Although high-quality website development and interface are essential for attracting more clients, all the efforts of the tech team can reach a customer only if SEO is set up properly. Since search ranking algorithms and best practices are ever-changing, business owners have to constantly optimize website content and improve off-page rankings to improve their position in Google search rankings.
Are SEO and Design Connected?
All successful websites that occupy the first spots in Google rankings managed to get up there by understanding the link between search engine optimization and high-quality design – failing to pay attention to UI and UX optimization can hinder the team’s optimization efforts later on.
Here are the ways in which website design directly influences SEO efficiency:
- Usability factors – Google ranks websites that are cluttered or slow considerably lower than those with a straightforward and high-performing design.
- Website architecture – The way the page is structured can either promote or tank content discoverability. A design team should work with SEO goals in mind to know where to place content blocks and sidebars.
- Limiting the number of opportunities the SEO and content team have – Poor website design can compromise content readability, resulting in user frustration and skyrocketing bounce rates.
Slacking off on best web design practices can send your SEO efforts down the drain. Find out how to build search-engine friendly interfaces and what design mistakes a manager should avoid.
Where Can I Find The Best SEO and Web Design Companies?
Just Google It
Since you don’t necessarily have to meet with a professional face-to-face, the search radius is quite broad. The simplest way to find a top SEO Agency is by running a quick Google search.
For one thing, companies that are highly ranked would likely be capable of bringing your website to the top. Also, you can visit the SEO agency & services website right away to find out what businesses they worked for and which services are included in the SEO and design package.
Looking for an SEO marketing firm via Google has a downside as well – the search engine prioritizes local businesses. Thus, the rankings will offer local SEO agencies, not necessarily the best ones.
Another thing to keep in mind when reaching out to a top-ranking agency is that its service packages are likely quite expensive. A business owner needs to be ready to invest a considerable budget in a campaign and pay a solid amount of money for the work of the team.
Look Through Ratings
Lists of top SEO companies make it easier to hire trusted agencies for web design and Search Engine Optimization. You can see the best agencies in the field, who are skilled in handling large-scale SEO projects.
Hire Freelancers
If you are bootstrapped, hiring a freelance contractor is a good way to get a low-budget SEO boost. Granted, you can’t expect as much experience, security, and dedication from a freelancer as you would demand of a search engine optimization agency. However, there’s no lack of Digital Marketing Company on Upwork and Toptal – they can handle short-term projects or perform routine SEO updates on your website.
Why Is SEO Important?
As the number of active websites on the web increases, it’s harder to stand out and compete for top spots in search rankings – that’s why SEO is important for business owners. Search engine optimization comprises all activities that increase a website’s odds to be ranked in the top 10 among search rankings. Why on paper is SEO so important?
- Most users choose websites among the first five results in search rankings – Thus, making it to the top of the list increases conversions by over 50%.
- Intelligent SEO practices improve the user experience – If the website is fully optimized, it’s going to be faster, work flawlessly, and be easier to navigate. Why is SEO important in 2020? A business owner will be able to increase customer satisfaction rates and convert more visitors into customers.
- Search engine optimization promotes website credibility – For instance, you will be encouraged to pitch guest posts and purchase high-quality backlinks. All of the above are important trust factors that help establish your business as a brand. This is the answer to the question “Why is social media important for SEO?”
- SEO helps attract cheap traffic – By investing in search engine optimization, a business owner is paying for a method worth thousands of potential visitors. In the long run, committing to SEO practices is considerably cheaper than running PPC campaigns and paying for every click or impression.
- SEO is data-driven – To understand why SEO is important for small businesses, you will need to be able to see hard proof of how the webpage is improving in terms of daily visitors, bounce rates, and the amount of time a user spends on the page. Thus, business owners can determine which activities are and are not efficient.
- SEO is a long-term investment – Although you have to update and review practices, creating a functional SEO framework will come in handy for years. By getting the upper hand in SEO, you will likely be “winning the click” for years and will not allow competitors to get ahold of organic traffic.
Does SEO Really Work?
There are no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to search engine optimization – if that were the case, all website managers would simply follow the rules and getting to the top of the rankings would be next to impossible.
