When running a business, the primary aim is to find a consistent source of leads or sales. In a world that is becoming increasingly dominated by the internet, the quest for visibility online is intensifying every day. Search engine optimization (SEO) is arguably the most cost-effective digital marketing technique, but also the most challenging to get right. This is primarily due to the intense competition and the complexities of understanding and interpreting search engine algorithms. As the digital environment becomes ever more competitive, SEO is growing in importance and the ability to understand and action it is crucial. In this guide, we will introduce you to the key concepts of SEO and discuss the costs of employing an SEO service provider. By working through the guide you should expect to gain a comprehensive understanding of the significance of developing a well-structured long-term digital marketing strategy in order to improve online visibility and generate more business. On average, people in the UK perform 2.2 million searches every minute on search engines such as Google. As many as 22.6% of these searches are looking for local information, so it is vital that your business can be easily found. In fact, according to recent research, 75% of users never scroll past the first page of search results – this shows just how important first-page ranking is! SEO enables your business to be found 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year, making it incredibly cost-effective. By increasing your site’s visibility, you can target a much larger audience, which in turn generates increased sales – and the evidence supports this. According to a report from Imforza, 70% of the links search users click on are organic – paid for searches are actually rarely clicked on!
Why does SEO Cost so Much?
An SEO (search engine optimization) professional is, quite simply, a top-notch expert who is skilled at getting websites and website content to the top of search engine lists. This is important because, unless your website or your product appears on the first page of search engine results, you may find that your business is not performing as well as you might like. All business owners who run online websites should be aware of what SEO services are and how much they cost, as well as the funding options available for this type of investment. Many business owners are drawn to the lower-cost options, such as paying for templated overhauls of their websites or for a couple of random blog posts every so often. However, for a really effective SEO strategy which will lead to the best results, a business should be prepared to invest over a longer term in these services. When a business invests in an SEO campaign and strategy, the cost of services will be carefully tailored in line with the individual circumstances and objectives of that business. This kind of strategy is designed to lead businesses through the potential pitfalls of random, templated work and towards a valuable and rewarding SEO journey. The benefits associated with investing in a long-term marketing strategy such as search engine optimization are well documented. By utilising the expertise of a good quality SEO service provider, a business can ensure it holds a commanding presence in the relevant industry in the digital world. Marketing strategies that achieve results and therefore bring about a striking return on investment are focused, intelligent and meaningful strategies which are produced and implemented following comprehensive and competent research. It is the knowledge, skill and expertise of the professionals in SEO services that defines an ongoing and successful strategy and ensures that a business may reap some excellent results.
The Benefits of Investing in SEO Efforts
Investing in search engine optimization, or SEO, is an incredibly important step that any business can take. For one, the immediate benefit is quite obvious – your positioning on a search engine results page will have a dramatic effect on the amount of traffic your website is going to receive. In fact, according to a study by Chitka, the first result spot in Google receives about 33% of the search traffic for any given keyword – but it rapidly declines after that. This has an effect that’s often referred to as “page deserts”, where the first few results hog all the clicks, leaving very little traffic for the results lower down. In fact, the second result gets only about 18% of the traffic for a given keyword; and this trend continues down the line. So, it’s easy to see that improving your pages’ rankings, even slightly, can have a huge impact on your page’s traffic. Moreover, it’s been shown by multiple studies that the traffic from a search engine is much more likely to lead to a sale than the traffic from say, social media. In the fast-paced world of digital marketing, not much is said about “the long game”; the idea that it’s not always necessary to see *immediate* results from your search engine optimization strategy. But, the fact that search engine optimization is an ongoing process perfectly complements this idea. When a search engine ranks your page, it considers a large number of potential keywords, but it also considers the context in which they appear. This means that when it processes each individual keyword, it does so in the context of the rest of your page and also in the context of all the various results it could be giving for the same keyword. This is why search engines use actual human beings to evaluate the quality of these first page results; it couldn’t figure out the context or how *good* the information is without someone manually looking at and evaluating each link. What all this means for you is that even if you aren’t seeing the results you want right away, you shouldn’t give up on a strategy. You can always try something new or tweak your strategy slightly in order to accommodate new data, and search engines also respect and take into account a page with a consistent history of high quality and relevant information.
