Search engine optimization (SEO) is crucial to enable your website to rank well in the search engine results pages (SERPs) of major search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. A study by Compete.com showed that 53% of clicks from users searching online go to the first result on the list.
Reaching the first page of results has always been challenging, but with the constant changes in the way Google indexes content it has become even more so. Bad SEO can harm your business and your online profile, so it’s imperative that your optimization is done both correctly and cost-effectively.
Here are 8 reasons why you should hire an expert in SEO to do it for you.
Time Saving
Attempting to do your own SEO is hugely time-consuming, especially if you or your Chief Marketing Officer is an SEO novice. One of the primary reasons why companies outsource various marketing functions is to save time, according to the Content Marketing Institute’s 2014 report on B2B benchmarks, budget and trends. Free up your time to focus on the core competencies that are critical to your business operations.
Knowledge and Expertise
Someone proficient in SEO has the knowledge and expertise to employ best practices for coding as well as optimizing the structure of your site. He (or she) will conduct an analysis of your website’s performance and do advanced keyword research on what users are searching for in your industry. They will evaluate the strategy of your competitors to see what is working for them, provide advice on additional content required and help you develop a plan for producing the content strategy and search engine-friendly content you need.
Keeping Up with Changes
Google updates its search algorithm several times a day, according to leading SEO consultancy Moz.com. That makes it fairly difficult for the busy marketing executive to focus on tracking and implementing changes as fast as necessary. For example, Google’s latest update—nicknamed “Mobilegeddon”—went live on April 21, 2015. Within a couple of days, those that were prepared were afforded a ranking increase in mobile search while less prepared websites watched their mobile web traffic declined. An SEO expert, however, makes it his business to know precisely when new updates are due to kick in and to ensure that they are implemented.
Delivering Cost Effective Operations
You can spend a lot of money on optimizing your website for organic search, and unless you have a reasonable degree of expertise you could be wasting your funds. For SEO to be cost-effective, it needs to be a continuous, consistent process. An expert treats every page of your website content as a potential campaign, optimizing it to target prospective customers in different stages of the buying cycle.
By delivering value-driven on-page SEO in conjunction with offsite optimization and strategic link building, your expert can help to build you an online profile that appears natural to the search engines.
Avoid Expensive Mistakes
It’s no secret that time is money, and this is particularly true when it comes to SEO. What might seem like an insignificant error can cause a massive problem with the search engines. For example, using your primary keyword a little too often or naming the images in your blog posts incorrectly can constitute over-optimization, even if it’s unintentional. This can cause your website to be penalized by search engines and possibly blacklisted, resulting in a loss of traffic, reduced number of sales leads, and the need to spend time and money regaining lost ground in search rankings.
Analysis of Results
Regardless of how well your website is optimized, SEO can only truly serve you if you’re analyzing your results on a regular basis and making adjustments accordingly. Metrics that require ongoing monitoring include:
- The number of visitors referred by the search engines
- Ranking of key terms and phrases in search
- Conversion rates associated with search queries
With continuous monitoring, any drop in your search traffic can be diagnosed and addressed immediately, according to SearchEngineWatch.com.
Easy-To-Understand Reports
It’s essential to generate and interpret reports on the performance of your SEO activities. By doing so, you’re able to evaluate whether your efforts are helping you to achieve your business goals, determine the impact of your marketing on operations and identify new opportunities or threats from competitors. An SEO expert understands the significance of the statistics provided in the reports and will convert them into usable business intelligence that you can easily digest.
Improves ROI
When you’re investing hard-earned money in an inbound marketing strategy, it’s essential to do it correctly if you want to realize the full benefit of your expenditure. By contracting an expert to deliver against specific, measurable goals you’ll boost your brand recognition, improve your ROI and reduce the amount of time and energy you’d have to expend if you attempted to do it yourself.
SEO does not equal DIY. Get an expert and do it right.
