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What to Know Before You Engage Someone for SEO Services

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How To Be Found on Google - Results Communications and Research

There’s two broad factors any organizations should ponder before they engage an external individual or organization to help them optimize their site to be found on Google, ideally on the first two pages of search results. These are:

  • The Reputation/Credibility of the Firm or Individual In-Question
  • The Nature of and Time Frame Associated With the Services Being Offered

How To Determine If An Individual Or Firm Offering SEO Services Is Credible?

My current clients, prospective clients, and I all regularly receive e-mailed or LinkedIn requests from individuals or organizations claiming that they can and will get our website to appear on the first page of Google search engine results for terms relevant to the services or products we offer, or to the solutions to problems we provide. In fact, these SEO vendors, sometimes use the phrase “guarantee” or “guaranteed” along with it. That’s a huge, huge red flag. Without talking to you about your organization’s objectives, the target audiences and geography you serve, and the competitiveness of your marketplace — as well as researching whether or not individuals are even searching for an organization who offers your products, services, and solutions — it is impossible for these SEO vendors to know whether or not it is feasible for a listing with a link to your website to appear on the first page of Google search results.

Being Found on Search - Results Communications and Research

Another big red flag related to ascertaining the credibility of any organization who approaches you about SEO services is whether or not their initial sales pitch to you includes selling you backlinks, i.e., links to your site that will appear on external websites and blogs. As we discussed in a previous blog post, the only external organizations you want sharing a link to your site on their own site or blog are highly regarded organizations with which you have a prior relationship or with which there are some synergies. Allowing an SEO services provider to arrange for such “spammy” backlinks on your organization’s behalf will ultimately cause a decline in how you rank in search results vs. improve how you rank.

Before you engage an individual or organization to assist your organization with being found on Google, ask for examples of the types of organizations to which they have provided SEO services, how they have analyzed and documented/demonstrated the positive implications of the services they’ve provided, and the steps/tactics they took to achieve SEO success.

How Do I Know What SEO Services I Need: One-time/Initial Vs. Ongoing?

As we described in this blog post, if you’ve never optimized your website for search or paid someone to do so, and particularly, if you’ve never conducted keyword research related to it, you should be starting from scratch with your SEO and engage an SEO expert to conduct an initial/one-time/one-off review of your website and execute appropriate technical/organic SEO tactics. These tactics include but are not limited to:

  • incorporating relevant high-volume keywords uncovered via keyword research within your website page content and in your behind-the-scenes/meta tags
  • help setting up and/or optimizing a Google My Business Profile, so that you rank well locally and support being found more globally on search.

Once you have completed the important SEO work outlined above, if keyword research has indeed revealed that a high volume of individuals are searching to identify someone like you, then you’ll want to continue to take actions on a regular basis — daily, monthly, or quarterly — to make sure your organization is as well-situated as possible to be found on Google for relevant terms.

Many SEO experts and SEO consultants, like us, offer ongoing (monthly or quarterly) SEO packages. Services offered via an ongoing SEO package engagement likely will vary, but at a minimum, we believe they should include:

Ongoing SEO Services Packages

  • checking to see your site has no broken internal or external links
  • testing to see that your site load speed or the responsiveness/mobile-friendliness of your site isn’t negatively impacting where your organization appears in Google search engine results
  • ensuring that any new images that are added to your site include an “alt-tag” so they will be indexed by Google
  • making sure that any new pages or blog posts that are added to your website are indexed by Google
  • writing content (that includes high-volume keywords) for blog posts, FAQs, or other site pages to support being found for those terms on Google
  • maximizing your Google My Business profile by keeping it comprehensive, current, and posting to it with the same frequency that your post to other forms of social media to support Search Engine Optimization efforts.

Reach Out With Your SEO Questions/Get Your Questions About SEO Answered

Got questions about what we shared above? Please reach out. We’re glad to talk you through all of this, and if appropriate, we’d love to present you with a proposal to provide you with one-time or ongoing SEO services.

Being Found on Google, blog, Blog, Blogging, competitive advantage, content marketing, integrated marketing, keeping up with trends, keywords, Memorability, organic SEO, SEO, video, video marketing

Three Ways to Use Video to Boost SEO

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By Guest Blogger, Nick Bartos, Social Motion

Video is valuable for any business, as it can be used to amplify your brand utilizing interesting visuals and engaging storytelling. However, many marketers and business owners may not know that video can also be used to support search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. Here is how to own search engine results even further – utilizing video.

