What is SEO
SEO is an acronym for Search engine optimisation, and in real talk it means how well your site set up to be found when people search for relating topics and questions on platforms like google that you would expect to show up for.
For example; a Health and Safety Training Company with good SEO on their site should show up as a link on google for a search like, ‘Health and Safety Training Near Me’.
With this example you hopefully see also the benefit of good SEO and the opportunities you miss if your SEO ranking is relatively bad (a competitor with good SEO is getting all the search results, meanwhile your business to that one potential customer, doesn’t exist). Let’s be honest with our selves, if you need something in 2022 and you are unsure where to get it, you use Google?
Why does does SEO turn you off
I can only speak for the stories I have heard from our clients about previous suppliers, but I think a big factor is understanding and tangibility.
If SEO and the work that you are doing is not understood by the client, due to the fact it is not something that can be immediately seen and measured, businesses do not understand why they are paying for a service that they may perceive to not be working.
This is the agencies fault, 100% of the time. Again anecdotally, clients of ours have been told that they would see immediate effects and clear differences straight away. When in reality, SEO is a long term marketing strategy, that will pay off over time. However, things you do today may only start to impact in 3 months.
So if results can take a while to show, how do we know if the agency is doing a good job with our SEO?
This to me is the reason businesses don’t invest enough into SEO. Why would you give a company money, in anticipation they are doing a good job, in that sense its a bad investment.
Now, I am about to get technical, but stay with me. I am not saying you need to understand what these next terms mean, you just need to look at them in black and white, positive and negative, change means work is happening and you will see return on your investment, no change and something is not right.
So in your reports look out for these figures (if not supplied ask for them!).
Overall Google Ranking
This will be given to you as a position on a specific keyword or phrase. If you are not moving to a lower number (higher in the rankings) on the phrases you deem to be relevant then theres an issue.
Backlinks
I will not bore you on exactly what these are, but backlinks act like a directory to your site. The thing you need to know is generally speaking the higher this number the better.
With the next few points, this can be a bit of a grey area, as the SEO company might not be managing your sites administration or development. However, they SHOULD be giving you recommendations at the very least.
Page speed
How fast does your site load, and what can be done to improve it?
This is something that the likes of google will look for and ranks you quite heavily on it.
On site content
Potentially the best pound for pound action you can do on your site. Have you got relevant content on your site (or SEO friendly content) so Google/Bing can rank you?
Site Structure and Tags
Is your site overall, structurally SEO friendly. Small adjustments here go a long way.
Hopefully after reading this article you now know how SEO helps your business and how you can manage and monitor its progress.
