Search engine optimization can be challenging to grasp, with more than 200 ranking factors affecting the placement of your site in the SERPs, frequently updated algorithms, and competitors seemingly entrenched at the top of the rankings.
But it’s critical for businesses to get SEO right. Search visibility is tied closely to website traffic, click-through rates, and conversions that can lift your bottom line. When you hire an SEO company, you have the support of an experienced team that can lead you through a highly complex search landscape.
I understand if you’re not sure whether to take this next step. Hiring an SEO agency is a big decision. However, an experienced agency partner can manage the diverse factors influencing where you land in search results and how well you connect with your target audience.
Let’s look at how this kind of partnership can support your business growth and make an SEO investment more than worth it in the long run.
1. You’ll Benefit From Industry Expertise
While there are SEO best practices that every business should implement, you’ll get optimal results when you tailor your strategy to your niche. You need an industry-specific approach, whether you’re providing SaaS to businesses, running an online clothing store, promoting a restaurant to local customers, or managing multiple language sites to reach global audiences.
Google also has stringent requirements for certain industries, so websites publishing financial or health-related subject matter need different content strategies than landscaping services or auto mechanics.
SEO agencies with expertise in your vertical have already acquired valuable insights and can help you achieve liftoff sooner. They’re familiar with common industry keywords, the strategies of top-ranking competitors, and authoritative sites to approach for backlinks. When you hire an SEO company, ask for a customer list to confirm their track record. It’ll save you from firing a bad agency later when they don’t measure up.
2. You’ll See Increased Revenue
There are numerous costs involved in an SEO strategy, but over time, a well-executed campaign pays off by attracting visitors that convert. Moz suggests that the average ecommerce company sees a $2.75 return for every SEO dollar invested, but return on investment (ROI) depends on factors such as the competitiveness of your niche, how much work you need to do to bring your website up to SEO standards, and the breadth of your strategy.
An agency can maximize the ROI of search engine optimization by assessing current site performance and prioritizing the most impactful tactics. Once the pieces fall into place, you’ll see a domino effect of results:
- Search engines crawl your site better.
- Your visibility and rankings improve.
- More traffic flows to your web pages.
- An exceptional user experience drives conversions and revenue.
3. You’ll Get Data-Driven Solutions
While SEO can seem mystifying at times, experienced agencies use analytics to make informed decisions. This starts with keyword research, which involves finding the right keywords to target based on search volume data and expected difficulty.
Once your strategy is in place, SEOs rely on analytics to chart your progress. While most businesses have similar goals — high-ranking pages, increased traffic, and conversions — it takes incremental steps to hit these targets. When you fall short, data can illuminate the weak spots in your strategy.
For example, if you’re not seeing an increase in traffic, you might need more impressions, a larger number of ranking keywords, or better metadata to generate click-throughs. One of the benefits of hiring an SEO agency is access to seasoned analytics experts who can select the best tools and metrics to measure your performance. They can accurately interpret the numbers, put them into context, and make decisions guided by data.
4. You’ll Get Help With Technical SEO
Technical SEO ensures search engines can crawl your site, interpret the content, and index pages so Google can display them for the right user queries. It’s essential to ensure your site is humming along smoothly and there are no obstacles for search crawlers.
To tackle technical SEO, you need in-depth knowledge of how a website works behind the scenes. Many marketers like to hire an SEO company and entrust this aspect of search engine optimization to tech experts.
SEO agencies usually begin by performing a systematic site audit. They will identify the technical improvements you need to enhance your site’s search visibility, such as:
- Creating a clear and logical site structure.
- Submitting a sitemap.
- Improving site security.
- Boosting page speed by compressing images and minifying files.
- Ensuring mobile friendliness.
- Removing duplicate pages.
- Fixing orphan pages, broken links, and page errors.
- Simplifying URL structure.
- Adding structured data to improve visibility in the SERPs.
5. You’ll Receive a Personalized Strategy
Before you can craft a successful SEO strategy, you need to know what you’re trying to achieve. Most marketers will say their goal is to increase traffic and sales, but the more precise your objectives are, the sharper your strategy will be.
An SEO agency identifies where you’re currently standing with your website performance and where you have the potential to improve. Then, in concert with your business goals, you can set purposeful SEO targets: Increasing organic traffic by a certain percentage, expanding the number of ranking keywords, improving the time spent on page, or converting sales. If you hire an SEO agency, you’ll benefit from a customized SEO campaign that pushes your business toward its goals.
