With SEO becoming common knowledge as the marketing market leader in today’s society, never before has finding a digital marketing partner been so important. With Canberra expanding rapidly, finding the best SEO services Canberra has to offer is essential to keep ahead of the curve.
A common theme these days for business owners is they approach an SEO company without context. In context, I mean to search the internet for something that you, your wife, your kids and your potential customers want.
Then consider everything you have just seen and done over the space of an hour of searching. Then you become the customer. You experience the highs and lows of Google search. This is a good denominator of what the customer gets on the search engine results pages (SERPs).
Now, it’s not your job to understand an entirely new industry overnight. That is the job of companies that proclaim to be the best SEO services Canberra has to offer, but need them, you do!
2022 has seen Google receiving 8.7 billion hits per day compared to only 5.5 in 2019 before the pandemic. Make of that what you will, but I can cut through it quickly for you – it means a lot MORE COMPETITION!
This article will look at 10 reasons you need professional SEO services in Canberra and beyond in 2022.
- Increasing Brand Visibility
Content is king again with Google and the lesser search engines. But it has to be quality and engaging. This will assist in ranking on page one on Google for specific keywords and searches, as visibility is everything online today. You can have the best products and services the city, state or countrywide has to offer, but if you don’t show up, no one will use you.
An SEO agency is there to figure out an individual strategy that will work effectively. In certain aspects, you will see quick results others will take more time, effort and investment.
- Targeting the Right Demographic
If you are selling motorcycles, why target a family who wants a car. Target marketing is essential, and SEO is tailor-made for this.
Analysing trending search terms that relate to what you do is key to allowing Google’s ‘crawlers’ to figure this out and list you appropriately, targeting lead generation.
- Saving Expenses
SEO is an expense, and it’s an expense that you are outsourcing, not in-house. This can be unnerving for business owners. But look at the other side of the coin. At least you are not throwing money out of your office building window at blind ‘old school’ marketing ideas that just don’t work anymore.
Having an advert on a billboard on a highway is all well and good, but if there is only one person in the car, do they have time to stop on a highway to write down your email address and phone number? The irony is they would likely email you anyway!
Almost everyone from Millenials down uses the internet, your primary source of income for the next 20 to 30 years of your business life, so focus on it. It will save you money in the long term.
- Building Trust and Credibility
Consumers are becoming wiser about Google and how search engines work now as there is so much information about it online. People are being bombarded with digital advertising on every platform daily. Some have gone well, others not, so bear this in mind when considering paid ads.
Now when you search on Google, the top result you will see has ‘Ad’ written next to them, and year-on-year less and fewer of them are getting clicked. People don’t want to be sold to anymore, so they scroll down and start hitting the generic listings they know are here on merit, not because they paid to be there.
People trust organic results, and organic SEO needs to be your medium-term investment moving forward.
- Creating a Buyer’s Journey
The buyer’s journey speaks for itself. It’s the journey from when someone arrives on your Homepage to navigating through the website and going into what is known as the ‘Sales Funnel’. For an e-commerce website, this means going to the sale; for others, it’s creating a contact or a lead..
To create this flow, you need a Homepage with content, infographics, and potentially a video explaining or showing how your products and services work. Then you also need internal links that move them further towards the ‘checkout’, so to speak.
So web design, content, visuals and video, if all put together correctly by a professional team, will increase your return on investment (ROI).
- Keeping up to date With SEO Practices
One of the main reasons business owners shouldn’t think in 2022 and beyond is that you can do this yourself, as you knew someone a few years ago who did it in-house with just one or two staff. Those days are gone. You can do SEO, but doing SEO to Google’s best practices, is a different equation.
Google’s algorithm constantly changes, and 2021 saw two major updates that shook up a lot of practices. There are now over 200 ranking factors with Google that many people know NOTHING about. That’s why you need a professional SEO agency by your side. As long as you get a detailed report of where your money is being spent, let them roll up their sleeves and do the hard work.
In 2018 Google made 3000 algorithm changes, so sufficed to say you are better off running your business and letting the SEO people wrap their heads around how to help you come out on top.
- Competing With the Big Players
As mentioned above, competition is now rife with more people than ever using the internet. The old strategy of targeting the most popular keywords would see a small to medium-size business (SME) going up against much bigger companies who have already pumped thousands of dollars over several years into targeting those.
That gives you little chance of superseding these guys for years unless you double your marketing budget so your SEO agency can double their team working on your project.
So there are ways around this: using Local SEO and long-tail keyword searches. They are less popular, which is why the big companies avoid them. But if you are an SME or a start-up, you target keywords specific to your niche. They only have 300-400 searches a month. You can get on page one of Google quickly and start to take 30-40 per cent of those clicks, that’s money, and it hasn’t taken a year of seeing zero results to get there.
- User Experience – It is a Huge Ranking Factor
Google rates content highly, as we touched upon before. Still, User Experience (UX) is the difference between ranking high or hanging around page two or the bottom of page one for your search terms.
Keeping people on your website is now a ranking factor, and getting them to click through your internal links is also.
So your website needs to take the user on a journey. The ultimate goal is for them to turn into a lead or buy products or services online. Sounds easy, but it isn’t.
The best SEO services Canberra has to offer to understand that for an SEO campaign to succeed, the website needs to be the sidecar to the engine. Everything has to come together in harmony, and there are many ways to achieve this.
Still, the primary method is communication with your SEO professional. Time spent together understanding the ins and outs of what you do is essential. Otherwise, you are both going nowhere.
Remember, the more positive the experience a user has, the more likely there are to recommend you; a digital version of word-of-mouth marketing.
- Playing the Long Game
We’ve covered the basics, but a business owner must know that you have invested in your business, whether it be a brick-and-mortar shop, factory or space. Staff, a website and so forth, but SEO and your marketing budget are also an investment.
Organic SEO is NOT a quick fix. It takes time, even for the most innovative SEO agency. You have to give it time, and it takes lots of communication between you and your campaign manager to ensure you are always on the cusp of innovative moves. This also means keeping a close eye on the competition, analysing what they are doing right and what they are doing wrong, and getting one step ahead. Be prepared to partner yourself for the long term.
- Do Research
Just as a customer looks online to decide what company he or she would like to engage with, do the same when searching for the best SEO agency near your location. Reviews and ratings go a long way to determining this.
Things like Trip Advisor are a great tool when on holiday to see reviews of hotels, guesthouses and restaurants, use the same dynamic when searching for a digital partner. Remember this is an investment, so research is essential.
SUMMARY
There are many different SEO agencies out there. The best advice is to seek one that is near to you. If you live in the suburbs, pick one in the city. They will know the area, consumer habits and the best way to attract business for you. Your initial sit-down should be around 45 minutes if the company is serious about knowing you, your business, niche and industry before giving you a proposal or quote. This is a good sign they want your business. Good luck.
