: keyword research, content optimisation, link development and on-page SEO.
- Assess Their Knowledge of Current SEO Trends SEO is a dynamic industry and something that worked well in five years ago, generally does not work today. For this reason, your SEO specialist must be someone who keeps up to date with the latest algorithm updates and changes, to ensure that they still know the most effective SEO strategies and tactics. Ask your SEO specialists what they keep up to date with, ask them if they have heard of Google’s recent core algorithm updates, mobile-first indexing or the significance of UX nowadays as a ranking factor.
- Inquire About Their SEO Techniques Ask questions: what techniques does the SEO proposal to implement exactly? Are they going to use ‘black hat’ SEO (severely scolded and urged to cease by Google) – perhaps using keyword stuffing, cloaking or buying links, but which could get you into trouble? A black hat approach might get you instant results, but Google will penalise you into oblivion in the longer term. Or are they using ‘white hat’ techniques (as recommended by the search engines) that respect their guidelines, and have a view to the longer term?
- Understand Their Reporting and Communication Style On the other hand, SEO requires ongoing maintenance and regular updates, so it can’t be a one-off project or a one-time spray-and-pray type of engagement. Your SEO practitioner should provide regular reports for updating you on progress, even if you’re not available to consult but at least to show that things are moving in the right direction and there is some ROI. While you can play deaf and dumb, you have to ensure that you can understand the reports and your SEO person either defines acronyms that you’re not clear on or trains you in technical jargon. Is it weekly? Bi-weekly? Monthly?
- Check Client Testimonials and Reviews Reviews and testimonials can be one indicator of an SEO specialist’s reliability and effectiveness – particularly if you read feedback on Google My Business, Yelp or even LinkedIn. The best SEO specialists will enjoy a long line of happy customers eager to speak up and recommend their services.
- Discuss Budget and Pricing Models And the range of prices for SEO services can be frustratingly large: some SEOs charge an hourly rate; others have monthly retainers; still others charge by the project. And you don’t know what the exact cost is until you sign on the dotted line. It’s crucial to know upfront what you’re paying for and whether it fits your budget. SEO is a long-term commitment, and cheaper isn’t necessarily better. Run from anyone who guarantees page-one rankings in a few weeks for $150.
- Ensure They Provide a Comprehensive SEO Strategy A good SEO plan should address all the aspects of SEO: technical SEO, content/blogging, local SEO, off-page SEO, backlinks, and keyword research.
Technical SEO: Ensuring that your website is free from errors and runs efficiently.
On-Page SEO: Optimizing your website’s content, titles, meta descriptions, and images.
Off-Page SEO: Building backlinks and enhancing your site’s reputation online.
Local SEO: increasing your ranking for local searches (very important if you have a ‘bricks and mortar’ location).
How to Find an SEO Specialist: Online and Offline Options
There are various ways to find a skilled SEO professional, including:
Freelance marketplaces: including Upwork, Freelancer and Fiverr — you can search for SEO specialists by reviews, experience and price.
SEO Agencies: Want a more comprehensive solution? Hiring an SEO agency might be the best choice. These agencies hire teams of specialists that all have experience in several areas of SEO.
Professional Networks: LinkedIn can be a good source of people with SEO chops, giving you the ability to look through their work history, and ask for recommendations and endorsements from previous clients.
Referrals: Though word-of-mouth might not be the most effective ongoing marketing solution for your business, it can be an exceptional way to find the best SEO experts near you. Ask fellow business owners or colleagues who have experienced success with SEO for their recommendations.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Q1. How long does SEO take to work?
A: SEO is a long term strategy, and you should expect to see some results anywhere between 3-6 months depending on the competitiveness of the industry and your website setup.
Q2. Can you do SEO once and forget about it?
A: No. search engines are constantly fine-tuning their algorithms and your competition keeps evolving. SEO is a continuous process and you will need to optimise regularly (once a month is okay). You will also need to update content regularly too.
Q3. What is the difference between SEO and SEM?
A: SEO is Search Engine Optimisation: improving an organic (non-ad) position in search results. SEM is Search Engine Marketing: paying for ads to appear in search results. SEM might be part of a larger digital marketing strategy.
Q4. Should I try to do SEO by myself or hire a pro?
A: Although there are some elements of SEO that businesses can do in-house, hiring a pro is often (not always!) the best decision, especially for growing businesses who want to make the most of their time and resources. Real SEO pros have the experience and the tools to enable them to achieve better and faster results than anyone who is just getting started.
Q5. How much does SEO cost?
A: SEO costs may vary depending on the size and complexities of the project and the level of experience of the specialist. SEO services generally range between $500 – $5,000/ month.
Q6 – What are the major SEO ranking factors?
A – The top SEO ranking factors are high-quality content, search-term relevance, mobile usability, fast page-load speed, and external-links from authority sources.
Conclusion
Having the right SEO specialist on board will enhance your website’s search engine rankings, boost visits, build your company’s reputation and, ultimately, sales. If you know what you want from an SEO specialist, choose the right candidate carefully by setting clear objectives, understanding how they will achieve them, and checking that you will be provided with everything you need to evaluate the campaign’s effectiveness, as well as a full document explaining what was done and why?.
Ultimately, a correctly performed SEO campaign will deliver sustainable, long-term growth for your business, which provides an excellent rate of return on your investment for years to come.
