If you are thinking about hiring a search engine optimization (SEO) expert, it pays to understand how top SEO consultants can impact your business. Despite the fact that SEO is a well-established digital marketing discipline, lots of business owners still have misconceptions as to what it entails and what to expect when hiring top SEO consultants.
WHY SEO MATTERS
Consumer purchasing behavior studies have found that around 90% of consumers turn to Google to look for information on products, services or businesses prior to making a decision to buy. In other words, you have to be visible. In the software house industry, irrespective of the quality of your software solutions, their discoverability relies heavily on SEO optimization. Neglecting this aspect could result in potential customers discovering your competitors first. Consequently, when venturing into the software house industry, it’s essential to prioritize website optimization and invest in local SEO strategies to outshine competitors in your field and location” – says Michał Kierul, CEO at intechhouse.com.
If your website is not SEO-optimized, it doesn’t matter how great your products or your services are because your potential customers won’t find you. They will find your competitors first. Therefore, when you start an LLC in Colorado or other location, build a website, optimize it and invest in local SEO strategies to beat the competition in your state and location.
What does SEO-optimized mean? Data from studies on click rates is compelling: the top 3 organic results capture around 60% of the search traffic, while page 1 results combined account for over 90% of the clicks.
To be visible, you need to be on page 1. Brian Clark from Copyblogger summed it up best years ago:
The best place to hide a dead body is page 2 of the Google search results.
GOING THE PAID AD ROUTE
Of course, you can always get search engine traffic by paying for search ads. The instant gratification of being at the top of search engine results pages (aka the SERPs) is what makes this approach so attractive to many, especially when they are just starting out.
While paid advertising can be effective, whether you can make it work and scale depends on your customer acquisition costs and customer lifetime value economics and your access to capital. And once you turn the paid faucet off, traffic dries up.
SEO requires effort and time, but with organic listings receiving roughly 90% of traffic vs around 10% for paid, it’s easy to see why it’s a long-term growth investment that you need to make.
So what can you expect from top SEO consultants?
INCREASED LEAD GENERATION
Search engine optimization is about much more than getting traffic to your site. It’s about appealing to the right audience at the right time and turning them into leads and, eventually, customers. And the good news is that organic search traffic is something that can last a very long time.
INCREASED BRAND AWARENESS
SEO is not only about ranking for intent-based keywords. If you operate in a highly competitive space or in a new product category, you can still benefit greatly by appearing at the top of SERPs when people search for top-of-the-funnel terms.
IMPROVED USER EXPERIENCE
SEO is about building high-quality websites that provide your visitors with a good overall experience, which is a key driver of Google’s rankings.
For many businesses, SEO is the highest ROI marketing effort. But SEO is a long-term growth strategy, not a quick solution. That’s why if you are going to focus on SEO for your business’ website – and you should – you need to seek out top SEO consultants to help you get the results you need.
Ready to get started with a top SEO consultant? Call me today.
