When a potential customer searches a service or product and finds two businesses offering the same thing, the customer is more inclined to go with the business that appears on Google’s first page. The business on the subsequent pages is, for all practical purposes, out of the race. The potential customer tends to stop looking beyond a handful of initial results.
In order to rank on the first page of Google, time and effort are required and it should be explained to the potential customer. It usually takes from three to six months for any movement to occur. In highly competitive markets it often takes longer. Businesses still view this as an excellent marketing opportunity, because once the rankings are achieved there is no charge for each customer that visits the website, as it is with other forms of advertisement that stop when the funding stops.
Technical SEO
This is the part most businesses consider only after there is an issue. Although a site may have valuable content, it may still rank poorly due to issues with structure and speed, loading issues, or crawl and index issues with the search engines. We resolve these issues first, as addressing these issues tends to yield the best results for all subsequent efforts.
On-Page Work
Pages on a site need a defined purpose and have to target specific search terms. This means adding correct page titles, section descriptions, structured headings, and content targeted to what searchers actually want to find. This is often very different to what a business thinks searchers are looking for. The differences tend to matter more to businesses than most realise.
Content
Google can tell if your content is unique. Stuffing pages to meet a quota will no longer improve rank. This brief is more about encouraging unique content over pages of filler. Our goal is to help clients rank well and achieve that objective through high-quality content.
Local Search
For businesses with physical locations or a defined service area, local visibility is different from organic performance. Building your Google Business Profile, local citation building, and adding your service area pages to your website can increase visibility. It is often overlooked and is a worthy endeavor.
Keyword Research
An understanding of what search terms customers type into search engines is at the heart of every good SEO strategy. This understanding will shape the content of the site, the on-site work done, and where efforts should be mostly focused. We like to begin with the end in mind and avoid speculating what we believe customers may search for. Instead, we prefer to begin our efforts with an understanding of what customers are searching for.
Reporting
Reports track work completed, changes made, and plans for the next iteration. We write them to be read and filed later. We’ll call something out if it’s not working as designed. We won’t try to justify inactivity with a fictitious number of busywork activities.
SEO is often well-suited for businesses able to think in terms of months instead of weeks, but we should also be honest and say that it is not always the first choice for every situation. If you have a need for requests to be fulfilled quickly, then you are better off using paid search. The two can be utilised in tandem, and for businesses who are focused on the long-term goals, this combination usually works out in their favor.