A Comprehensive (Beginners) Guide to SEO
Our 8 part guide on all aspects of SEO, from how search engines work to the effects of UI and UX.
By now, every business owner, marketing manager and website developer should know that SEO is one of the best long term digital marketing strategies for most websites. In the modern world, if your website hasn’t been optimised, you’ll be losing out on potential hundreds or thousands of visitors each month via search engines. With more and more business done online and for your business to survive, never mind prosper, you need your site to be successful.
As an SEO Company, are familiar with the SEO best practises, changes to Google’s algorithms and what is required to getting you ranking highly on the world’s best search engines. We work hard to ensure that you reap the benefits, not just now but long into the future. Many in-house marketing teams often try to handle the SEO, but in this article, we will help you to appreciate why this is rarely possible and is usually a false economy.
- They are specialist in what they do
Perhaps the most significant benefit that you can gain from hiring an external SEO consultant is that they are specialist, an expert in what they do. In days gone by, when fewer people had websites, and the algorithms were far less complicated, ranking highly for your keywords was relatively straightforward if you had some knowledge. However, times have changed, and even the experts will struggle to get you to rank on the first page for every keyword.
SEO now involves many aspects including maximising social media, adopting local SEO, having quality SEO content on your site, which is frequently updated as well as having an ongoing link-building program. All of these aspects on their own are complex, but when you group them, it is a minefield. Like with anything, it is always best to call in the experts if you want a job doing correctly. Would you rewire your home after reading a brief guide on how to do it?
External specialists know what they are doing so you will get the results that you crave and in a timeframe that agreeable to both parties.
- Do you really have the required skillset and knowledge?
While most of us believe that we can turn our hand to anything, the reality is that we can’t or at least to the same standard as an expert. Even marketing managers, who take care of every aspect of a large organisations marketing, won’t have the same up-to-date knowledge of SEO as an expert. In fact, having some knowledge can be a dangerous thing, and if you do something wrong, you may adversely affect your rankings in both the short and long term.
Experts do have the required skills, and will continually study to update their knowledge, learn the latest techniques as well as knowing tried and tested new ways to get the best results. An external SEO consultant will do this day in, day out and not get distracted by other forms of marketing. It is time to be honest with yourself or your boss and admit that someone else could do a better job.
- They adopt an unbiased approach
It is human nature to have an element of bias towards something that we have done or something that we like. If your website has been designed internally, the content written by your team and the SEO done by the new girl with a marketing degree, you will naturally think that they have done a great job. However, the results haven’t been coming, and you are reluctant to change, are you doing what’s in the best interests of your business, or are you protecting your own ego? In most cases, the answer will be the latter. By employing an external SEO consultant, they will be able to perform unbiased, critical analysis and in most cases, adopt a fresh approach.
Although the new approach is likely to be met with resistance at first, once the results start to come, everyone can work together, and your strategies can be re-evaluated, tweaked or implement large-scale change. This analysis is something than only an independent and unbiased person could do. It is a major reason why you should be looking externally if you want to achieve your SEO objectives.
- You don’t have the time to do it properly
Even if you do have the required skillset and you can adopt an unbiased approach, if you are running your own business, it is unlikely that you will have the time to do effective SEO. SEO requires a lot of ongoing work and is something which is never finished. While you are concentrating on that aspect of your business, something else will go overlooked. Your time would be far better spent on doing what you are best at – running your own business rather than SEO.
For you to focus on your business, your next project or a product launch, you need time. You can formulate a list of what needs to be done and what you would like to achieve, but you should hire an outside consultant to put your ideas into practice. By adopting this approach, your entire business will be more successful, which is ultimately your goal.
- Innovative ideas
While it would be foolish to say that the old methods are entirely irrelevant, to be really successful, you need to adopt the current best practices, follow the latest trends as well as having your own innovative ideas. When you employ the services of an external SEO consultant, they will beware of all of these things. They will also have their own fresh ideas about how they can help you to reach the top of the rankings.
When you keep things in-house, you will almost certainly be sticking to old methods that brought you some success in the past. However, you have slowly started to slip down the rankings, and your bottom line has suffered as a result. You need someone who is dynamic and can bring fresh ideas to the table while also being confident that they are adopting white hat techniques. It is a big ask, and that is why you need an expert.
- You can track the results
Doing SEO is one thing but knowing if your efforts are successful is something completely different altogether. By bringing someone from the outside who will know precisely how to track their efforts and provide you with reports as well as being able to give you tools that you can use in real-time. If you don’t follow your results, you are probably wasting your time and potentially significant sums of money.
In the worst-case scenario, your actions could be having a negative impact on rankings as well as potential your brand’s image. It will give your competitors all the ammunition they need to pull your brand down while also building themselves up. Tracking your results is essential, and an external SEO team will give you the best opportunity to get ahead. If your team doesn’t have the time to do this, or can’t interpret the data correctly, it could have a devastating impact on your company.
- Avoid internal politics
Internal politics are inevitable in any business, but when it comes to SEO, everyone will believe that their opinion is correct. Once again, employees can become more interest in protecting their own vested interests and their ego than doing what is right. It is common for some people’s ideas to get dismissed because of who they are rather than what they say, and this can often have a detrimental impact on performance. By employing someone independent, you remove this problem and can focus on achieving your objective without distractions.
As we have covered in many points above, home-grown ideas often aren’t the best ideas and telling people this can cause offence. As a result, the status quo often remains, which means money, time and other resources are being wasted. It is always best to bite the bullet and do what is best!
- It will get done!
Finally, we all know that SEO is easy to put to one side saying that “we will start tomorrow” but tomorrow never comes. As we have tried to keep stressing throughout this article, SEO is time-consuming, and it is an ongoing process. By choosing to do it yourself or asking your own in-house teams to do it, it is likely to get left and forgotten about. If you use an external SEO expert, it will get done; this is what they get paid for! Just having this peace of mind means that you can focus on other aspects of your business.
Most SEO people enjoy what they do and get a genuine buzz out of their accomplishments. Isn’t this the sort of person you want helping you to achieve your SEO objectives?
Contact Us
If you are considering using the services of an external SEO expert or are tired of never achieving the results that you want, then why not contact us on 02 038 5400 to find what we can do for you?
