Why Hire An SEO Expert?

I’ve got a mental picture of you scratching your head, running your fingers through your hair and frowning while you think “Is it worth hiring an SEO agent? Is it worth getting someone to do my SEO? Is it really true that an SEO agent will get my business the results that I need?”

Well, unless you’ve already got an SEO expert on your staff or you are one yourself (in which case, why are you reading this post?), you probably do need some sort of help from someone who knows what he/she is doing. You might need a whole lot of help in the form of a complete overhaul of your business website, for example, or you might need just a few tweaks and hacks to generate a bit more organic traffic and get your page higher up those good old Google rankings.

There are quite a few good reasons why you ought to get in a professional to help you with your search engine optimisation. Here’s a few just to get you started:

Crush Your Google Rankings

OK, maybe “crush” isn’t quite the right word, as you want to get your ranking up on page 1 rather than squashed down somewhere on page two (or lower) and buried on the internet. But you get the general idea. You see, an SEO expert is trained in all the tips, tricks, hacks, tools and techniques to generate more and better organic traffic, which is the secret to increasing your Google rankings. Getting onto page one and staying on page one is the secret to doing great business online. After all, 75% of users hunting for something online don’t look beyond the first page of results. Only 25% are patient or persistent enough to trawl through the second page or beyond, so if that’s where your page is listed, you’ll miss out on potential business.

Bring More Organic Traffic

Organic is always better, and we’re not just talking about fruit and vegetables. Organic traffic is what Google’s clever little algorithms are primed to look for and reward, so increasing your level of organic traffic is the very best way to soar up the rankings.

What’s organic traffic?

I hear you ask this question a lot. Well, organic traffic refers to the site visits and page views you get from real live humans. Organic traffic can come from clicking through on links in emails or posted on other sites (including social media sites) or it can come from search results. Organic search results are the results that turn up from real live searches done by real people who are actually looking for a business just like yours. All of these are SEO gold but it’s the organic search results that really count – and this is just what a professional SEO consultant will help you get right.

Organic traffic and organic search results are the opposite of artificially stimulated page rankings, commonly known as paid ads. If you’re like 80% of online users, you’ll probably skip over those paid ads that appear at the top of your search results, all nicely highlighted and tagged as ads, and you get down to the real deal results. I know I do, unless the ad is from the store I was specifically looking for. You have to pay a truckload for these ads, especially for the popular keywords that get a lot of competition, and it really doesn’t bring the best return on interest.

How Does Google Send Traffic Your Way?

So what does Google look for when it decides what does and doesn’t go on Page 1? There are a number of things that it looks for, a lot of which are in your control, especially if you get an expert on SEO to give you a hand:

Keywords

Google looks for keywords that match the search terms entered by users, as well as close synonyms. The closer the match, the higher the rankings! What’s more, Google et al. look for what’s in the titles and headings. The algorithms look at what’s on your site and compares it to other sites to see if what you’ve got is relevant to the keywords. Most keywords are actually key phrases about 2–4 words long – something to keep in mind. However, Google also penalises keyword stuffing rather heavily, so resist the temptation to do this. Your customers will hate it, anyway! Go for natural language instead.

Fresh content

Older sites tend to be less active – and tend to be the ones that break all the rules because they were created before Google became more sophisticated and learned how to penalise “black hat SEO”. Fresh content is the way to conquer this hurdle. In fact, sites with fresh content get 67% more traffic than those with older bits and pieces. But would a blog work for you? What about completely overhauling your home page? Your SEO expert can advise you.

Links

Inbound links to your site are an old trick, but outbound links to authoritative sources are another great way to increase your traffic. This is because Google rewards sites that are trustworthy and are of good quality. And what better way to show this than a link to a well-known authority on the topic. Just make sure it’s relevant!

Video Content

Video content. Sites with video content tend to pick up 50% more traffic than those without. However, getting started with videos for your sites can be a bit daunting. What sort of video would drive the most traffic for your business, for example?

Of course, there are other things that Google looks for, including technical aspects of your site.

Improve Your Brand's Online Visibility

We’ve discovered something very interesting about your potential customers, although if you observed yourself online, you’d probably come up with the same general idea. People aren’t silly and they don’t tend to buy from the first site that they find with their first search. Most online users hunt around a bit before deciding to take the plunge, and they’ll do this by trying a number of closely related searches. Now, what would you do if the same business site turned up on Page 1 of the search results every time you tried slightly different keywords? Chances are that you’d think that this site just might be the right one for you because they seem to be experts in this area.

This sort of behaviour is just what you need to leverage to drive organic traffic to your site. However, you need to have the right strategy when it comes to keyword selection. In some ways, you need to be able to get into the skin of your potential customers and clients and think what they will use as search terms. Then you’ve got to be able to work these keywords into your content in a natural way that doesn’t make readers think that you’re desperate for a sale and/or a weirdo.

While we’re at it, let’s not forget that a whole lot more people these days use voice-controlled assistants (e.g. Alexa) and voice searching tools (e.g. Siri). When people use these tools, they use natural spoken language. Once again, the better your content matches what people search for, the better your rankings. This means using natural language in your content, folks!

It’s not easy to get behind the eyes of your customers, so to speak, and predict what sort of words they’re going to use to find your site online. You just about have to be a mind reader. However, as well as using natural empathy and imagination, an SEO professional also has a few simple tools and apps available, and he/she will use these to get into the heads of your potential customers and pick just the right keywords to include in your page content.

A Great SEO Expert Will:

Keep The Momentum Going

Even if you’re already getting plenty of business right now, you know that it’s important to stay that way. You might be so busy with your core business that you don’t have time to tweak your website. To keep the momentum up, you need an SEO ninja to work with your site and ensure that you maintain your lead over the competition!

Talk to us today about how we can help you with your online strategy. With a bit of help from us, you’ve got this!