Search engine optimization doesn’t have to seem like smoke and mirrors offered by modern-day snake oil salesmen. Executed properly, an effective SEO campaign can dramatically increase your company’s sales. Here are some tips on how to find a good SEO consultant.
Is your company still focussed more on traditional outbound marketing techniques or has it truly embraced inbound marketing?
According to www.hubspot.com, “traditional outbound marketing tactics — trade shows, direct mail, telemarketing other interruptive techniques” are getting less effective and more expensive. They rely on pushing out your brand message to a potentially non-receptive prospect who is being bombarded daily by marketing hype. As a result, customers have become better at blocking unwanted interruptions such as cold calls using caller ID or email via spam filters.
Online inbound marketing strategies, by comparison, allow buyers to connect with sellers when they DO have a need for your products or services and want to learn more.
Search engines, blogs and social media are among the basic elements of an inbound marketing campaign. When companies use these inbound marketing tactics, they multiply their chances of being found at the precise time their prospect is researching a purchase online.
If your industrial company isn’t yet engaged in blogging or social media, where can you start?
Probably the most widely-adopted entry into the inbound marketing world is via search engine optimization. Executed correctly, SEO can drive a valuable amount of qualified traffic (i.e. prospective customers) to a supplier’s website.
Most small to mid-sized industrial companies, however, do not have the internal resources or expertise to implement and manage an effective SEO campaign. That’s why many turn to SEO professionals to outsource this effort.
There are many excellent SEO consultants who work hard and with integrity to deliver measurable results to their clients. Unfortunately, however, you may meet a few less qualified ones in your search for an SEO consultant. When in doubt, here are a few vendors to avoid:
1) They Offer to Submit Your Site to 100′s of Online Directories – This kind of widespread submission may sound good at first, but most online directories will not be “niched” to your industry or well-known. So appearing in them has little value and may also generate a ton of spam.
2) They Guarantee Page 1 Google Rank - Unless they work for Google, they have no control over the Google ranking algorithm. So it’s unlikely they can deliver on this promise for all the keywords of economic relevance to your business.
3) They Do Not Conduct a Thorough Keyword Analysis – They simply ask you what words you would like to rank high under on Google and do not properly analyze whether anyone actually searches for those key words or phrases. It isn’t hard to rank on the first page of Google for a key word/phrase that few people actually search for online!
4) They Are Overly Focussed on Link Buying – Your website’s “backward” links on other sites are an integral part of good SEO technique. A consultant may uncover a few good linking arrangements from non-competitive websites with decent SEO weight. But before you plunk down a budget for link buying, consider whether your vendor has made a good effort to build some high quality inbound links to your site that are free. Above all, avoid “link farms” at all costs.
5) They Employ Black Hat Practices – If their SEO techniques sound sneaky, run away. They should never recommend that your company use any tactics to outsmart Google such as word cloaking (putting hidden text on web pages) or stuffing repetitive key words into your HTML code. Chances are good that the Google engineers are way smarter than your hired vendor and their faulty advice will result in your site being dropped entirely from Google’s index.
6) They Offer to Optimize your Site for Single Keywords Only – A recent study by www.onestat.com shows that 72% of people now type in 3-4 keyword search phrases on the search engines. For example, a typical keyword search phrase might include a product with its attributes and part number. The specificity of a search phrase noun with modifiers helps them uncover more relevant industrial results on broader, non-industrial search engines such as Google. These “long tail” search phrases are ultimately less competitive and thus easier to rank well under. They will also drive more highly qualified web traffic to your site over time.
7) They Do Not Focus on the Content of your Site – Without good, detailed and compelling content on your site with multiple “calls-to-action”, your SEO efforts will be wasted. Your site’s actual page content needs to be optimized with the proper keyword density in your web page text. Keyword density of 1% -3% is optimal. That means that your keywords appear on your corresponding optimized web page 1-3 times per 100 words of text. Repeating your keywords more than that in your text will not be of SEO benefit and worse, will be condered search spamming. Furthermore, it may even drive away any human visitors who find the text stilted and hard to read.
8) They Do Not Offer Regular Reporting – SEO is an ongoing investment of time and money. If your vendor is unwilling to provide regular detailed reporting on your company’s SEO ranking for your key phrases along with recommendations for improving performance, hire someone else.
A good SEO vendor tackles both on-site and off-site elements to help their client’s website be more relevant to the search engines. They understand that sending Google traffic to a poor website will not help you attract new customers.
Bottom Line: Before you hire an SEO consultant, first understand how your customers search online and use a keyword research tool to evaluate these keyword phrases. Armed with this insight, you’ll be ready to check your potential vendor’s SEO methodology, experience and references in the B2B world of inbound marketing.
Photo Credit: tastyplacement
Ontario manufacturers are welcome to contact me directly for a no-obligation meeting to discuss your website and inbound marketing strategy. For more internet marketing tips, follow me on Twitter .
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