10 Reasons SMEs Should Hire an SEO Agency

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation and includes all the factors that can influence search engines to rank a website higher in the listings for particular keywords. More recently, SEO and marketing are inseparable concepts, indeed even the phrase ‘digital marketing’ has become somewhat redundant in favour of considering simply ‘marketing’ within the context of the web. This means that you need it in order to make your business more profitable and successful.

Most industries on the web will now face some pretty stiff competition. Under these conditions, we are always surprised how many business owners are happy to just keep their head above the water, but this is definitely not the key to success.

The real question here is how you can you make a noticeable difference in being successful if you have a small business (SME)? Most UK businesses are SMEs and we feel it’s important we help answer these questions before you consider the one thing we have all thought about from time to time: do you hire an SEO agency?

1. SEO is time consuming

SEO has grown up over a number of years, there are now quite a range of technical terms and concepts that might seem a lot to take in at first. While you may find some good advice online, often further reading will reveal alternative views. We often see business owners underestimate both the level of complexity of knowledge required to do good SEO and find they lack the time to research these topics in enough detail to do it properly. Whould it not be cheaper to leave it to the people who do this each day?

2. Poor SEO costs your business

If you build an SEO strategy that doesn’t work, it will not only cost you any business lost as a result, but may also make it harder to get the right kind of SEO you need to bring the right kind of business. Even low-cost SEO software tools are pricey, and they cannot do the job of an SEO expert. Even with the right tools, you may struggle to find the strategy to use them to optimal effectiveness on your own.

3. SEO is not ‘one size fits all’

There are many ways to achieve results in SEO, each website and industry will be slightly different. As a result, there is no single set methodology that will satisfy all websites. A successful campaign needs some creative marketing thinking, backed by SEO experience.

4. The algorithms of search engines are forever changing

If an algorithm is updated, this means that, most probably, some of the ranking factors have changed. This happens very often. An SEO agency will always be aware of these updates, and they will change the strategies and techniques according to every new update. Keeping up with all the updates and knowing how to improve your strategy every time is impossible if you are not an SEO expert, so don’t even think to try it.

5. SEO firms use professional analytics

SEO software and tools are crucial for understanding what are the suitable strategies for your website. You have to know what works and what does not work for you in order to improve your SEO tactics. Professional SEO analytics are expensive and hard to use; that’s why you should think about hiring an SEO firm.

6. SEO experience is irreplaceable

No matter how hard you try to do quality research and improve your SEO strategy, you will never have the experience of an SEO agency. This experience is vital for providing successful SEO tactics and integrating your business into the search engine systems.

7. SEO agencies provide you quality competitor analysis

Competitor analysis is very important for the success of your business and for creating the best strategies. Keep in mind that an SEO agency has a lot of experience and it knows what worked in the case of other businesses in your field and what didn’t. Moreover, they have a complete image of the area of your small business, and they know who your competitors are. If downloading your competitors’ back link profile and analyzing their topical authority sounds strange to you, you should hire an SEO firm.

8. SEO experts bring you relevant traffic that increases sales

Some SEO techniques, such as link building, may have an effect on your page ranking, but they do not improve your sales. Furthermore, link building is not such an important ranking factor nowadays, because it can be easily manipulated. On the other hand, SEO experts are able to bring you relevant traffic, which has a high conversion potential. This means that those who are accessing your website are actually interested in the services you provide, and they are potential clients.

9. SEO firms increase your credibility and popularity

Being regarded as a credible company and gaining popularity are two essential keys to success. Applying the right SEO tactics means a lot of work, but it leads to success. SEO experts can make your business well-known on social media, increase your website ranking and so on. Of course, this is the result of a lot of hard work, knowledge, and experience. As you cannot have all these in an instant, it is better for you and your business to hire an SEO firm that will do all the hard work for you.

10. Weak and Negative SEO techniques will downgrade your website rank

The Internet is packed with negative SEO techniques, such as adding invisible text, spam links, and keyword stuffing that you may be tempted to try if you see that other strategies do not work. Even though all these can increase your page rank on the short term, they are very dangerous on the long term. Search engines will penalize you and your website rank will be downgraded. Then, it will be much harder to upgrade your page rank once again, so don’t even think of trying these techniques.

Audit My Website are SEO specialists able to perform a range of SEO audits that include backlink checking, content analysis, competitor analysis and overall SEO health. If you have any questions or comments on this, why not get in touch?