Over the past several years, the digital marketing industry has grown in leaps and bounds. Nearly every business out there is competing to rank higher in search engine results pages or SERPs. This makes sense since over 58% of consumers buy a service or product online every week.
According to a different survey, the click-through rate for the first result is around 19% while the second spot gets about 10%. Added to that, 75% of users don’t go beyond the first page of SERPs, which is why so many websites work to get the top rankings.
What does SEO have anything to do with it?
Having a website is not enough to establish and build an online presence. You have to implement different practices, plans, and strategies to improve your position. If you haven’t already figured it out, this is where search engine optimisation or SEO comes in.
There are two kinds of SEO, which are off-page and on-page. The former consists of anything you do on other sites that affect your ranking e.g. links pointing to your landing pages. The latter refers to anything within your control on your website e.g. meta data, keywords, and site speed.
How does SEO marketing help your brand?
To successfully implement your optimisation strategy, you need to invest time while build your knowledge about it. When an individual page or your entire website is properly optimised for a specific search query, it’s going to rank higher than others. Here are the other ways it propels your company higher:
- It boosts the user experience on the site
- It is an easy way to make your brand more visible
- It serves as a long-term strategy over a short-term one
- It enables you to build trust with your target audience
Where does an SEO expert fit in the picture?
Competing for a position on SERPs is only one aspect of digital marketing. Even if you drive a tonne of traffic to your site, if they don’t lead to a transaction, there’s no point in what you’re doing. An SEO specialist thinks about the entire funnel from leads to sales.
What is an SEO specialist responsible for?
It might seem that they aren’t any different from a marketing consultant, given that they are aimed towards boosting sales and awareness. The difference lies in how they go about their jobs as optimisation is more technology-driven where marketing may be done more traditionally.
Some of the typical tasks that an SEO expert does include:
- Managing the content on your website
- Building backlinks on other sites
- Organising and planning for campaigns
- Optimising the site and social profiles
- Establishing and maintaining an online community
- Creating a strategy for optimisation
- Monitoring and analysing website data
- Researching for the most relevant keywords
- Analysing the market for supply and demand
- Handling the project management for digital marketing
When should you hire an SEO professional?
You have no idea how to strategize
Every SEO strategy has to be tailored to your brand’s needs. This is more complicated than it sounds as it covers both off-page and on-page activities. It’s easy to fall into the trap of black-hat hacks like link-buying or keyword-stuffing which will only get you penalised.
To ensure you get a full-fledged plan that is customised for your business, expert help is necessary. They check which of your campaigns aren’t performing as they should and they suggest which marketing methods are worth trying. They consider every technical element that impacts site navigation, speed, and more.
You want to have more flexibility
Working with an SEO firm might not be suitable for your requirements. They may lack the resources or ideas to meet your standards. Sadly, it’s difficult to terminate a contract with them until your project is over so you’re sadly stuck with them to the end.
Working with a standalone SEO manager offers you greater flexibility. It’s easier to go through their resumes than the portfolio of different agencies. You may also tailor their contracts according to your schedules, and deadlines as opposed to competing with the other clients of the marketing firm.
You wish to unburden your in-house team
Every business could use some external help when it comes to virtual marketing. When you were trying it out, you might have been fine with your present infrastructure. Now that you’re scaling, you may have realised that it’s far too much work for your current personnel.
It’s good to have an SEO expert, even if you’re thinking of outsourcing to an agency. They know what your optimisation needs are and can better communicate them to the firm. They may also replicate what the outsourced agency is doing if you’re planning of building your own team in the future.
You are on a strict marketing budget
With so many strategies, techniques, and methods available, it’s easy to become distracted and want to try them all. The problem is that it takes time before you begin to see any results, regardless how good your campaign or plan may be. You’re going to waste money from attempting everything.
Stick to your budget with the help of a virtual professional who knows what does and doesn’t work. Also, reduce the overhead from hiring full-time workers by looking for a freelance worker instead. You rarely have to pay for their office space, internet connection, and other benefits unlike with permanent employees.
You are lacking only in the SEO aspect
Maybe you have done your research and you know that your product or service meets the needs of your target audience. Perhaps you have a great web design in mind that is easy to navigate. The problem is, you aren’t meeting your expectations for traffic or revenue.
It’s high time that you hire an SEO manager if your sales funnel is merely for display at this point. Your billboards, product packaging, flyers, brochures, and other mediums may be perfect but there’s no SEO. In which case, fill that gap with an SEO manager.
Where do you find an SEO manager?
One of the things that is essential to the success of your online marketing is strong search engine optimisation. To know more about the value of SEO for your business, you may browse through our blog or you may contact us for more information.
We at Remote Workmate would love to chat with you about how an SEO manager will be beneficial for raising your rankings on search engines. We are specialists in connecting companies with candidates who have the skills and experience in strengthening online brands.
Click the button below; let’s chat about your search engine optimisation needs.