Many small businesses often find themselves in a catch-22 situation: they want to increase their website traffic but do not have the in-house resources for a successful search engine optimization (SEO) campaign. This is where managed SEO services help.
This article explains how.
5 Managed SEO Services That Spur Business Growth Online
SEO is challenging. The best practices that exist are not hard rules. In fact, search engines consider many factors to help determine your page rank. Plus, algorithms change, the impact of which can be so significant that it can even obliterate everything you have done.
It is too much work that many entrepreneurs cannot handle. That is why hiring SEO experts pays off.
Marina Turea of Digital Authority Partners (DAP) talked about some of the benefits of working with a reliable digital marketing firm for SEO. She also elaborated on what managed SEO services mean, especially for small businesses.
This article further explains the activities these professionals do to help you achieve your online marketing goals:
1. Keyword Research to Connect with Your Audience
Everything about SEO revolves around keywords. After all, these are the terms and phrases your audiences use to find you.
SEO firms can help you find the most relevant and profitable keywords to use in your content. This lets you reach more potential customers at the best cost. To do this, they perform various techniques, like:
- Competitor analysis. Here, the SEO team looks at what keywords your competitors target and how their campaigns perform. Then they identify opportunities your rivals might have missed. For instance, they can determine which keywords your competitors are not targeting but should.
- Keyword mapping. This is the process of finding which keywords are related to each other. It helps you create content optimized for a particular keyword group or “theme.”
- Trends analysis. SEO professionals also look at which keywords are trending to help you stay ahead of the curve. In particular, they evaluate the seasonality of certain keywords and how they affect your website’s performance.
2. SEO Audit to Spot Ranking Opportunities
As its name suggests, an SEO audit is an assessment of your website’s search performance. It is comprehensive and complicated because it looks at several parameters that influence your rank, crawlability, and indexing. These include:
- On-page optimization
- Link-building strategies
- Content marketing
- Technical issues, such as page load speed, broken links, and security
- Mobile optimization
It is a grueling task, but it identifies areas of improvement on your website that can help boost its visibility and ranking. Further, it pinpoints potential issues that might prevent your website from performing well in search engine rankings.
A typical SEO audit includes these processes:
- Analyze your website’s internal and external links.
- Check for potential redirect issues.
- Evaluate title tags, meta descriptions, image titles, URL structures, and other factors.
- Look at how content is optimized for keywords.
- Confirm if the website is compliant with search engine webmaster guidelines.
3. Content Optimization to Rank and Compete
If keywords are the foundation of any SEO plan, the content is the heart.
Content is the medium through which search engines crawl and rank your website. It is also what stands between you and your audience’s willingness to buy your product or service.
Managed SEO services generate, optimize, and update content according to:
- Targe audience. Who are your readers? What do they want? What keywords do they use to look for information? Where are they on the buying journey?
- Competitors. What kind of content do they produce? Which topics give them the most success? What content types work well for them? How can you improve their strategies to give yours a big boost?
- Industry trends. What is hot right now in your industry? How can you use these trends to create and promote compelling content that will draw attention and traffic to your website?
- Relevance. Is your content relevant to what your audience is looking for? How often do you need to update it so that it stays fresh and useful?
- Search engine guidelines. What are the new or updated guidelines that can potentially affect your content? How do you ensure that yours remain compliant, so it does not suffer from a penalty, such as a deindexing or a lower rank?
- Legal regulations. Is your content free from copyright violations and other legal issues? Does it need to abide by specific regulations or laws, such as HIPAA?
In short, content optimization is not just about writing. It is a complex process that requires thoughtful planning and execution.
4. Analytics to Know What Is Happening Behind the Scenes
Online marketing demands a budget, and depending on your objectives, it can take a huge chunk of your spending. For this reason, numbers matter.
Through analytics, you can measure the performance of your SEO efforts. For instance, an analytics program generates data that allows you to track and analyze website interactions, such as:
- Number of visitors
- Pages visited
- Time spent on each page
- Click-through rates for calls-to-action
- Referral sources (organic search, direct traffic, social media, etc.)
- Purchase behavior and conversion rates
Analytics can also help you understand which channels and campaigns are performing well and which areas need improvement.
But managed SEO services can take this vital activity further. They can:
- Help you anticipate trends in your industry
- Adjust campaigns quickly to new developments
- Focus your spending on the activities that generate the most returns
- Explain data in plain language so that you can make informed decisions
- Ensure that the collected data does not violate federal and international regulations.
5. Monitoring and Reporting to Help You Make Sound Decisions
SEO these days does not leave any room for slackers. If you want to retain your position in the search results or even get a better rank, monitoring is a must.
Digital marketing firms that offer managed SEO services can monitor your website’s performance and track your progress against the agreed-upon goals. Even better, they can provide reports with:
- Detailed insights into activities that are delivering the most success
- Recommendations on further steps to take, such as where to sell and how
- Comparisons between competitor websites
- The overall returns and conversions of each campaign
In the end, your decision is the final answer. However, you are less likely to suffer from remorse or a grievous mistake if you have accurate, up-to-date data.
Summing Up
As a small business, managed SEO services help you compete aggressively in optimization by making the most of the resources you have. This way, you have enough left to scale without falling behind your competitors.
If you want to learn more about how this service works, do not hesitate to reach out to an SEO agency that specializes in your niche. These teams can share insider secrets or deep insights that can make all the difference.
