Has your company been attempting to tackle SEO internally, only to see your competitors listed at the top of search results and never your own listings? Or have you heard of SEO, know it's important, but don't know how utilize it to help your company?
It’s possible your competition has hired a professional SEO consultant to help with an inbound marketing strategy to propel their website pages to the top of search results, increasing their traffic and conversion rates/sales/leads.
Hiring the right consultant can turn this situation around so you’re the one leapfrogging the competition. Here’s what to know about SEO consultants and why you need one.
Understanding SEO Consulting
SEO consulting is a group of services that is fairly underutilized by tech brands, SaaS companies, and more. Most founders, owners, and marketing teams know that SEO is important for brand success, but just how important is it?
SEO is the difference between your company being found for the keywords associated with what it sells/does and not being found.
It's as simple as that.
Without a properly implemented SEO strategy, your website pages (and your company) will be buried deep in search results (like on page 27) and the clicks will go to your competition.
When it comes to hiring an SEO consultant, experience is the name of the game. An SEO consultant will include a host of SEO services in the contract. These include:
- SEO keyword research and data analysis
- Content strategies
- Backlinking strategies
SEO consulting illuminates how organic search can influence and change your brand for the better. For example, take tech companies. Search engine optimization integrates in the following ways:
- Tailoring keywords to the intent of tech customers
- Publishing high-quality, informative content around focus keywords and tech topics
- Promoting optimized content to reach the desired tech audience
With the help of an SEO consultant, your company can create and post online content that sets you up as an industry expert and gives customers every reason why you are the company they should hire.
It does this while simultaneously getting this content in front of those who are searching for it...and your company by implementing SEO within the content and the website pages.
What Is a Professional SEO Consultant?
Now that we know what SEO consulting is, what exactly is a professional SEO consultant? Who are they?
A professional SEO consultant specializes in SEM (Search Engine Marketing). They know how to boost a brand’s visibility in search results without using paid advertising.
An SEO consultant will likely utilize the following strategies to help potential customers find your brand:
- Technical SEO: Ensuring your web pages are crawled by search engines properly and are indexed effectively
- SEO tools: Implementing behind-the-scenes tools that can help like Yoast SEO on your WordPress website
- On-page SEO: Putting the proper keywords associated with what your customers search for in the proper places on your website for search engines to list your website as a top search result for those keywords
- Off-page SEO: Utilizing social media postings and guest blogs to associate your website with keywords
- SEO copywriting and editing: When writing website content, ensure you include the proper keywords for your company in the content in the proper places when posting
- AI (artificial intelligence): Can utilizing an AI service that offers SEO-enhanced content assist you in your efforts?
By giving SEO responsibilities to an expert rather than an in-house team member, you can increase the success of your brand’s SEO strategy thanks to experience and know-how.
What Will a Professional SEO Consultant Do for Me?
An SEO consultant will review your company's current SEO and create an overarching SEO strategy utilizing the aforementioned elements of search engine optimization.
The consultant's job is to review and analyze SEO data, update your website's current content, work with your internal marketing team or outsource to develop ongoing search engine optimized website content, and work to develop/implement your company's off-page SEO...all with the end result of your company's web pages soaring to the top of search engine results.
In short, a professional SEO consultant will make your brand’s online presence better and more accessible. With their help, you’ll more effectively cater to your target audience via proven inbound marketing strategies, which results in more leads and sales for your company.
Why You Should Hire a Professional SEO Consultant
You may be thinking that working with a professional SEO consultant sounds interesting, but perhaps you’re not convinced you need to hire one. Keep two words in mind: inbound marketing.
Inbound marketing is all about growing your brand by creating and nurturing real connections between you and your consumers and prospects. It's showing prospects you're an expert in your industry, helping them out with pain points they have, and letting them know you understand their needs.
When it comes to inbound marketing methodology, there are three categories to get right:
- Attract: Hiring a professional SEO consultant is an excellent way to attract customers. They’ll tailor your SEO strategy to your industry and your target audience using content, messaging, and keywords to establish your brand as an authority for the products and/or services you offer.
- Engage: Your consultant can use their experience to help create content that touches the intellectual and emotional needs of your target audience to increase audience engagement, so prospects can become customers.
- Delight: Thanks to consulting help, you’re now able to provide both help and support to customers as they find success and satisfaction from doing business with you, thus increasing retention.
What Makes a Good SEO Consultant?
Now that we know what a professional SEO consultant is and why you should hire one, how do find the right consultant for your business?
Look for these traits to choose the right SEO consultant:
- Plenty of SEO experience: Many people work in SEO, but this doesn’t necessarily make them an expert in the field. When looking for a professional SEO consultant, be sure they have several years of experience, a strong track record of past clients and projects, and references or testimonials.
- An understanding of the three main SEO aspects: Your consultant should be an expert in on-page, off-page, and technical SEO. They should have a deep understanding of SEO and how to work with everything from keywords and tags to site architecture and page structure.
- Great communication skills: You want a consultant who’s skilled in clearly communicating what changes need to be made, why, and how they are going to make them.
Get a Free SEO Audit Before Paying Anything
SEO is a fast-paced, high-stakes game that brands are forced to engage in if they want to compete in the digital age. While many are tempted to tackle this on their own, there are plenty of reasons why reaching out to professionals and getting their help may make sense for you.
The benefits a marketing agency provides can mean better ROI on the money invested in SEO services. First Page Strategy can be your remote SEO team, getting you the results you want to see. Contact us for our free SEO Audit. Our SEO services can help you keep up with your competition and bring in new visitors to your site, all at a fraction of the cost of an in-house marketing team.
