SEO - Should you choose a consultant or an agency?

20:19 04 December 2019

When it comes to managing your business website, you’re faced with many important decisions that will impact your business. You need to determine what platform to host your site on, what website page layout to choose, whether or not you want a blog, what content you should feature on your home page, and more.

But designing an amazing website isn’t enough to draw potential customers in. Potential customers rarely go searching for a specific business name. You need to rank high enough on search engines so that customers can actually find you.

That is where SEO (Search Engine Optimization) comes into play.

Is SEO really that important?

Absolutely! The right combination of quality content and keywords helps boost your website’s ranking. You’ll start seeing an increase of traffic on your site. When potential customers search for certain keywords related to your industry, a site optimized for SEO will rank higher on the list. Then, they’ll click onto your website and you’ll gain a new customer!

Many small business owners that are limited on time or resources might overlook the value of SEO. They already have enough logistics that they’re trying to juggle and the thought of adding one more task seems overwhelming.

Yet, overlooking SEO could negatively impact the amount of traffic that is driven to your website. You’re losing business by not taking the time to optimize your website. If you’re already creating content for your website, it only takes a little extra time to focus on SEO tasks.

What are some easy ways to boost SEO?

SEO is complex, especially if you don’t have any experience. To conquer the basics of SEO, start by looking for any technical issues on your site and by optimizing your content.

Search engines will have trouble crawling and indexing if your site has technical problems lurking behind the scenes. Just because a website looks good doesn’t mean it will rank high. A website audit can help you discover what these problems might be. If you’re not ready to complete a full audit, one of the easiest ways to improve your site is to get rid of any broken links and any duplicated content.

Another way to start boosting SEO is to start intentionally working targeted keywords into your content. You’ll want to be intentional with your titles, meta descriptions, and body content. While you don’t want to spam your site with keywords, you should aim to naturally work them into any content posted on your site.

How can I be more intentional with SEO?

If you’re ready to start being more intentional with your SEO, there are plenty of complex techniques you can use.

For example, you might start working with other reputable businesses to get backlinks. Backlinks are when another business links to your website in their content. Having reputable sites link to your site raises your overall ranking on search engines. One way to start gaining backlinks is to reach out to a business within your industry that has a blog. Ask them if you can write a guest post for them and link to your site within the post.

Other good practices include optimizing your business listing on Google, getting targeted reviews, and optimizing images. Research how others in your industry are utilizing SEO and start incorporating what they’re doing into your own work.

Should you choose a consultant or an agency?

If the idea of SEO makes your head spin, you might need to consult an outside source.

There is nothing wrong with reaching out to a consultant or an agency, especially if you don’t have time to figure out the logistics yourself. They’ll build and implement strategies that work for your business. Whether or not you go with a consultant or agency is really up to personal preference and budget. Consultants will typically work directly with you to build strategies, whereas an agency is more likely to do the work for you.

When choosing a consultant or agency, thoroughly invest what services they offer and to check their credentials. For example, on the website of Daniel Foley, an SEO Consultant in London, you can find case studies where he provides examples of clients he has worked with.

Final thoughts

Mastering SEO can be difficult, but it will greatly benefit your business. Start reviewing ways that you can implement or improve upon your current practices. Don’t be afraid to reach out to a consultant or agency to help you. Remember — the more traffic you can drive to your site, the more likely you’ll gain customers.