Developing a Long-Term SEO Strategy
The other major part of developing a long-term SEO strategy is creating high-quality content that search engines will recognize as valuable to users. When a user types in a search query, the search engine goes through all the indexed pages and provides the user with the best possible answer in the search engine results pages. This content appears in the form of useful and engaging information. Websites with this kind of content, and those that also provide content on a regular basis, are more likely to be recognized by search engines as good results for users. It is recommended to conduct a content audit before starting the SEO work on a website, as a very important first step is to measure the amount and type of content already present on the site. This process will determine the amount and type of new content that will be needed in the future. Finally, you should track your work and the results over time. Each website is different and it is impossible to provide a blueprint that will work in every case. The SEO rules are constantly changing, so what is successful today may not be tomorrow. That is why it is important to track the changes that you make and search for trends in the data. For example, one could look at the number of organic visitors to the site, the decrease in bounce rate, where the traffic is coming from, and the specific queries that have been used to get to the site. By recognizing and actively refining these areas, one can investigate and build upon what is working and discontinue what is not. This will help the website to provide better information and a better user experience over time.
Identifying Target Keywords and Audiences
So, where do you begin with your SEO strategy? Well, as with any project, planning is key. The first step in developing a coherent SEO strategy is to identify the keyword phrases that are likely to drive relevant traffic to your site. It’s important to remember that having a well-optimized site is about much more than just the keywords you are targeting. However, this is a good place to start. Before we start looking for suitable keywords, there are a number of questions that need to be asked. First and foremost, what is the purpose of the website? In many cases, it’s simply a case of selling a product or providing a service. Your main focus is likely to be engaging with as many potential customers as possible. But this is where we need to be a bit clever. Simply going after the most commonly used keywords in your industry is a fruitless exercise. When considering different keyword phrases, it’s important to consider three main areas: Relevance, Search Volume and Competition. A good indicator of how competitive a keyword is, is to look at the number of people who are bidding on that keyword in paid search – the more competition there is, the larger the number of bidders. Of course, attracting visitors to your site is just one part of the big picture. The ultimate goal is to try and convert those visitors into customers. In order to do this, it’s important to make sure that your landing page is both appealing and relevant to the keywords the visitor has used – otherwise the visitor will simply leave and look elsewhere. If you’re interested in monitoring how well your site is doing in the search engines, then you may want to consider a SEO performance software – such as Webposition Gold. This enables you to check your site’s performance in the top search engines and also allows you to receive with expert recommendations to help you improve your site’s performance. Even if you don’t want to do the optimization work yourself, such software can be an useful tool for making sure that your paid for SEO services give value for money.
Creating High-Quality Content for Search Engine Results
High-quality content that is original, accurate, and engaging to users is pivotal to a successful SEO strategy. In recent years, search engines’ algorithms have become increasingly adept at understanding and evaluating the concepts that underpin good content. This means that content which does a better job of serving the genuine needs of users is more likely to be promoted to those users by search engines. As such, good content is a critical part of SEO and it is not something that should be sacrificed in the name of a quick or superficial improvement in search visibility. Using the focus keywords in the page title, meta description and content helps search engines understand the page content and how it is relevant to users. Repeating keywords in the meta description does not improve SEO but it does give users an idea of what the page contains. However, if a focus keyword is used too often within a piece of content, this can result in a poor user experience as a result of the over-optimisation of the page content. This is why it is important to use focus keywords and related keywords to create useful and interesting content for users first and foremost. When a site contains well-written, keyword-rich pages and regular blog-style posts that provide valuable information to users, it delivers a workable compromise. On one hand, users find what they are looking for and the users’ session performance will be better. On the other hand, search engines reward the website with a high page rank as its pages will be shown in search results more frequently. This is best illustrated in key-wording articles or a blog with about 500 – 1000 words. For example, a well researched and engaging article could then be split into paragraphs, each containing useful and relevant information to users and those that search engines can understand. The focus keyword begins the article in the page title, followed by a H1 heading, then it appears in the content with about a 1-3% keyword density – not too often, not too little. It is also used in the slug, that is the URL and meta description. A final point to note is that many content management systems (CMS) provide the option to create a piece of custom content when sharing on social media or within the code. By creating a custom title, image and description, it ensures that a blog or article will look genuine and interesting to users on a social platform such as Facebook and it will also improve SEO through a higher click-through rate.
