Why engage an agency for your SEO campaign services

SEO

SEO is a technique that can be learned. I know, I’ve done it. There are many business owners that do very well performing SEO campaign services themselves. There are also plenty of tools out on the market that walks you through a campaign structure, helping you make improvements yourself. 

So, why bother working with an agency in order to conduct your SEO campaign? After all, SEO is expensive! You have enough on your plate paying your energy bill at the moment to be worrying about SEO retainers. 

We’re not going to lie, there are SEO agencies out there who will take your monthly retainer, pass you around from person to person within your agency and effectively do very little to help your site rank well on search engines. (We’re not one of them, by the way).

It can be hard to stomach the cost of SEO campaigns when you’re not too sure what you’re going to be getting from them anyway. 

We want our clients, and business owners in general, to get a great return on investment from their SEO. So, it’s important to know what should be part of a campaign. When you understand this, it becomes easier to understand why a good agency is worth the investment. 

In this article, we aim to define the term “SEO campaign” and help you understand what services to expect from your campaign, before explaining exactly why it is beneficial to you, as a business owner, to engage an agency SEO campaign services. 

What is an SEO campaign?

Firstly, let’s start with a definition. A Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) campaign is a plan of action designed to improve a website’s visibility and organic search results in Google and other major search engines. The goal of an SEO campaign is to increase the quantity and quality of traffic to a site from search engines, ideally resulting in increased revenue. 

The “campaign” normally runs for a set amount of time. Defining the period of time you’re going to run your plan allows you to undertake and measure the campaign against a set of desired outcomes. 

A good campaign will set a goal (or a number of goals), have a robust plan designed to deliver these goals, and then periodic measurement of data to determine whether these goals have been met. 

What services are included in an SEO campaign?

It can often be difficult to understand exactly what you’re getting when you engage an agency to provide SEO campaign services for your company. Although you may have a little understanding of how SEO works, it can be quite difficult to put your finger on what is “done” to achieve your results. 

An SEO campaign can include a variety of services, depending on the needs of the website. Typically, an SEO campaign will start with an analysis of the website to identify areas that need improvement. This normally takes the form of an audit.  

Once the areas of improvement are identified, a plan is created to target those areas. SEO campaigns typically involve the following components: 

1. Keyword research

This involves identifying which keywords potential customers are using when they search for products or services related to your business. Good research should also find keywords that have a good number of monthly searches, but that aren’t too competitive so that you can rank reasonably easy for them. 

2. On-page optimisation

This includes any activity that helps make sure that your website’s title tags, meta descriptions, header tags, images and other metadata are optimised for the target keywords. These features of your website send information to search engines that help them point users in your direction. It’s important they’re correct so that you can send the right users to the right website page. 

3. Off-page optimisation 

Off-page optimisation refers to the act of building backlinks and increasing social signals to your website. This can be done through link building and social media outreach. The links make the website appear authoritative and it’s an important signal to search engines that you should be ranked high on results pages.  

4. Content creation

Creating blog posts, infographics, videos, and other content that are keyword-optimised and informative/entertaining enough to earn organic shares and links from other websites is a crucial part of any campaign. Content creation should be frequent and ongoing. It’s a hugely important part of the campaign process. Content that is optimised will be found by users and will generate traffic to your site. This will show your site is relevant and popular, improving your ranking on results pages. 

5. Backlinking

Backlinking refers to the practice of putting hyperlinks to your site on other websites. This activity helps signal to Google that your site is authoritative, as it is important enough that other websites want to link to the content on your site. This helps your website rank more prominently on search engines. 

6. Digital PR

Digital PR is the practice of writing content and posting it on other sites as a guest writer. It serves two functions. Not only does it increase brand awareness of your company (you are “borrowing” the other website’s audience), the publishing website will normally link to your site as the author of the piece. This provides a signal to Google that you are authoritative and so gives your website a boost on the search engine results pages. 

7. Regular reporting

We cannot overstress how important this one is. The impact of the campaign should be regularly measured and reported back to you. This may take the form of a written report or a meeting with your SEO provider. Good reports should include plenty of data that has been taken from Google Analytics and other applications such as Google Search Console. These are websites that allow SEO analysts to gather data about your website’s traffic, visitors and enquiries. Good reporting will help you know if you’re heading in the wrong direction and help you bring things back on track. This will stop you from wasting time and money. 

You should receive a document that plans out all the activities that are to take place (a strategy). 

How can an SEO campaign help your business?

If you’re reading this blog it is probable that you already know a lot about how SEO can help your business. But it’s worth going through the edited highlights here, for the odd few who may be unsure. After all, committing to a 6-month SEO campaign is a big investment. It’s important to be clear about how you’re going to benefit from it. 

An SEO campaign can help your business in a number of ways. For one, it can improve your visibility online and help you attract more website visitors. This is because, as you optimise your site and produce content that brings visitors to your site, you website will rank better in search results. This means it is more likely that potential customers will find you when they search for keywords related to your business. The more people who see your site, the more enquiries you should get, if your site is built for conversion.

A well-executed SEO campaign can lead to improved brand awareness and recognition, helping you build a stronger reputation and ultimately boosting sales. It needs to be noted that SEO is not a short-term quick-fix solution to generating leads. You have to work for at least 6-months before seeing a return on investment, but the effect can snowball, meaning you get vastly more out than you put in in the long run. 

Why work with an agency for an SEO campaign?

1. It can support your business goals

A good SEO campaign should be targeted. Key Performance Indicators that support your business goals should be set at the start, and a strategy developed to work towards those aims. 

2. It’s a professional partnership

Running a business can be lonely. Working with an agency helps you develop a professional partnership that can help you feel supported as you build your business. A fresh set of eyes can help you see things more clearly and extra bodies might be able to contribute additional skills and insights.

3. Free up time

The biggest reason is actually to give you back precious time that you could spend more effectively elsewhere. Business owners are always time-poor. There are never enough hours in the day. Outsourcing your SEO will go a long way to free up the time that is needed working on the internal systems and processes that make for a successful business. 

4. Prevent wasted effort

I’ve worked with business owners who have blogging away faithfully, only to find out after I run an audit for them that their on-site SEO is not up to scratch, meaning a lot of their efforts have been for nought. An agency will have tools and personnel who can conduct audits to ensure that everything is working correctly so that you get the maximum value out of your campaign. 

5. Expertise

The last one is an easy one to understand. SEO agencies do SEO all day, every day. They live and breathe it. If they’re anything like us, they are constantly researching new techniques and trends to ensure that the service they deliver is the best it possibly can be (or at least it should be!). 

If you’re a business owner who is doing the same, then great. We’re really pleased for you and wish you all the best. But, if not, then you probably aren’t going to have as much expertise as those who are doing SEO full-time. Therefore, it’s only going to be beneficial for you to take advantage of the expertise that an SEO agency has. 

Remember…

There are poor SEO agencies out there. But most SEO agencies will do a really great job for you. A good agency should be able to build a robust SEO campaign strategy that includes on-site and off-site SEO, content marketing and keyword research. They should set targets and measure the impact of the campaign regularly. 

SEO agencies are great to work with, as it frees up your time to work on building your internal systems and processes. They have a wealth of expertise that they can use, and can support your business goals. They can spot things that you’ve missed and stop you from putting effort into things that aren’t worth it. Building a strong professional partnership can bring a great return on investment and enrich your business.