What is an SEO company? Many business owners have a vague awareness of search engine optimization at best, and at worst, think they don’t need to worry about SEO at all.
The reality is search marketing has never been more effective in driving customers to businesses. The rest of this article will define the role of an SEO company and discuss how an SEO company can grow the digital footprint of your business.
What is an SEO Company?
An SEO company specializes in search engine optimization. They help other businesses rank on the first search engine result page of search engines like Google or Bing, which in turn drives more leads for their clients. Google is the dominant search engine, and their algorithms are always changing.
The primary focus of an SEO company is to stay on top of Google’s updates and conduct regular audits on their client’s website to see how they can use these updates to increase their ranking. Search engine optimization is a constant chess match, and SEO companies are professional chess players.
Now, you may be thinking your business does good enough business without worrying about search engine optimization. If this is true, congratulations. It will be that much easier for an SEO company to generate even more business for you after they apply their expert SEO services.
What Does an SEO Services Company do for my Business?
Search engine optimization is an intricate process with a lot of moving parts. All SEO techniques fall under on-page SEO or off-page SEO.
The first thing an SEO company does is craft a game plan. They audit their client’s website to determine strengths and weaknesses in content or design. This falls under on-page SEO, which also includes:
- Keyword Analysis
- Content Quality Analysis
- URL Structure
- HTML Tags
- ALT Image Tags
- Page Load Speed
- Internal Linking
A good SEO company then makes a plan of attack to address their client’s weaknesses and improve their ranking for competitive keywords in their niche.
Any effective SEO strategy starts with great content. Google’s algorithms get better at identifying quality content with each update. A good SEO company has content creators on staff who create powerful content tailored to their client’s niche. The content is then optimized based on a target keyword.
Take a moment to brainstorm 5-10 keywords or phrases relevant to your business. If you were your customer, what would you type into Google to find your business?
Amplifying Your Content with Off-Page SEO
Once on-page SEO is finished, an SEO company uses off-page SEO to amplify the content. Off-page SEO revolves around getting high-authority sites to link to your content, which are known as backlinks. So how does Google determine a site’s authority?
They have a proprietary ranking system called Page Rank. The higher the Page Rank of a site, the more trusted it is by Google as a source of quality information. The more quality sites you have linking to your content, the higher you rank in the search engines. One link from a site like Adweek is worth more than dozens of links from blogs that just launched within the last couple of months.
Moz, which is one of the most trusted companies in the SEO business, created a metric called Domain Authority that has become the industry standard for measuring a site’s relevance.
Domain Authority is a score that ranges from 1 to 100. It is calculated based on the quality and quantity of your portfolio of links, as well as a few other factors they keep secret to prevent people from manipulating the metric. So how do you go about getting backlinks? You have a couple of options.
Your first option is to build relationships with influencers and writers for publications in your niche on social media, and then have them share your content. Link to their content and ask if they would do the same for your content when it makes sense.
The second option is to use guest-blogging. You create a piece of content for a website in your niche and pitch it to the editor to try and get it published. Successful SEO companies help businesses create content that is good enough to get published on sites with high authority in their niche.
How do I Pick an SEO Company?
Now that we’ve answered what is an SEO company and how they help your business, let’s talk about how to choose an SEO company. Here’s the secret. Think Local.
Many of the big SEO companies have clients in several time zones. Besides price, a disadvantage of using such companies is they don’t have their finger on the pulse of your local business environment.
They don’t have first-hand knowledge of your competition. Nor do they have the ability to meet with you face-to-face and experience the vibe of your business first hand. If you’re a business that operates in Irvine, California, then you should only consider SEO companies in Irvine, California.
An SEO company that operates in your area has a leg up when it comes to researching your competition and designing a local SEO strategy that will appeal to your local demographic. Do your due diligence. Look for proof of success on their website and ask for recommendations from other business owners in your network.
Leave any of your questions about SEO companies in the comment box below.
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