Getting your business recognized online can be a full time job. You not only have to worry about the business you are running but you also have to figure out how to get ahead of the competition so that potential customers visit your website first. For the average person, managing the online marketing is just not in their wheelhouse. There’s so much more involved that it can be nearly impossible to handle the job and manage your business at the same time.
This is why so many consider whether it is practical to hire a search engine optimization (SEO) company to manage their site’s ranking. If you’re considering this option but you’re not sure what to expect from an Portland SEO company it helps to get a basic understanding of their role in the digital world. Before you can make any kind of intelligent decision, you need to know what they can do for you and what kind of services you can reasonably expect.
Help with Online Visibility
SEO companies perform many different functions but their primary focus is to help businesses get traction in the search engines. Their main service is to find ways for a company to gain more visibility online. This may include offering services like creating content, building up reputable links, and analyzing the results on a regular basis.
Whatever SEO company you’re considering, these three services should be the very least of what you can expect. But for the company that plans to spend more than the bare minimum for services, SEO companies can offer a whole lot more.
Perform Research, Audit, and Analysis for a Specific Company
One of the first things an SEO company should offer you is a unique plan to research your industry and the possible variables that may affect your ranking in the search engines. Because every company they work with is different the specific strategies may be completely different from one business to the next. The best SEO firms will not offer you results or even a particular strategy without first doing some research to see what challenges they may come up against specifically for your business. This initial analysis of their research will give them a better chance at helping you to reach your target market when they finally develop a plan and put it into effect. In addition to researching your company, SEO companies can help you audit your current website and its content. This will identify any areas that may need improvement or optimization in order to maximize search engine visibility.
Identify Keywords to Target
Part of the research involved will be identifying the keywords that have to be targeted to give you the best results in the rankings. These keywords are the words or phrases that your potential customers will enter into the search bar. They won’t be looking just for keywords that are relative to your specific line of business but they want to find those that are used a lot by your potential customers but at the same time are not being heavily targeted by your competition. Having the right combination of keywords can work miracles in getting your site ranked high up in the search engines so this service is crucial to every business.
Take a Look at Your Website
They will also take a close look at your website to determine which areas are in need of enhancement. This could include code analysis where they will study your HTML coding to make sure that the formatting is correct and there aren’t any issues that may cause the search engine crawlers to overlook your site and a study of the HTML structure so that your website will be more appealing to the web crawlers. They will also analyze your website design in order to determine if you’re taking advantage of all the possible tools that can make your site more SEO-friendly.
Link Building
Another critical part of building a successful SEO campaign is link building. This involves obtaining links from high-quality, authoritative websites back to your website. These inbound links serve as “votes” for your site, showing search engines that your site has valuable and relevant content. However, it’s important to note that not all links are created equal – quality is more important than quantity when it comes to link building. Your SEO company should focus on obtaining links from reputable sources, rather than spammy or low-quality websites. This will not only help improve your search engine rankings, but also drive targeted traffic to your site and establish credibility for your brand.
SEO companies can also provide other services that can enhance the overall user experience of your site. This includes optimizing website speed, improving site navigation and user interface, and ensuring mobile compatibility. These factors not only improve the user experience, but also contribute to higher search engine rankings.
Google Ads
In addition to SEO services, many companies offer pay-per-click (PPC) advertising management to help drive immediate traffic to your site. This can be especially useful for new businesses or those looking to promote a specific product or service. PPC ads appear at the top of search engine results pages, and you only pay when someone clicks on your ad. This allows for targeted advertising and better control over your budget.
Develop Content
Since quality content is essential to search engine optimization, it is critical that your SEO company knows how to provide the kind of content that will draw attention to your site. The content needs to be not only interesting but also able to provide potential clients with useful and practical information they will be able to take advantage of. This information could be anything relevant to your business and can establish you as an authority in your specific niche.
You may be encouraged to set up a blog offering business-related information that will not only engage readers but encourage them to make frequent visits to your site on a regular basis. They may also issue a number of press releases that can attract people to your site when you have something new to offer (this also increases corporate branding and boosts traffic to your site). And they may offer a number of articles that can give a fresh and new perspective to the type of services you offer.
Implement a Social Media Marketing Strategy
Another area that SEO companies can be very effective in developing is social media marketing. In fact, many of the search engines you use will display their social media results on the very first pages of the search results. These often include information gleaned from various blog posts and Twitter accounts. It is expected that in the very near future, many search engines will begin to include social media content in their algorithms in deciding ranking so an SEO company that includes social media marketing could be very valuable to your bottom line.
Establish Good Public Relations
A good SEO will offer you more than a means of promoting your business online, they should also be monitoring your results regularly to make sure that your site is heading in the right direction. Expect to receive regular updates from them on the progress your site is making, how traffic is improving and if any new adjustments are needed.
Hiring an SEO company can be confusing if you don’t know what to expect. However, once you understand what kind of services you can receive it becomes much easier. Just keep in mind that any search engine optimization service you choose should be focused on how to improve your website position in the rankings and drive more business to your door. So, whether it includes enhancing your website or analyzing the market, they should be ready and equipped to provide you with whatever you need to make your business shine in the new and modern digital world.
