Everyone wants to rank their websites higher in search results. This is your need, but you don't know how to do it. This is where SEO services come into play.
SEO or search engine optimization is a way to improve the visibility of a website and bring it to the top of search engine results pages.
It is a collection of strategies that are implemented on a regular basis to improve and maintain a website’s organic traffic.
If you want to learn more about SEO and how it works, check it out here.
What are SEO Services?
SEO services are usually offered by an individual or freelancer, a company or an in-house team and are intended to enhance the visibility of a website in search results to generate more traffic or revenue.
This entire process covers various aspects of search engine optimization like on-page, off-page, technical and local SEO.
The main aim of SEO services is to optimize the overall structure of your website by adopting strategies that align well with the search engine's guidelines and algorithm to make it appear higher for relevant queries.
Why SEO Services are Used?
When you own a business or a website, you cannot do all of its optimization on your own especially if you want to expand your sales and get more traffic.
There are several reasons for choosing SEO services.
It saves time which you can spend on other things doing tasks which require your attention other than SEO.
When you choose SEO services, you have the option to choose it for one or all specialized areas like on-page, off-page, technical or local SEO.
It helps in optimizing your overall marketing budget especially when you choose an extended plan.
With each person dedicated to individual tasks like keyword research or link building, you can expect to see the results quickly.
It ultimately improves ROI, sales, traffic and visibility.
It contributes to long-term and sustainable growth for a business by maximizing its online presence.
How Much Does it Cost?
There is no standard statement regarding the price of SEO services. It may vary according to several factors such as:
Your goals
Project size
SEO agency
Size of your business
Specific requirements
Prices of hourly and monthly plans also vary. Usually, companies charge 50-100$ on an hourly basis on average. The price for monthly SEO services varies from a minimum of 1000$ to a maximum of 30,000$ or even beyond.
The pricing model of different agencies is different. Usually, an SEO service provider will offer you several plans with various individual services. As SEO requires several months to get the results, you are mostly required to choose an annual or multi-monthly plan.
Some companies may also charge you per project, So it is best to request a price quote from the agency you want to consider.
Types of SEO Services
If you want to get SEO services, you must be aware of their types to reach your targeted audience and meet your business goals.
The most common ones are:
On-page SEO
This involves keyword research and optimizing content, images, meta tags, headings, URL structures and internal linking. That means all the elements that are present on a web page are optimized according to the standard best practices.
Off-page SEO
It refers to those practices that are usually done off the site. It includes making high-quality backlinks, promotion on social media, writing guest posts and content marketing.
Off-page SEO is as important as on-page SEO but you will have limited control over various strategies you are doing off the page. Such as requesting to write a guest post does not ensure that the other website will allow you to post a piece of content on their website.
Building authority using off-page SEO tactics is a time-consuming process, but it will surely benefit you in the long run.
Technical SEO
SEO has changed a lot since its early days. Now, technical SEO is as crucial as other aspects of an optimized website.
This includes technical features of a website like site speed, mobile friendliness, core web vitals, robots.txt, sitemaps, etc.
Local SEO
Local SEO focuses on improving a website's visibility in local search results.
What does that mean? You might search for such terms from time to time like “restaurants near me” or “grocery store in dubai”.
These are search terms with local search intent. When a business offers a product or service within a particular area, it wants to optimize its website to appear in those local search results when someone types a query related to it.
That is the reason local businesses are eager to optimize their businesses to increase their sales.
But how does this process work?
Well! Local search engine optimization involves several strategies such as:
Managing Google Business Profile
Doing location-specific keyword research
Writing and optimizing content using those local keywords
Managing online reviews and mentions in business directories
Responding to queries from local customers
Getting high-quality backlinks from review sites and business directories
Strengthening relationships with customers by actually solving their problems and staying in touch
Optimizing for Google Maps
Staying active on social media apps, most importantly WhatsApp, Facebook or others where your users are active
E-commerce SEO
Different businesses sell online products, so those e-commerce websites also need to optimize those product pages and entire sites to appear in search results.
Suppose your e-commerce store sells shoes and someone searches for “affordable flip-flops”. Now what you want to do is optimize your main category page with a collection of flip-flops as well as the individual product pages.
This involves keyword research, content creation, link building, optimizing site speed, user experience, technical aspects, and more.
