And how to choose the right SEO company

It’s like those ads you see, you know the ones that promise that you’ll be earning 6 figures all while you’re sitting poolside. Or that you can set yourself up for life if you invest a particular sum of money in this special and limited offer. I’m not all doom and gloom, but I do stay clear of anyone claiming to be an SEO expert and promising to get my website on the first page and at the top of a Google search.

Especially as my website clearly states this is what I do.

SEO has been given a bad reputation due to a number of dodgy SEO companies that charge exorbitant fees and which haven’t generated proven results. They may charge you a large one-off fee, or continue to charge large amounts monthly to get you a high search presence. And you may not even know what they’re doing each month.

Just because you’ve been burnt by dodgy SEO, doesn’t mean all companies are dodgy #SEO Click To Tweet

Here’s some facts you need to know about SEO so you can make a better decision about where to put your SEO dollar.

Some myths I’ll debunk about SEO

1. SEO isn’t a one-off. I get people all the time saying they need SEO on their website, and they believe that once it’s done, that it’s dealt with. To some extent the initial development of your website should be optimised, but all new content also needs optimising for search engines.
2. SEO involves regular hard work. A high search ranking is not automatically given to your site overnight. It needs to be built up, checked regularly and worked upon.
3. There’s both local optimisation, technical website optimisation and content or on-page optimisation. Ask yourself what the agency knows about content development and keyword research.
4. You don’t want to rank for just one keyword. Each page on your website is a ticket in the SEO lottery. Don’t waste it. Aim to rank for 50 or more keywords phrases. Anyone who promises to get you ranking high quickly won’t have the time to develop content and optimisation strategies for that many keywords. They’re probably just picking one word to work on. Make sure you know what words they’re working on.
5. Picking a keyword and trying to include it as much as possible on each page won’t help your cause either. Steer clear of SEO sites that use spam keywords on their own website or when you type in SEO agency doesn’t bring up their business.
6. An optimised website returning a search ranking of 1 for your business name isn’t SEO. Your business, if launched correctly, should come up as the first result anyway.
7. You can’t buy links. This is generally picked up by Google and you’ll receive a penalty.
8. Look for an SEO company who is transparent about what they do. What are they doing for their monthly SEO fee? Just because it’s a technical field that is surround by a cloud of secrecy, doesn’t mean you need to be in the dark too. Make sure you understand what’s going on.
9. Has the SEO company undertaken an audit of your site and have they explained this to you? Does it also include a content audit?
10. Do they regularly check Google Search Console, Google Analytics, Google Webmaster and report on the clean-up process they are doing?
11. Do they monitor your keyword ranking and report on won and lost keywords in their monthly report?
12. Checks for broken links and dodgy links need to be made regularly? Are any suspect links or domains then being submitted to Google via a disavow file?
13. Do they have a plan in place to develop content for your buyer personas? How are they optimising new content and has your existing content optimised?
14. Is there duplicate content that needs cleaning up.
15. Have they put in place a content strategy and undertaken keyword research to optimise your services pages?

Optimising a website isn’t just a about setting up your website with a few technical bits and pieces. It’s more than that.

Make sure your SEO company has a content plan in place #SEO #Content Click To Tweet

The technical aspects need to be monitored routinely. Also, you need a marketing and content strategy to develop relevant content to drive traffic to your site. Your title and meta-descriptions need to be optimised. These are the description that comes to entice someone to click through to your site.

Then once they visit, you need to keep people there as long as possible.

SEO is an ongoing process. A process which involves developing a strategy to manage the various aspects that I’ve discussed.

This strategy needs to specify how you’ll continually develop links to your site, when you’ll produce new content and look for opportunities to feature on other sites. So that’s a look into what SEO is all about and the importance aspects you need to know about anyone promising to get your site fast-tracked on Google.

Need more direction on how to get your site ranking higher than what it currently is? Contact Forj Marketing to discuss a customised marketing strategy.