Since SEO parameters fully rely on Google, agencies have to monitor trends and practices the search engine enforces. For instance, when Google made a statement in favor of long content, writing 2,000+ word-long posts became a must-have practice. Later, the algorithm started favoring medium-length content and website managers had to comply with that parameter.
Although best SEO practices are constantly evolving, there are dozens of common-sense guidelines that will definitely improve your position in rankings:
- Writing meta tags for content;
- Increasing the website’s loading speed and performance;
- Writing relevant content to lower the bounce rate;
- Adding optimized images to posts;
- Optimizing the “robots.txt” file.
You will not see a considerable traffic boost right away; however, incremental improvements in the amount of traffic attracted to the website will be noticeable in a matter of weeks after implementing SEO practices.
What SEO Services Include
Depending on the scale, experience, and SEO proficiency of a team you choose, there are various SEO techniques in the package. Although there are optional SEO tactics, here are the must-haves all packages should include:
1. SEO Audit
As soon as you reach out to an agency, a team should examine the company’s existing optimization strategy, point out the issues, and offer improvements. An SEO audit helps you ensure that a team will offer a custom plan for website optimization rather than using generic strategies that might not fit the project or the domain.
2. Market Research
A successful SEO strategy stems from knowing where your competitors are at in terms of following best practices. By running a thorough keyword research & competitor research, a contractor will be able to turn a competitor’s weakness into your business’ strength. Analyzing SEO friendly websites allows companies to take pointers as well as create the most efficient optimization strategy possible.
3. Planning and Strategizing
An SEO agency should offer you a custom improvement plan based on the result of the audit and market research. There’s no point in trying to make a cookie-cutter approach work in the SEO marketing process since best practices are specific for different domains and target audiences. A top-tier contractor should understand the specificity of search optimization strategies very well.
4. On-page Optimization
On-page optimization refers to configuring the attributes of your content and improving the website to improve its evaluation by Google’s crawlers. The most common on-page Technical/Onsite SEO tactics are the following:
- Outlining the blog post structure and writing meta-tags for all website content;
- Creating and optimizing the sitemap;
- Optimizing visual and video content;
- Adding relevant keywords to the content;
- Analytics setup & review;
- Improving the website’s performance and usability.
Optimizing the back-end of the page is a crucial part of SEO. Doing so allows you to find out which development errors might be keeping you away from the top of search rankings.
5. Off-page Optimization
Off-page optimization comprises all techniques that influence the rankings of the website but are not directly connected to the website itself. These are:
- Running link building campaigns and pitching guest posts;
- Increasing the shareability of the content;
- Spreading awareness of the brand across social media channels;
- Setting up a Google My Business account for local SEO.
How Can an SEO Team Help Your Business?
As a business owner, you might wonder how reaching out to an SEO company allows business owners to boost conversions and attract more customers. Why is SEO important for companies?
Here are the benefits of reaching out to a professional team of SEO specialists:
- In-depth analysis and market research – An SEO team will thoroughly analyze the key players in the field, along with their best website optimization practices. You will also have a better idea of how your website performs, how your website can help your business, whether your website is mobile-friendly, and why visitors to your website don’t convert into customers.
- Improved performance monitoring – After reaching out to a search engine optimization team, you will be able to set up Google Analytics tracking and goals, update the sitemap, and optimize the overall architecture. An SEO team will help adapt your content to best practices as well as resolve technical SEO issues.
- High-quality keyword strategy – An SEO team will analyze keyword strategies your competitors use, design a custom one for the business, and research and collect a list of relevant keywords your prospective customers use to look for products and services.
- Off-site promotion. A professional team will help get relevant media mentions for your business and increase brand awareness by complying with off-page optimization factors.
- Performance tracking – An SEO team will set up pixels and trackers that will help ensure whether a chosen optimization strategy is efficient and brings forth leads and conversions – this way you will know how and why local SEO is important to your business.
Conclusion
SEO is essential for ensuring your website is recognized by relevant visitors. By optimizing your content and implementing a keyword and a backlinking strategy, you will attract new customers and increase the satisfaction rates of recurring ones.
In case you want to find out if your website’s SEO practices are efficient, what should be improved, and what the ways to do it are, get a free website assessment from our team. You will find out how well your on-page and off-page optimization practices work and how to improve search engine rankings without having to pay a cent.