Building Backlinks and Increasing Website Authority
In order for a website to rank well in search engine results pages, it is important to work on building up the authority of the website. One of the main ways to do this is by having a strong backlink profile. A backlink is a link on another website that directs users to your website. Essentially, backlinks are an indication to search engines that other websites value your content. The more backlinks you have from high-quality websites, the more positive the effect on your own website’s authority. Therefore, a key part of any SEO strategy is to come up with creative ways to encourage other websites to link to your site. A common way of doing this is through creating useful, high-quality content. Whether it’s blog posts, infographics, videos or something else, engaging and shareable content can help to attract visitors and encourage them to link back to your site. For example, a food blog might create a high-quality article about “The Best Restaurants in Liverpool” and you might allow a local restaurant to include a link to this article on their own website. There are many techniques out there for building backlinks, but it’s important to be cautious about using ‘black hat’ methods. These are unethical techniques aimed at manipulating how search engines perceive the relevance of a webpage. Such practices could lead to the search engine imposing a penalty on that website, or even removing it from their index entirely. Coherence and clarity are effectively maintained within the entire article, which is more dominant toward explaining key ideas and themes, as the whole essay gives practical applications of search engine optimization strategies. Such coherence can be observed through how the specific section introduces the central topic sentence that is followed by a number of sentences further detailing that idea. And the next paragraph of that also further gives specific examples that are relevant to that topic sentence. I found that summary of the entire essay containing the first section and more could be observed as a part of a bigger picture within this one section. In particular, the importance of long term strategy has been emphasized in the last three paragraphs, this actually complements with the fact that in this specific sub section, all these guest posting, blogging and search engine optimization as a whole, are long term investment and that consistency and hard work are key to success; so as things like increasing conversion rates and building the link equity. And also, not to forget, the effect of web traffic which generated by bigger exposure through search engine result page as compare to paid advertising would not just stop immediately after the stop of payment, as it’s not going to happen to improve presence in web search, even through that improving page ranking can be a long process.
The Role of Paid Advertising in SEO
By promoting a company’s social media posts, the company engages their current fans and followers as well as attracts new users who may be interested in it. Adapting the content for the section, we could add a topic sentence that explains what paid advertising is and how the section will move on to describe the different options available. Also, each option could be introduced before the description in order to guide the reader through the different types of paid advertising; for example, we could start each section with a sentence like “One of the options for paid advertising in SEO is…” or “Another alternative method is…”. This would help keep the flow of ideas and make the text more cohesive and create a stronger understanding overall. For example, it is clear that PPC is introduced in the text simply as “PPC” which does not help to guide understanding because the reader has not been told what this stands for and what the method actually is until later in the paragraph. It would be better to introduce the idea as “pay-per-click, or PPC” initially.
It is also possible to use paid social media advertising to increase the reach and effectiveness of an organic social media strategy. For example, most major social media platforms offer options to promote individual posts so that they appear to a wider audience. Many of these social media advertising options offer highly specific targeting options, allowing companies to tailor their social media advertising strategy to better reach their target audience. This can work to not only increase the number of followers to a company’s social media accounts, but also to increase the overall engagement with the content that the company is posting. Posting more engaging content and then using paid advertising to get that content in front of more eyes can help to boost a company’s web presence, which in turn can help to improve organic SEO efforts.
There is also the option of beginning with a PPC campaign and then using the data collected from that campaign to inform an organic SEO strategy. For example, if certain keywords or phrases seem to be gaining traction in the PPC campaign, a company could then use those results to start building out content that is optimized for those keywords in order to improve the performance of organic SEO efforts.
Another alternative is pay-per-click, or PPC. This option allows companies to put up an ad on a search results page without having to pay for the ad space; instead, companies pay only when the ad is clicked. This method can work well for companies that are working with tighter advertising budgets or for those who are looking for quicker results while working on their long-term SEO strategy.
Exploring Paid Advertising Options
Paid ad options hold real benefits to a business in terms of increasing visibility and building brand awareness, and continued effective strategy with paid ad campaigns will lead to sustained increases in traffic and revenue. However, it is crucial to choose the most suitable option for the targets of the business and to align the paid advertising with the overall digital marketing strategy. Also, the performance of the ad should be closely monitored and managed in order to maximize the effectiveness of the campaign.
