SEO Consulting Services
In recent years, high search result rankings have become essential for both large and local businesses. But attaining these rankings is harder than you might expect. In fact, many businesses have turned to professional SEO consulting services in order to improve their online presence. When it comes to choosing the SEO consultant that is right for you, you need to understand your goals to determine who can help your business the most.
Of course, a key part of SEO consulting services is reporting on the progress of the website’s SEO strategy. Many SEO consultants use StatCounter to track where their traffic is coming from, and how those users interact once they are on the site. But there are many more SEO consulting services aside from reporting that are equally as important to a website’s overall SEO strategy—and we’ve covered them below. Take a look.
Suggested Reading
If you’re ready to move on to further reading with regards to SEO, take a look at the pages we’ve provided below:
Necessary SEO Consulting Services
While SEO consulting services will vary by company, firm, or individual consultant, there are a number of essential services that are offered across the board. Regardless of whether you are looking for a local or an international SEO consultant, you want to be sure the following services are included in your package.
Keyword Research
In short, keyword research is the backbone of any good SEO strategy. This requires in-depth research to determine relevant keywords that a business can realistically rank for. Search volume and relevancy are just two aspects of keyword research that need to be taken into account by an SEO consultant.
Keyword research for local SEO services often involves long tail keywords based around a given location. Small businesses like these can have difficult time ranking for highly competitive keywords with large search volumes. However, localized keywords are easily attainable with the right research and strategy.
Strategy Development
Once keywords have been identified, an SEO consultant must develop a sound SEO strategy to get the business ranking for these queries. Often times, strategy development involves a great deal of website architecture work to determine where each piece of written content will fit best on the site.
An SEO consultant will also need to ensure the navigation of a website is easy to follow. User experience is immensely important and should always be taken into account. This can also include aspects of technical SEO, such as running a page speed test.
Content Creation
Once the strategy is complete and has been approved by the client (you), the SEO consultant will then begin writing and creating content around the keywords discovered during keyword research. Each piece of existing content and new content will need to be internally linked properly to improve the user experience as well as improve keyword rankings in search results.
Additionally, website’s need new content published to their site often. This doesn’t have to be static pages, like pages describing your products or services, but rather regular blog posts to maintain fresh content on site.
Backlink Building
An SEO consultant will also need to build the domain and page authorities of every site they consult on. One way to do so, which is also an integral piece of SEO, is acquiring backlinks for the website at hand. Backlink building involves links on other websites that direct back to your site. Not only can this help garner more visitors to your site, but it can also help to improve your search result rankings, further improving your organic traffic levels.
Backlink building involves reaching out to other websites and requesting a link that directs back to their client’s site, although there are other methods of obtaining backlinks as well. This shows search engines that this site is authoritative enough to be linked to other authoritative sites, which directly affects your keyword and search result rankings.
Essential Definition
Backlinks are any link directing users to your website from another, external domain. For example, if a another business mentions you on their website and adds a link to yours, you’ll have acquired a backlink.
Analysis and Reporting
Any credible SEO consultant will offer an analysis of your website and will report on the work they have done often, usually every month or every quarter. This shows transparency and allows the client an understanding of how much progress has been done and what still needs to be improved.
SEO reports can be complex and filled with jargon that can be confusing for someone outside of SEO and digital marketing. Because of this, you will want to choose an SEO consultant that offers easy-to-understand reports as part of their services.
Choosing an SEO Consultant
When looking into hiring an SEO consultant, it is important to remember that you get what you pay for. Choosing the lowest priced consultant probably won’t give you a high return on your investment so be sure to choose a reputable consultant with reasonable prices. Additionally, some SEO consultants focus on specific niche industries, like dentistry or legal offices. This is great if you can find an SEO consultant that is specific to your industry, but most consultants will have a good idea of SEO for any industry.
Summary
As you consider prospective SEO consultants, determine the specific needs of your website and business, as well as what tactics you could perform on your own. Many consultants can simply train your employees to perform SEO, though they can also fulfill the work themselves. It’ll all come down to how much you want to spend in regards to both money and time. Regardless, seek a consultant with great reviews and proof of their work.
Track Your SEO Progress with StatCounter
As we’ve mentioned previously, once you have hired an SEO consultant or SEO firm, you will need to track the performance of your website with StatCounter. Here you can find detailed metrics as to how much traffic comes to your site, and how those users are interacting on your site. You can then use this data to move forward with your SEO strategy and continue to make wise decisions for your website.
If you have any questions about StatCounter, you can contact our member support here and we will get back to you as soon as possible.
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