National SEO
This type is the opposite of local SEO. In national SEO instead of ranking for local search terms, the businesses optimize their websites to rank nationwide.
This usually happens when a brand or business provides services or sells products at a national or country level.
National SEO requires more effort as it involves optimization for competitive but high-volume keywords. This involves extensive and strategic keyword research and planning, high authority link-building efforts, and writing unique, valuable and high-quality content for the targeted audience.
Besides that, it also involves a well-designed and comprehensive content marketing strategy across various platforms including social media.
The businesses that usually want to get national SEO services include healthcare providers, freelancers, software houses, tech companies, national brands, and media houses, along with many others.
Voice SEO
With the rise of voice assistants like Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant, more and more businesses are now optimizing their websites for voice searches. It is a convenient way to search online where you are required to speak instead of typing a query.
This involves optimizing websites for long conversational queries. These queries have more words than others.
For example, you may search for “SEO benefits” using a typical search engine like Google, but if you are using a voice assistant you may search for “What are the benefits of SEO”.
It is expected that by the end of the year 2024, the use of voice search will hit 8.4 billion units. With this shift towards more voice search usage, businesses are now focusing more on optimizing their websites for it.
B2C vs. B2B SEO
SEO can also bring a major change to the online visibility of B2B and B2C businesses.
B2C, business-to-consumer search engine optimization focuses on attracting individual customers to a business. The aim is to generate direct sales and increase the brand awareness.
B2C SEO mainly targets direct customers to get more conversions by connecting with them directly.
On the other hand, B2B, business-to-business optimization targets businesses that are interested in purchasing products from other businesses.
The aim is to generate leads and build strong relationships or long-term partnerships with other businesses by focusing on developing credibility in that particular industry.
This involves various practices such as creating a comprehensive strategy that covers keyword research, developing case studies, writing whitepapers, and publishing blog posts with industry insights.
SEO Audit Services
SEO audit services are all about finding and fixing the errors on your website. This involves spotting the issues that are hindering your website from performing well in SERPs.
An SEO audit will give you an idea of how well your past SEO strategies performed and what you can do in the future to improve them.
A lot of data is collected including keywords, top-performing pages, broken links, total visitors, current rankings, and plenty of other helpful information. This information is then compiled to get an overview of your website performance and what needs to be improved.
After completing an audit, an SEO service provider will offer you several suggestions to improve your website visibility. You can make all those efforts on your own or hire a dedicated person or an agency to perform this task for you.
Those suggestions may include creating and improving your content, doing keyword research, fixing broken links, building high-quality backlinks, improving website speed, etc.
What Should SEO Services Include?
An SEO company will offer you several services. Knowing them is essential so you can track your progress and see whether an agency is properly implementing all the strategies or not.
SEO Audit
An SEO audit is the first thing that an SEO company usually offers to its clients. It can be free and paid depending upon the agency but keep in mind, free comes with limited benefits.
With this audit, you will get a comprehensive overview of your website. This will give you an idea of what strategies you need to adopt to improve its visibility or performance.
You can perform this task on your own, but keep in mind that an SEO agency will evaluate your website deeply from an SEO perspective and will give you detailed insights.
An SEO company must start their process with an audit. If a company doesn't do this or fails to highlight the important issues, that means it is not competent enough.
Personalized Strategy
The best service provider will always tailor your SEO strategy according to your specific business requirements, goals and audience.
When you will have a customized plan for your business it will ultimately help in maximizing your ROI. When you choose to hire an agency you must make sure they are providing you with tailored services that are specific according to your website or business requirements.
Some low-grade or cheap companies avoid doing this and offer low-quality service by using the old methods or using the same templates for everyone again and again.
Do you think a strategy will work the same way for both an online pharmacy and a gadget store? Of course not! A tailored strategy is needed for both businesses separately. This is the only way to outrank your competitors.
Competitor Analysis
Competitor analysis also plays a significant role in improving your website’s SEO. It involves monitoring your competitor's campaigns and finding keywords to fill in your content gaps.
This also makes you understand how much effort you need to make to outrank your competitors.
The key things it will help identify are:
If your competitors are big authority sites or own small personal blogs
Do they have a huge backlink profile
Do they have a strong social media presence
How old are the domains
How much people trust them
These are the basic questions that your SEO agency needs to investigate. This information tells how much quality content, authority backlinks, time, and budget you will be requiring to outperform your competitors.