6. You’ll Save Time
Once you’ve crafted a detailed SEO strategy, it’s time to put it into action. But correct implementation takes both time and expertise. When you outsource behind-the-scenes work by hiring an SEO company, you can shift your energies to growing other aspects of your business. You might find your time is better spent creating brand partnerships or improving the in-store customer experience rather than trying to build backlinks to your website.
An SEO company supports the resources and expertise of your in–house marketing team so you can handle tasks more efficiently. It might make sense to outsource common SEO services such as:
- Performing keyword research.
- Creating high-quality, helpful content.
- Improving the number of authoritative referring domains.
- Improving on-page optimization, such as meta titles and descriptions.
7. You’ll Improve User Experience
There’s an added benefit to SEO besides increased search visibility and traffic. Many of the factors that Google uses for ranking pages also make your site more user-friendly. These include:
- High-quality, helpful content
- Easy-to-read formatting and page layouts
- Intuitive site architecture
- Helpful internal linking
- Optimized page speed and loading times
- Mobile-friendliness
These characteristics create a premium user experience that inspires visitors to spend more time browsing your site. As you draw them into your marketing funnel, you build satisfaction and trust and improve the chances of converting visitors into customers.
8. You’ll Support Your Other Marketing Channels
SEO agencies gain a lot of insight about your customers when building search optimization strategies. They know the keyword phrases your audience will likely use and the type of information they’re curious about at different stages of the buyer journey. You can use this information to bolster other marketing strategies, such as social media marketing, email marketing, and PPC advertising. Here’s how:
- Use insights from your SEO partner to better target audiences across platforms.
- Strengthen your brand with consistent and cohesive messaging on all channels.
- Streamline your content creation process by repurposing SEO website content on other channels.
- Provide value to visitors through enriched website experiences, whether they land on your site from the SERPs, social platforms, or an email newsletter.
- Make your marketing more efficient by encouraging collaboration.
The increased traffic you’ll generate to your website through SEO will also strengthen your other channels. You can promote email newsletter subscriptions with signup forms on landing pages and drive traffic to your social accounts with links on your website.
9. You’ll Boost Your Online Presence
Experienced SEOs can drill down into the details that help your business gain visibility in search and entice customers to your site. SEO agencies:
- See the big picture. You might have a technically sound website, but you won’t rank highly without well-crafted content. Or, you may have stellar content, but your rankings will drop if large image files are slowing down your site. Your SEO can eliminate the barriers holding your web pages back in the SERPs.
- Look for the competitive edge. Sometimes, it’s the little things. You might have keywords missing from your content strategy, backlinks lacking authority, or poorly optimized metadata. A trusted SEO partner can iron out these wrinkles and help your site shine.
- Aim for prime real estate on the first page of the SERPs. SEO agencies know the tricks of the trade for nabbing users’ attention and translating views into traffic. They can help optimize for featured snippets, which appear above the top-ranking organic search results, or add structured data to enhance regular snippets with videos, images, and star ratings.
10. You’ll Keep Up With the Competition
Search engine rankings are relative — you need to outshine the competition to rank at the top of the SERPs. SEO agencies have the tools to conduct competitive analyses, comparing your strategy with those of top-ranking sites. Maybe your competitor is generating backlinks at a faster pace or covering topics in a more in-depth manner. You can then develop appropriate tactics to improve your online presence and outrank them.
Plus, search engine rankings are always fluctuating, which makes SEO an ongoing marketing activity rather than a one-off investment. Your agency can look at websites that are dropping in rankings — creating openings for your business — or new competitors climbing the SERPs that your business may have to fend off.
11. You’ll Stay On Top of SEO Trends and Updates
One thing that’s certain about search engines is that their benchmarks are constantly evolving. Google regularly adjusts algorithms to filter out low-quality or spam sites and present users with the most precise results for their queries.
Most of the time, search engines make minor algorithm tweaks, but occasionally, they introduce major core updates that dramatically affect your rankings. An agency specializing in SEO stays on top of even the smallest changes. They’ll see the effects of subtle algorithm adjustments as they monitor customer sites, even if Google hasn’t announced them.
A partner immersed in the intricacies of search engines day in and day out — as opposed to one offering SEO as an add-on service — can quickly assess and respond to trends and help your site stay competitive in the rankings.
Achieve Long-Term Success by Hiring the Right SEO Agency
If you’re convinced that now is the time to partner with an SEO company, it’s important to find a right-fit partner. Plenty of agencies promise quick wins without truly following through. What you can expect from a great agency is clear communication, a powerful and transparent process, accountability, and partnership. At Victorious, that’s exactly what we aim to provide.
Reach out for a free consultation to learn how our team of seasoned SEOs can help you reach your goals and achieve long-term success.
