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If you want to get business from your website then adopting some form of online marketing is a must.
If you don’t know much about online marketing yourself then it is advisable to hire an SEO expert. They will be able to set up and run a campaign that will result in more traffic to your site, an increase in sales and most importantly, a significant return on your investment.
Many businesses we speak to on a daily basis have had their fingers burnt in the past by rogue SEO companies and are reluctant to invest organic search marketing through another agency. So what makes a good, trustworthy SEO agency?
An ethical SEO agency will generally charge for time, not the number of keywords or backlinks, purely because every campaign is different and choosing a set number of keywords can massively limit your options and opportunities. At Polaris, we always recommend that to have a successful campaign you target a mixture of long and short tail keywords. Although long tail keywords generally have lower traffic, they often have higher conversion rates. For example, you run a cake shop in Dartford. The first keyword you might want to target is “cake shop”. It’s a good, high traffic keyword; if someone is looking for a cake “shop” then they probably want to buy something (hurrah!), however, what if they’re looking for a cake shop in Manchester? While it would be fantastic to rank number 1 in Google for the term “cake shop”, the competition is very high on this keyword and it will take longer to get there. There’s also less chance of such a general term converting into an actual sale.
So, what we want are people in or near Dartford finding your site. Therefore, a keyword such as “cake shop Dartford” would be appropriate. This term is quite a bit more specific so it’ll have less traffic overall, but it’s much more likely to convert into a sale.
Long tail keywords generally take less time to rank due to the fact that there is less competition so such keywords are imperative for maximising ROI.
An SEO Company should always be able to advise on the best keywords to help increase relevant traffic to your site and maximise conversion rates. Before proposing any campaign they should get to know your business to ensure that they can understand and identify your target audience.
Now all of this may sound straight forward, however, back links are where it can start to get much more difficult. Google released its Penguin Algorithm back in April 2012; this changed link building completely and many websites were thrown out of Google’s SERPS meaning loss of business for their owners. An ethical SEO agency should be able to advise on, and carry out, the most up to date and Penguin-friendly link building techniques. With algorithm updates being rolled out on a regular basis, it can often be difficult to keep up with the latest rules and guidelines that Google has issued, so hiring an SEO agency is generally the best option to ensure that you won’t get penalised for “unnatural” or harmful back links to your site. Content writing, which is a huge part of both on and off page SEO work, does take time so it is often a good idea to outsource this to a reputable SEO company.
If you are looking for SEO services in London or Essex, but aren’t sure what’s right for your business, contact us today on 0203 475 6799 and arrange a meeting with one of our SEO Experts.
