How Do you know When You Need SEO Services?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a cornerstone of inbound marketing. To that end, many companies use SEO services as one of their tried-and-true, bread-and-butter marketing tactics. However, SEO is not as easy as it may seem, in part because of the numerous technicalities that influence a page’s overall rank on the search engine result page (SERP).

Countless organizations rely on SEO services from outside agencies in order to ensure their website remains optimized for ranking as high as possible for queries related to their business. If you’re considering using SEO services for your business, it’s important to first remember the overall strengths and weaknesses of SEO as a marketing tactic.

What SEO Is and Isn’t

SEO, in its purest form, is organizing and writing your website in such a way that it can be found by the people you’re trying to reach. Your business cannot be all things to all people or relevant to every search query – and Google know this. That’s why ethical businesses use SEO to tell Google and Bing who their company is and who they are trying to reach, and let the algorithms figure out it from there.

In marketing your company, SEO is best used as a tool for long-term visibility. The right combination of keywords, backlinks, and effective writing can absolutely contribute to a steady ascent of your company’s presence on the first Google results page.

That being said, countless SEO “experts” claim to be able to optimize sites for immediate improvement on the results page . But, here’s the catch: no one knows exactly how Google and Bing’s algorithms work. The most effective SEO is based on what’s worked in the past and what seems to be working right now – all of which contribute to slow but steady improvement. SEO is one area where the tortoise will always beat the hare.

Do I Need SEO Services?

In a way, search engine optimization is quite a bit like car repair. It’s a process that’s easy to understand but somewhat difficult to execute. Many people know the basics of it, but more advanced stuff is often handled by a professional. It would be simple enough to learn how to do the fancy stuff on your own, but that would require a lot of time and money that you don’t necessarily have – thus, it’s usually more convenient just to let someone else take care of it for you.

Like automobiles, SEO is only becoming more complicated with time. It was probably simpler to repair a 1977 LeSabre than a 2016 Fit; in that light, the SEO techniques of 2012 may not be as effective in 2017. The practice of SEO is one that is constantly changing – keyword frequency can ebb and flow with the natural shifts of popular language, and algorithmic changes by Google can render time-honored techniques completely useless. Effective SEO requires you pay constant attention to its many permutations and developments.

To that end, SEO services are attractive to many business owners because they offer a solution to the common annoyances of search engine optimization work: searching for keywords, evaluating optimization effectiveness, researching and verifying the veracity of new trends, etc.

Common SEO services include:

• Keyword research
• Metatag maintenance
• Creating SEO-friendly content
• Backlinking
• Design optimization

Ultimately, SEO services are more than investment in mere search optimization; they’re an investment in your website, your branding, and your company’s image as a whole. SEO helps your company stand out from the competition on the most global marketplace in history.

Bear in mind – SEO is one way of being discovered on the Internet, but it’s not the only way. That being said, the most successful companies will always use strong SEO practices on their websites.