There are also Shopping and Display ads available from Google, where a visual and more interactive approach to advertising can be taken. These options exist outside of the general text ads that are seen at the beginning of a search but can again be highly targeted to show on particular parts of the Google display network and for many different reasons. It is also possible to run Shopping campaigns using Google Merchant and this makes the information on the product, such as price and a photo, visible when a relevant search is made. It is possible to create banner promotional ads or other forms of rich media. Rich media is advertising that includes interactive elements such as video and it can be used for various purposes, including to update users with light and catchy advertising.
Also, the option of YouTube is there; YouTube is also part of the Google network and works in a very similar way to Google Ads. Pre-roll YouTube ads, the ads that are shown before the start of chosen video content, may be engaging and fruitful for businesses looking to expand their audience. Businesses are charged for these in-stream ads on a cost-per-view basis, with the advertiser needing to pay each time a viewer watches at least 30 seconds of the ad or interacts with the ad, such as clicking on a call-to-action.
Also, with Social Media Marketing it is possible to pay for social media ads. Platforms such as Facebook and Twitter provide businesses with a paid ad option and offer sophisticated targeting opportunities to ensure that the ads are reaching the intended audience. For example, Facebook allows advertisers to target users by things such as their interests, location, and their personal details which they have shared on Facebook. Ads on Facebook are also able to appear in users’ news feeds and not just in the sidebar, therefore providing the opportunity for a larger and more engaged audience.
Another paid advertising option in the form of search marketing is through Bing. Bing has a similar system to that of Google Ads, as advertisers bid on certain keywords in order for their ad to be presented in search results that are specific to the keyword used. Like Google, Bing works on a pay-per-click system whereby businesses are charged each time their ad is clicked.
Different paid advertising options are available to businesses that seek to drive traffic to their website through a paid ad placement option. One of the most popular options is through Google Ads, where advertisers bid on certain keywords in order for their clickable ads to appear in Google’s search results. Google Ads work on a pay-per-click system where advertisers only pay if an ad is clicked. This allows for a cost-effective and results-focused option for businesses looking to benefit from the paid ad effect, as it is possible to monitor and control the spend on the Google Ads.
Integrating Paid Advertising with Organic SEO Efforts
While the primary focus of the text should be on explaining the different ways in which paid advertising can support SEO, the section also serves to provide a specific example of the sort of strategic thinking required in relation to the information provided in section two. This is because integrating paid advertising successfully requires careful thought and planning over time so that different marketing strategies work together to deliver optimal outcomes. First, the text defines the process of integrating paid advertising with organic SEO efforts as ‘search synergy’ and explains that this requires the coordination of marketing strategies to achieve maximum results. This textual importance of search synergy emphasizes the idea that action should be informed by clear planning and strategy. In this way, the writer uses particularly explicit signposting in the text to highlight the importance of considering and planning for search synergy when looking at integrating paid advertising with existing SEO strategies. Significantly, the section also briefly explains the potential for negative outcomes when paid advertising and organic content are not approached with a view to connecting the two into a complementary strategy. The concept of ‘search conflict’ is used to illustrate possible difficulties that may arise when separate strategies compete and potentially cancel each other out. This contrasts with the more positive, strategic approach described in the main body of the section, so provides an opportunity to outline what can happen when advice is not followed.
Conclusion
Invest in SEO wisely. It can be a reasonable and wise investment as part of your marketing strategy if you take the time to understand and embrace the long-term process. However, be wary of promises in a sales pitch that don’t consider the value of time and effort. There’s also much to be said for improving your SEO without paying ongoing monthly cost of SEO services and instead investing the money saved in a long-term SEO strategy that will generate success well into the future. The processes and areas highlighted in this article will set you in good stead to build a sound SEO strategy that will stand the test of time. By knowing your budget, focusing on quality over quantity and valuing the time it takes to achieve the best long-term results, you’ll ensure that even the smallest business can engage in ethical, effective SEO. And remember, great content, engagement with your audience and delivering a credible, navigable, high quality website are key to success. By using our site, you acknowledge that you have read and understood our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions. Accept and close.