An SEO company must specialize in performing competitor analysis. The reason? This is one of the most crucial steps in SEO.
If you don't know how your competitors are performing better than you, how they are outperforming you, and what strategies they have adopted, you will remain far behind in the ranking race.
FYI: If you want to learn more about competitor analysis, here is a recommended article that will clear every concept related to it.
Basic SEO Practices
On-page SEO, off-page SEO, and technical SEO are the fundamental components of any SEO campaign. You may choose to pay for one service but most of the companies consider all three while optimizing websites for their clients.
As mentioned earlier, on-page SEO involves optimizing the elements present on a web page. Similarly, off-page SEO involves all those strategies that require an SEO service to optimize a website outside the page.
Technical SEO is another important type of SEO service and a company must offer this as a part of their SEO plans or separately as an individual service.
If you are not sure about it, you must ask your agency about their plans openly. Whether they are offering all three SEO services in one plan or separately.
Just keep in mind that all three SEO services are crucial for any website optimization, so do not accept a service that does not cover all three comprehensively.
That means if they are only focusing on on-page elements rather than giving much attention to your poorly loaded pages, that can be a sign that the SEO agency is not competent enough to look after every aspect of a website's optimization.
Website Reputation Management
Sometimes a website wants to improve its credibility or build authority in its industry, so it wants reputation management services. This is also part of the SEO services that most of the agencies offer.
This helps build your website or business reputation through various means such as social media interactions, positive review building and direct interaction with your customers or users.
Usually, a business chooses reputation management services when they want to build a positive image of their brand, when an update hits them or when they have suffered from a negative incident during their sales, promotions, or execution phases.
All the efforts are then made by an SEO agency to restore the reputation of this website.
Reporting
All your efforts are of no use if you are not getting reports on what your partner agency is doing for you.
You need a trustworthy SEO service that provides you with weekly or monthly reports to give you insights about SEO strategies.
The main metrics you need to measure will depend upon your specific SEO campaign but usually, you want to track and get a report on:
Organic traffic
Keyword rankings
Backlinks
Leads
Conversions
Sales
ROI (Return on investment)
Also, make sure that you are in direct touch with the agency. This way you will be able to ask the questions directly, review the SEO reports and make timely adjustments to your strategies if needed.
Refine SEO Strategy
SEO isn't a one-time process, so when you choose an SEO service that means you are developing a long-term relationship with them.
Because, if a few strategies are implemented for a month or two, that doesn't mean it is going to give you long-lasting results. No! This doesn't happen with SEO.
You need to continuously monitor, refine and implement your SEO strategies to see continuous improvements.
Even if you have achieved your desired rankings or ROI, an SEO company will continuously help you improve it more by searching additional keywords, building more backlinks and improving your website's overall user experience.
Just remember that you are collaborating with an agency on a long-term basis to help you get more traffic, visibility, leads, or sales. That will not only help you in achieving your goals but will also refine your SEO efforts and strategies on an ongoing basis.
That is the reason it is highly recommended to do your research properly before choosing a service that doesn't only give you the desired results but also makes necessary adjustments to the existing strategies when needed.
If a company succeeds in giving you the desired results, it will be beneficial for both of you. You will get a fully optimized website while your partner agency will gain a positive reputation and potential future business opportunities.
How to Find the Best SEO Service Provider?
So now you have understood the importance of SEO services, you must be thinking about how to find the best services.
Take your time and thoroughly research it first. It may take several months but once you find the right partner, it will give you benefits for years. This is why it is always recommended to spend as much time as you can to find the right service.
Here are a few tips that will definitely help you in choosing the right SEO service:
First and foremost, identify your goals, business requirements and total budget that you can spend on your business SEO
You may also ask for suggestions from your friends, colleagues, and clients or search online
Make a list of all those companies that you think are suitable or fulfil your requirements
Once you have created a list of them, search for them one by one online. Read the reviews, case studies and people’s opinions about it on various platforms including their own websites
Check the projects they have delivered to clients along with their success rate
Review the processes or strategies they have adopted for their clients
Ask for a custom price quote along with other necessary details such as what they will be needing from your side, resources, time, and delivery schedule
Do not forget to ask about the provision of monthly reports, results tracking and success measurement
This is just a general overview that will help you a lot while choosing the best SEO service. However, the questions and criteria may vary according to your unique business requirements and goals.
