What exactly is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, which in English translates as Search Engine Optimization. In any Digital Marketing Plan, SEO is one of the fundamental pillars to consider.
I don’t want to bore you with technicalities, so I will explain what SEO can do for your business.
In the market, apart from Google, there are other search engines such as Bing or Yahoo, although, in the US, Google comes to take more than 90 % of the market share; so it is very likely that you will often hear the term SEO associated with positioning your website in Google.
But remember that search engine optimization work has its results in different search engines. However, from now on, I will focus on talking about Google as the main search engine in the US.
Google, as a search engine, offers its users a service focused on responding to queries and searches carried out by its users.
The searches that users carry out in Google Search are based on words and phrases we use to find what we are looking for.
Based on the query made, Google searches its database and shows the user a classification in its Search that responds to the user’s search intention.
More than 60% of clicks to web pages are within the first three results. And within the first ten results is more than 90%. So it is rare for a user to go beyond page 2 of Google Search to find the answer he is looking for.
Once Google shows its result to the user, it must be taken into account that at the top, it usually places 2 or 3 sponsored ads (paid advertising) and below this is what we call organic positioning.
All the websites that appear organically positioned are not paying anything to be there; if it is not Google, that gives them that position by understanding that their content is relevant to satisfy the user’s search intention.
Taking these data into account, you will understand the enormous importance for a business to be well positioned in the first places of Google Search; for all those search terms that your potential customers most commonly use.
The work as a professional SEO consulting firm consists of identifying these most important search terms and optimizing your website so that Google considers your content the most relevant compared to your competitors and positions you as highly as possible in its classification.
Every expert in SEO positioning must handle a double aspect:
- On the one hand, all the technical aspects of web optimization
- And on the other hand, orienting the content to satisfy the user once they reach the content from Google.
It is useless to reach the top positions based on technically optimizing the web for Google if the user, when accessing the content, seems irrelevant or brick and immediately goes back to the Search to click on the next result.
When working on the SEO of a website, an expert in web positioning will try to maintain the delicate balance between optimizing for the search engine and offering a satisfactory response to the user.
What is search intent?
In the previous section, we mentioned this term and its enormous importance in modern SEO.
Not long ago, SEO was focused on a more technical web optimization was repeating words in a big way and other technical issues that it is better to ignore so as not to get bored; it was possible to position a website at the top of the Google search engine.
At that time, the google algorithm was not so advanced, but today this not only does not position but also seriously penalizes a good web positioning job.
The google algorithm has evolved a lot since then.
Think of Google as a company that needs to satisfy its users.
For this reason, if it shows results in your search engine that are there because they have known how to manipulate their algorithm, but that is not relevant to the user, this would seriously harm Google.
It has come to such a point that its algorithm can interpret said search intent with a very high degree of perfection.
So that you understand perfectly this search intentionality, I am going to explain it to you with an example :
Imagine that you are in a city you do not know, and you ask a person from there for “a restaurant that eats well.” The normal thing is that it indicates 2 or 3 alternatives of nearby restaurants where you eat well.
Now imagine what he asks: “What is the best restaurant in the city?”. In this case, it can give you directions to restaurants that may be quite far from where you are currently but are undoubtedly the best in the city.
What I have put in quotes would be what we have previously called search keywords or keyword Research, and what the friendly citizen tells you is what Google would show you in its Search.
As you can see in the first case, the search results that Google shows you try to do so by first interpreting that what you are looking for is a good restaurant, and therefore it shows you results close to where you are.
In the second case, things change, and the distance factor is now less relevant since you want to go to the best restaurant, and in this case, it can show you results of restaurants that may be far from your current location.
For this reason, you will see that for certain searches, sometimes Google puts videos in the first position, other times photos and many others show you the Google my Business files of nearby businesses. This is not done randomly but based on interpreting search intent.
My job as an SEO expert is to know how to identify these search terms and their intent and guide the pages of your website to give the best possible response to the user and thus get Google to give us the role of relevant results and position us at the top of your Search.
Satisfy the user above all
In modern SEO, this is perhaps the most important factor to consider if you want your website to rank at the top of the google search engine.
As we have seen in the previous section, the google algorithm can identify the user’s search intention with great accuracy.
In this way, Google tries to classify in its Search those web pages that give a clear answer to the user.
Here we enter a delicate area since some confuse web design aesthetics with satisfying the user, which is a big mistake.
Your website can be the most beautiful and spectacular of all, but if it loads slowly, or its structure and content do not respond well to the search intention, it will never have a good position at the top of the search engine.
