Do I Need to Hire an SEO Expert?

You may have asked yourself, “Why do I need to hire a SEO (Search Engine Optimization) company?  Can’t I do the same thing myself?”

The short easy answer is, it depends! 

It’s a bit like asking can I fix my car myself?  Well… Yes, you can try! But to be successful you will need to look at Youtube for hours, join a lot of car mechanic forums, make a lot of painful mistakes and learn by experience.  To do a really good job, you will need a good mechanic friend with a lot of experience.  You will also spend a lot of money buying or borrowing tools.

The same is true of good SEO.  Lots of time… lots of experience… lots of tools and lots of time (oh! did I say lots of time twice?) …and lot’s of time!!

So let’s explore a more reasonable answer to that question. While it is true that anyone can submit their website to a search engine, there is a lot of knowledge and technique that is required to rank well.

Search Engine Optimization

There are many benefits to hiring a professional SEO company. A SEO company knows what search engines are looking for.  Each search engine has their own set of rules, algorithms, regulations, etc., that they apply to web sites that become part of their indices or databases. In an attempt to supply users relevant content as they search, there are certain things they look for in web pages. One of the keys of ranking well in any particular search is knowing exactly what they are looking for and making sure your web pages are designed properly.

This is called “optimization” and unfortunately the vast majority of web sites on the Internet are not properly optimized for keywords or phrases related to their subject matter.

A professional SEO company will ensure that your site is optimized properly, indexed properly and not just for search terms that are the most popular, but also the most relevant to your business.

Take the search engine Google for example: A good SEO company knows how much weight Google places on descriptions and keyword meta-tags in comparison with actual textual content on a page.

They know that Google will recognize an ALT attribute if they do not find any textual content. They know that Google weighs heavily the ‘Link Popularity’ to rank pages certain types of pages.

They know that Google will form the title of your listing from your Title Tag. With this understanding, they design, consult and recommend so that a particular site will generally rank well on Google across a string of keywords that their target audience are actually using on Google.

Google’s has just one set Search Engine’s requirements — there are many others that are different.

Keeping Up With The Search Engine Industry

Things change fast in the world of Search Engines (usually every 3 months!).  A good SEO company will keep up on the latest trends in the search engine industry.

They will make necessary adjustments to your web pages or your campaign to accommodate these changes so you do not lose rankings. This is an ongoing process that never seems to end. It is a full time occupation just keeping up with all the change and transition that goes on.

Submitting Professionally With Wisdom

A SEO company will submit your site wisely. They will run ranking reports that will show you exactly where you are positioned in various engines and if you are poorly positioned or not positioned at all, will make necessary adjustments and then resubmit. A good SEO company will not just blindly resubmit. For instance if you have good positioning in a search engine for a particular keyword, then it is best to not resubmit and leave things as is (if it ain’t broke – don’t fix it). A good SEO company will submit to the top sites manually and not rely on automated programs or software as many of the top search engines do not like automated submission.

Ranking Reports/Traffic Analysis

SEO companies will not only provide you with detailed ranking reports that will show you where you are positioned on various search engines but will also provide you with web site traffic reporting. This type of reporting will show you what kind of traffic you are receiving and where it is coming from. This type of data is extremely important and will help you to effectively measure your ROI (return on investment).

Hand Holding and Training

Besides all of this a good SEO company will hold your hand during this entire process. They will explain things in layman’s terms and work with you to not only help you reach the top but understand how you got there as well.

Should You Do It Yourself?

Sound like a lot of work? It is and really requires a full time occupation. You may say, “Well, I’ll just bring someone on staff full time instead of paying a SEO company,” but do you really save money? To hire someone to take care of your search engine promotion efforts will require anywhere from 40 – 50k or more per year. Then there are training course, health benefits, pension plans, holidays and sick time to deal with.

Then after all that you need to buy all the tools they will need to do a good job!

You can hire a company like simply IT  to  do your SEO, set up your search engine promotion campaign and maintain it for you starting at only a few hundred dollars a month. That is quite a saving verses hiring a full time employee.

Therefore it is highly recommended that you hire a professional SEO company if you want to reach the top of search engine results. It is well worth the money you will spend as well the peace of mind knowing that someone else is worrying about your rankings for you.

A good SEO company will actually not cost you anything in the long run because it will amount to increased exposure and increased traffic which in turn will bring increase revenues.

Why not chat to us?  Contact us for more information.