How to Spot Fake SEO Services?
If you are thinking about hiring SEO services, you may face challenges as some companies will make false promises to rank your website higher in search results.
For an experienced professional it may not be difficult to spot a fake service, however, if you are new to it, you must be aware of it.
There are a few signs, if you find them in a company, it must be a red flag for you.
If they guarantee you the rankings within a strict time frame
If they claim to know hidden algorithms
If they hesitate to provide you with reports or share the SEO plan
Lack transparency
Do not openly share their off-page strategy or involves in unethical link-building practices
Remember that a legitimate company will always remain transparent to you. They will openly share their plans with you and guide you through the strategies they a going to adopt for your website's success.
If someone claims to offer services that seem overly aggressive or are extremely low price that could be an indication of low quality.
Also, beware of those who claim to provide overnight success or unnatural link-building practices. This indicates they have some hidden or spammy tactics that will surely not work in the long run.
Choose the ones that are open to communication, transparent in their strategies and do not hesitate to provide you with their portfolios or past projects.
Always keep in mind that SEO takes time. It is a gradual process that needs continuous efforts, improvements, and a significant amount of time to get good results. So don't let yourself be fooled at the hands of some fake agencies.
FAQs
When can I stop using SEO services?
There are several reasons for businesses quitting it, like not getting enough or expected results, budget constraints, poor services or leadership changes. However, it is not recommended to give up on SEO for your business. It is an ongoing process, stopping it won't help you. It is better to continue investing in it to see the results gradually. However if you are still not seeing the desired results, you may want to reconsider your service provider or SEO strategy.
Which one is better: a freelancer, consultant, or agency?
All three have their own negative and positive points. So it all depends on your budget, goals, requirements, duration and scope of the project. If you only want to fix a certain problem or need assistance on a short-term basis within a limited budget, an SEO consultant or freelancer will be a good choice. However, if you want to develop a long-term partnership, an SEO agency will be a perfect fit for your needs. But, that will cost you more than the other two.
How much should I budget for SEO?
Again, it all depends on your budget, the SEO agency, the scope of the project, the industry and the competition level. If you want a service for a long time, be ready to spend hundreds and thousands of dollars on it.
Is paying for SEO services worth it?
Yes! It can be worth it if:
You have a budget and are willing to invest in your website on a long-term basis
You do not have time to manage all the marketing or promotional tasks on your own
You do not know how to do SEO
You are facing decreased sales, traffic, or revenue
You are struggling with the website's poor performance
However, it may not be beneficial for you if:
You have budget constraints
You are not ready for a long-term investment
You are looking for short-term solutions
You want to get the results quickly
How do I track my SEO progress?
You can track your SEO progress by looking at various metrics like KPIs, organic traffic, keyword rankings, conversions, leads, sales, or overall revenue generation.
How long does it take for SEO services to work?
SEO services usually take 4-6 months to start delivering the results. In some instances, even it takes more than a year. However, it largely depends on the industry, SEO goals, and your agency.
How long do I need to pay for SEO Services?
As SEO is an ongoing process, paying for it will depend on your goals, competition, scope, niche, and of course, the budget. If you see that you are not getting the intended results, you have budget issues or found some other reasonable sources, you may discontinue paying for existing SEO services. However keep in mind, that halting those services will also waste all the efforts you have made before. You need to continuously invest in the Right SEO services to see long-lasting and consistent results.
Can I do SEO myself?
Of course! You can do it but it may have some limitations. It may take time to learn and implement an SEO strategy just like an experienced agency. You may lack in-depth knowledge or struggle to keep up with the latest best practices. This entire process can be time-consuming especially if you have other things to do. However, doing SEO on your own also serves you a few benefits like saving your costs and having great control over your entire strategy.
Is SEO better than paid advertising?
Both SEO and paid ads are great ways to build a strong online presence for your website. SEO takes time and costs you less as compared to paid advertisement and the results are long-lasting. On the other hand, paid advertisement is a quick way to boost your visibility but that will not give you the same long-term results as SEO. If you have the budget, using these two methods together will work best for you.
We work closely with our clients to shape a revenue-focused SEO strategy. Choose us and make a difference in online search. Contact us.