As a specialist in web positioning (SEO), my job is to adapt your website so that it not only ranks at the top of Google search but also achieves the best user experience and thus consolidates the ranking achieved. This way, get Google to identify us as the page with good response and the best user experience.
Why is it essential for my business to have a trusted SEO consultant? What can SEO do for my business?
Well, if you have read the above and come this far, I think you can already understand the importance of SEO for your business.
The only possibility to appear in the google search engine is in two ways:
- SEM (paid advertising)
- SEO (organic positioning).
In SEM, we pay Google for the clicks that users make on our ads and depending on the sector, these costs per click can be very high, with figures above 10$ per click.
Think that this cost you pay is for the user to reach your Landing Page or destination page. If this landing page is not well optimized, likely, the user will quickly leave your page without making the conversion you are looking for. So you will be wasting your investment and money.
For this reason, if you have invested in SEO, even if you also invest in SEM, your investment in advertising has a much higher probability of conversion.
SEO and SEM complement each other perfectly since, for those keywords with the worst position, complementing them with an SEM advertising campaign can be very profitable.
Finally, to finish seeing the enormous importance of having your expert, affordable SEO consultant, think that the positioning obtained is FREE. Therefore, you will not pay anything to google for that web positioning.
Functions of the SEO consultant What main tasks does he come to perform?
When I start with a new client, the first step is to identify the starting point where we are.
Conducting an SEO audit of the client’s website is essential to identify this starting point.
In a Google Positioning Consultancy, among many other variables are analyzed :
- Analysis of keywords currently positioned.
- Source of web traffic.
- Website architecture structure.
- How the content of the different pages that make up the web is structured.
- Website loading speed.
- Crawl errors.
- Internal and external linking (Link Building)
- Comparison with main competitors.
Once the audit is done, we will have a photograph of the current SEO situation.
With this prior analysis, it is time to define the strategy to follow, bearing in mind that each case requires a personalized strategy based on your short, medium and long-term objectives; and the available investment budget.
It must be made clear that SEO is not a job with a forecast based on the short term.
The results of today’s work usually bear fruit in the medium and long term, although this will depend a lot on the sector and the level of competition.
SEO requires constant work, so web optimization work is continuous.
It is our job as SEO must be attentive to:
- Possible fluctuations may be an indication of losing positions in the google search.
- Monitor what actions the competition is taking.
- New opportunities for relevant keywords to position
- Plan and generate new content (content optimization)
- Establish a proper Link Building strategy (generating incoming links) and a good internal web link.
What aspects do I have to take into account when hiring a trusted SEO consultant?
My advice, putting myself in my client’s shoes, is to consider these four main factors.
Knowledge
Although you as a client do not have to know how SEO works or its jargon, surely you do have experience in dealing with your suppliers and knowing how to penetrate a person through how they speak to you, how they express themselves and what commitments they acquire with you.
I advise you not to get carried away by the type of super offer. For example, “I position you in the first position for the keyword such and such.”
Professional SEO doesn’t work like that. No professional will promise you never to position yourself for any specific word or sell you the bike. Instead, you will surely be in the Top 3 in X term.
I encourage you to hold a personal meeting, online or at least by phone, where you ask all your questions and get answers to your questions; in this way, you can gauge the confidence that inspires you.
Experience
Ask what references he can give you about his SEO projects, and do not trust the references that may appear from very happy people who are talking wonders about him on his website.
Ask about those references that give you information on the volume of positioned words, how many are in the top 10, and how many are in the top 3.
If possible, once you receive that information, do that research yourself.
There are free tools that can help you at a basic level.
Versatility
In a constantly changing digital world, it is very important to be versatile and agile.
In other words, working on local SEO is not the same as positioning e-commerce or SEO in a sector such as Dental Clinics, Plumbers, Lawyers, etc.
Each sector has its characteristics. So SEO success in one sector does not have to be the same in another, repeating the same pattern of success used previously.
For these lower positioned relevant words, it is always important to accompany them with an SEM (Google Ads) campaign that will make your online presence stand out above that of your competition both for your SEO positioning and the traffic captured from your advertising campaign. SEM.
Here I have to tell you that I do not know many SEO colleagues who control the SEM facet. In my case, I am both a specialist in SEO positioning and an expert in SEM and Social Media. In other words, I dominate both facets to get qualified traffic to your website.
Although it is the only non-technical feature I include, it seems important to take into account.
Understanding how things look from your point of view helps to have fluid communication.
It happens a bit like with lawyers, who speak in a technical language only they understand.
Well, in SEO it happens sometimes the same.
Evaluate this aspect and I assure you that it will be much easier for you to be in tune with your SEO advisor.
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