“Building a website is just a beginning, maintaining and keeping it up to date drives the right traffic that leads to conversions – whether that’s an online sale or enquiry.”
One of the ways we help a business succeed, is by building all our websites with SEO in mind and offering a maintenance service after the build to ensure good quality SEO.
So, what is SEO?
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is an activity that ensures a website can be found via a search engine such as Google, Bing and Yahoo.
It is good practice to understand SEO and the importance of how bad SEO can seriously affect your business. We have a short video here to learn the basics.
Gone are the days when you could rank number 1 from just having lots of different websites linking to your site and with google constantly changing the rules, it is now harder than ever to ensure good quality SEO.
Why pay for an agency to manage your websites SEO?
Algorithms change and your rankings can do too. Search engines constantly tighten the rules to ensure bad SEO isn’t getting noticed and the loops are all closed. It is an agencies job to know these rules and take action when necessary.
SEO is never completed, it is a constant job which needs nurturing and monitoring on a weekly basis.
Done properly, the benefits of having excellent SEO usually exceed the value of other marketing tools. When someone searches for a service or product being ranked on the first page is the best way to get noticed. How many of you look beyond the first page when searching for something online?
Choosing a good agency or SEO company?
You understand the importance of ranking highly but haven’t got dedicated time set aside to constantly monitor and improve the SEO on your website. That’s why companies like ourselves can help. So how can you choose a good company to do your SEO?
It may seem obvious having talked about the importance but here are a few things to be suspicious about when deciding.
- Guaranteeing you the first place on the first page - No SEO firm should guarantee you a place on the first page. There are roughly 1 billion websites active and this is increasing at a rapid speed. A good company will say they can help improve rankings, but never guarantee to get you onto the first page – Those words will never come out of our mouths.
- Companies that claim to ‘know Google’ or ‘Recommended by Google’ – There is in fact a Google partner programme (which we’re apart of), but this relates to Google AdWords and Google Analytics, not SEO. Most agencies within the Google Partner Programme have phone calls with Google reps on a regular basis – this doesn’t mean they have inside knowledge of how Google’s algorithm works.
- Claiming to get you more traffic – whilst the purpose of SEO is to allow your site to be easy to find in search engines, be wary of allowing your site to be linked to hundreds of directories – directories can be useful, but they are only useful if your website is submitted to high quality, relevant sites. Any link development should meet Goggle’s guidelines and be part of a wider SEO strategy.
- Instant results – Most agencies say it takes 3 to 6 months to see results. In some ways, this is true, but some changes – like editing meta tags effectively, can give uplift in rankings a few days after the changes have been made. A good agency will present a balanced approach, you should see some positive changes within the first month, but it will usually take several months before you see significant changes.
- Cheap Prices – If you have been promised all of the above for a small amount a month, expect to get stung in the long run. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is! A reputable agency can charge anything from £350 – £1000+ a month dependent on business size and this figure should always be explained fully with monthly reports.
- Last but not least ask the company how much time they will be working on your site's SEO. If they won’t say, it could mean they’re not going to do a lot.
If you are ever unsure about anything, just ask. If you need advice on SEO feel free to call.
Want to know more? Get in touch :)