Why Organic Traffic is The Key to Your Business
Have you seen businesses around you blast off after suddenly ranking on Google? Yes? Maybe? I have a short story for you about how a small-time plumbing business in Adelaide went from one van to 10+ and 20 full-time staff members! Yes, 20 in as little as 6 months.
So how did manage such a feat? Well, mainly in part to search engine optimisation.
Before I go into why or how search engine optimisation is the key to your business, I want to tell you a short story of an Adelaide plumber. As I mentioned above this business used quality white hat SEO to rank for all the keywords related and with search volume to their business. In an industry where the competition is fierce with 1001 heroes promising it all for the $$$, how do you navigate this minefield of an industry?
Well for starters, before you sign anyone to do SEO check the proposal. Make sure they have done some keyword research, and know which page will be targeting which keyword. If you are in an industry with 101 variations and names for the same product then making sure the SEO tasked with your campaign has taken them all into account.
Look at The Planned On-Page, Techincal, and Off-Page SEO
- On-Page - Have a look at the planned works for on-page SEO. Will they be adding related blog post content? Will they be optimising content that is already there? Will they be looking at heading bolded text and other on-page factors? As you can see your SEO of choice has more than a little bit of research to do before you can feel comfortable hiring them for your business.
- Technical - Have they done a technical audit, shown you how many pages are missing meta, have duplicate title tags, missing images or other technical issues like a missing XML file? Have they asked you if you have a Google Search Console and Analytics account and if you don't, will that be a part of the technical process? Do they think you need a robots.txt file? What is your website speed? Does it need improvement?
- Off-Page - Have they done an audit of your current backlink profile? Did they check the competition and the keyword anchor text ratio? What will be the strategy for backlink profile? Have they mentioned if you need citations? If you're a local business looking to get local rankings, have they taken this into account? As local campaigns need a few different things to national or international rankings.
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As in any industry, the information could be endless. So what I have done for your convenience is listed above some of the questions you should be asking your SEO provider before you commence anything further with them. I know asking a professional several questions is daunting, but in all honesty how else can you verify that they are the real deal. Search engine optimisation is not cheap and if done the right way can be an incredible asset for your business for years to come.
What Else Should You Know?
Search engine optimisation takes a little while to kick in properly, just because you don't see results instantly does not mean that no work is taking place. SEO is a game of quality content and patience and depending on the competition, it can be a whole lot more.
Final warning, if someone mentions a black hat or grey hat SEO make sure you stay away! Just because the options might be faster does not mean they do not come with dangers. Grey and black hats are methods of search engine optimisation that Google frowns upon or disapproves of the methods. And yes, there are a number of practices that Google recommends that SEOs do not, but this does not mean it's a grey or black hat method. SEOs saying something is because they have had experiences with these methods affecting SEO negatively or knowing full well that this practice will not last.
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What is meant by "not last"? This is when a website gets penalised by removal from Google search results completely or ranks drop suddenly. And when your business has a number of overheads and has become accustomed to decent rankings for business growth then this can be something you simply can not gamble with. As you can see, these methods are not something to be taken lightly, as these penalties can be really difficult to remove to the point that some business owners have been known to scrap their entire website and start over.
With SEO being a game of patience and quality, using non-recognised methods can be a huge gamble for your business that will not pay off in the long run. If you would like to know more about the difference of these methods feel free to have a read here.