Most of the time when you search on Google, you almost do not bother to click on the second page because you believe that Google always ranks the most relevant page #1.
In essence, if your page isn’t ranking #1, your target audience will have a hard time finding you. According to research, users tend to click the #1 page, and consequently, with time, the click rate of other pages decreases steadily.
A large portion of traffic that websites get comes from 68% of searches and this is where the significance of SEO comes into play.
In this article, we’ll unravel why you need an SEO consultant in Connecticut and how their role impacts your business significantly. We’ll also discuss everything you need to know about working with an SEO consultant in Connecticut. Happy reading!
What is an SEO consultant?
An SEO consultant is someone whose job is to analyze and optimize your website for SEO to ensure that your audience can find you easily through online searches. They’ll plan and work out an SEO strategy that’ll help boost your website ranking on SERPs and help drive massive traffic to your website.
SEO consultants have high knowledge of the latest Google algorithm that determines how a website appears or ranks on Google. They can come up with ready-made SEO strategies that suit your website, and budget and help you boost your revenue in the long run.
They are also experts at using a wide variety of keyword research/planning tools to analyze, execute and optimize your website for SEO. SEO consultants have a closer working relationship with a company’s content/copywriters, social media managers/strategists, and other digital marketing experts. If your company or website has a marketing team, they can work hand in hand with an SEO consultant.
What does an SEO consultant do?
SEO consulting involves a range of tasks that helps to optimize your website and make it appear on search engines. Check out some of these tasks below:
- Keyword research
Keyword research is essential for SEO optimization. Your SEO consultant takes up the task of making research for keywords that need to be in your content. This keyword could be a word, phrase, or question. The KWs are words that your customers type into the search engine like Google when looking for a product.
SEO consultants not only do the research on these keywords, but they’re also experts at recommending where and how the keywords should appear in the content. Also, an SEO consultant will consider some metrics such as:
- Search volume – The number of times a keyword is searched.
- Keyword difficulty – How difficult it is to rank for a particular keyword.
- Clicks – The number of clicks on SERPs for a keyword.
- Traffic potential – Related search queries that a keyword can rank for.
- Website audits
SEO consultants perform a website audit by analyzing them and offering recommendations on how to improve them from an SEO point of view. SEO consultants analyze a website’s content, meta descriptions, site performance, and other metrics that determine the website’s ranking on search engines.
An SEO audit aims to provide reasons Google should rank your website as relevant to users. In essence, SEO consultants will check if your website is fit for all of the search engine algorithms. Apart from keywords and contents, search engines also emphasize your website’s accessibility, trustworthiness, and authority. A website audit is not done once, it is done regularly at intervals so that any issue can be detected early.
- Competitor research
An SEO consultant also must look into who your competitors are in your niche. They must check the keywords they’re ranking for and how your website can out outperform them even with the same keywords.
For instance, if you’re running a pet food business and one of your competitors has an article on “how to choose the right food for your dog” ranking on search engines, your article has to be better if you want to outperform them.
SEO consultants make use of tools to come up with effective keywords to outrank your competitors.
- Content optimization
SEO consultants help websites to optimize their content with important keywords and phrases. An SEO expert works together with content writers and copywriters to help them craft contents that revolve around the target keywords. The content has to be meaningful, relevant, and valuable to readers.
But content optimization goes beyond inserting the right keywords into your website. Instead, the strategic positioning of these keywords on your website is also as important. An SEO consultant could recommend that the keywords be inserted in strategic places like page titles, meta descriptions, sub-heading, etc. Keyword research is important to ensure that your business is focusing on topics that your audience finds relevant.
SEO consultants also perform other duties including on-page and off-page optimization, technical SEO, and local SEO.
How do you know the right time to hire an SEO consultant? Check it out below.
When should you hire an SEO consultant?
There’s no restriction to the kind of businesses that can enjoy the benefits of an SEO consultant, however, if you’re going to hire one, it should be as soon as you launch your website. This will enable you to establish your online presence and build a strong customer base.
If you’re a business owner who wants to revive your website or start a new one, hiring an SEO consultant would be a good choice. Because then, the SEO consultant would be able to do his job of analyzing and optimizing your site from scratch. An SEO consultant can help with the keyword research and other strategies involved in launching your new product or services.
Also, if you’re looking to engage in other digital marketing platforms, an SEO consultant can help walk you through the entire process.
The effect of SEO doesn’t reflect overnight. It might take weeks or months to start working. And it’ll only work if it’s done right from the onset. That’s why it’s important to hire an SEO consultant that can help you optimize your website for SEO from scratch and yield better results.
What makes a good SEO consultant?
A good SEO consultant must have a thorough knowledge of all the various aspects of search engine optimization. They need to be experienced in technical SEO, local SEO, on-page, and off-page SEO as well as other SEO tools.
Since SEO consultants will have a close working relationship with marketing teams, they should have some level of experience with marketing strategies and their execution.
A good SEO consultant should possess good communication skills so that they can be able to communicate better with content writers, copywriters, and content strategists.
Not only that, a good SEO consultant should have good analytical skills since that makes up a large part of their role as they’d be analyzing and collecting data. They need to have a quick understanding of the latest trends and data from google algorithms. They need to be updated with all the algorithms and implemented these algorithms into websites.
Best practices of working with an SEO consultant
It’s not easy to work with an SEO consultant because both you and the consultant have different views on how you want things done. Check out some things you can practice to have a good relationship with an SEO consultant.
- Set expectations clearly
Search engine optimization isn’t predictable. You might be working with the best SEO consultant but that doesn’t mean that your webpage will rank for sure on SERPs.
These things take time and it depends on different factors; you may not get your desired result immediately. So before you proceed with working with someone, you should discuss the fees, budget, tools, and available resources, and set your expectations.
- Define the metrics
Talk about the changes you want to happen on the website and the time frame to execute them. Discuss what you hope to achieve and set realistic standards or metrics to track them.
Don’t use vanity metrics that do not relate to the growth of your business. Define metrics that display the results from SEO and bring more leads and customers to your business.
- Communicate effectively
Discuss how often your SEO consultant should meet with other stakeholders and how often they should exchange reports. You can open up a line of communication for your SEO consultant and the other stakeholders(like video calls, email, Google meet, etc).
On a final note;
Hiring an SEO consultant can increase your online traffic and enhance the quality of leads to your business. And the result would be long-term. You’ll continue to benefit from the SEO long after you’ve stopped working with them.
However, you should note that you may not start seeing results immediately after hiring an SEO consultant. After the SEO consultants have analyzed and optimized your site, it takes Google time to index your website.
Although it may sound appealing to work with someone who promises immediate results, that’s the reason to avoid such a person. It’s impossible to get your desired results immediately. Instead, you should work with someone with a trusted and proven track record.
