Most businesses are finding the going tough on the internet platform. What was supposed to be an easy route to conversion is turning out to be a frustrating and seemingly impossible market place to understand. With over 3.6 billion people using the internet today, it goes without saying that this is the new frontier for marketers.
However, it takes more than building a website to tap into this rich customer base. According to Google, only 52% of websites make any revenue. If you are to harness the power of internet marketing, then you have to increase your visibility on search. A study by Search Engine Land says that over 93% of all internet experiences begin with a search engine. Search engine optimization (SEO) should therefore be at the core of all your marketing campaigns.
If you want to reach your target market, then your business website must rank highly on search engine result pages (SERPs). Indeed, a HubSpot survey shows that over 75% of internet users don’t scroll past the 1st page of SERPs. If your business is not ranking here, you simply don’t exist. The same study shows that the first position on Google search results on mobile has a 31.35% click-through rate and 34.36% on desktop.
Simply put, SEO is a must if at all you are to drive traffic and convert on your business website. However beautiful your website design, this will not count for much if you are not ranking highly on SERPs.
Leveraging the Expertise of an SEO Consultant
The excuse given by most small businesses when it comes to SEO is that they don’t have the prerequisite skills to run a fully-fledged SEO campaign. This can easily be overcome by hiring a highly qualified SEO expert to run your campaign. Of course you might have an in-house IT team but their mandate is different from that of an SEO consultant.
Among the crucial tasks your SEO specialist will perform include:
- Technical SEO Audit
Your web designer most likely convinced you that your website was all set after launch but this is not always so. The SEO industry is one of the most volatile and even the in-built SEO features might not be enough to keep up with all the changes. This is where an SEO audit comes in handy. This extensive process includes the assessment of site architecture, link evaluation, and content assessment among other aspects. The results of this evaluation will go a long way in implementing a comprehensive SEO campaign.
- Trending SEO Techniques
The fast paced nature of the SEO industry means many techniques are coming up and in most cases, only the early adopters are able to get the most out of them. A few years back, no one would have thought Instagram would be a business marketing tool but those businesses that embraced the social media network have a huge presence on social media. This is just an example of the many new strategies that your SEO consultant can help you capitalize on.
- Long Term White Hat SEO Strategy
Most business owners want immediate results from their SEO campaign and this is where things start going wrong. Buying links might seem like a sure way to boost your ranking but eventually, you will get fall foul of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. With the Google Penguin updates now in real-time, it won’t take long for your links to land you into problems.
Hiring an SEO consultant averts such problems because you will have a systematic project with clear-cut guidelines. The objectives of your SEO campaign could be sales conversion, brand awareness, building brand authority or any other but they will be achieved using white hat SEO strategies.
- Shred Experiences
The best thing about working with an experienced SEO consultant is that they bring expertise that you can use as a team. Right from planning to implementation of the SEO project, your team will learn a lot. These experts will advise you on how best to maintain your website to avoid technical glitches and other problems. You will also get advice on the best SEO tools to use in the day-to-day running of your website.
Whatever the size of your business, using an SEO consultant to guide your campaign is a sure way to capitalize on the growing numbers of internet users. These professionals use the latest technologies, are objective and help you stay within your budget.