#1: Create evergreen content, and host it in evergreen places

Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok are fantastic places to post videos – but unless those videos are consistently being served up to new individuals via paid ads vs. only being viewed organically by followers of or visitors to an organization’s social media profiles, the view-count is very likely to drop after the first few days of posting on these platforms. YouTube is the number two most used search engine behind Google. Utilizing a platform like YouTube will allow your video, and therefore, your organization, to remain in search results consistently. This will help your SEO efforts and allow your content to keep working for you, even after the initial drop off from feed-based channels like Facebook.

#2: Utilize your keyword research

Keyword research allows you to identify the high-volume “search terms (known as keywords)” which individuals and organizations are entering into a search engine like Google to identify organizations that offer the services, products, or solutions to problems that you do.

Use keyword research you already have to both inform your video and take advantage of the keyword research you spent hours collecting. If subscribed to an SEO service, such as SEMrush, or even if you just use Google Ads keyword planning tools, utilize the information offered by the software/tools. Many times, these services will  cause the researcher to think of blog post ideas based on their findings – do not be afraid to turn these into video! And, then be sure to tag your video appropriately in YouTube with the keywords for which you want your video to be found.

#3: Use Closed Captioning and Subtitles

The above is arguably the easiest way to help yourself. While you can use your video title, description, and tags as ways to help your videos rank, make it even easier for search engines to rank video for desirable terms by providing a transcript. Not only are you providing closed captioning for accessibility purposes (which search engines also applaud), but you are also providing a script for search engines to rank your video for appropriate search terms and keywords that you have incorporated in your script. Some services provide automated closed-captioning services, but they are not always perfect. It takes a bit of time to complete, but will pay dividends in SEO efforts.

Get Help From An Expert In Using Video To Support Being Found On Google

If you want to boost your video presence online, check out Social Motion, a company dedicated to creating high-quality, buzz-worthy, and engaging content for social and digital media. We’re always glad to hold a complimentary phone chat with you to discuss your particular marketing challenges and opportunities and how video, such as the one I shared below, can help address them.

Search Engine Optimization, SEM, SEO, social media, technical SEO

Why SEO Is Not A One and Done Marketing Activity

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This SEO blog post was updated on 12/7/22 to incorporate in the bottom section some of the more recent SEO blog posts our team has written, particularly one about SEO audits.

Even if Google didn’t regularly change its algorithm that determines which organizations’ listings it serves up on the first two pages of search results, and even if new competitors haven’t entered your marketplace or existing competitors haven’t up’d their SEO game, your organization still needs to regularly revisit your SEO strategy and tactics. By regularly, I mean, at least quarterly.

How To Be SEO Strong And Step Up Your SEO Game, So Your Organization Can Be Found On Google

My Boston SEO company and Boston digital marketing agency is often engaged to implement activities related to keyword research and planning (such as employment of appropriate keywords in website content and behind-the-scenes website tags). While keyword research and planning is a large, complex, and time-consuming activity that doesn’t need to be revisited monthly or quarterly, there are a number of SEO review and audit type activities that should. I won’t repeat those activities in this post because I’ve already outlined them in the recent blog posts shared below, but I hope you’ll take the time to read or re-read these past posts. They outline easy tasks you can and should complete to make sure you are up-to-SEO-speed and that potential issues with your website aren’t impacting your SEO, or that tactics that you are or aren’t employing related to your social media presence, aren’t harming how your organization ranks in search engine results in some way.

Our SEO Services, Including SEO Audit Services

Don’t have the time or capacity to complete the above monthly or quarterly SEO activities? My team is always here to help! Reach out for information about the SEO services we can provide related to monthly or quarterly SEO reviews.

Being Found on Google, organic SEO, SEO, website

The SEO Audit Mistake Many Make

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Note: This blog post was updated on 12/21/22 to reflect the fact that our organization now uses as automated tool to conduct one-off or one-time SEO audits for clients. While this piece references how you can “manually” conduct such an audit, our team no longer conducts manual SEO audits because of the volume of clients we have and the number of search terms (known as keywords) for which many want to rank, and therefore, we need to track. By employing the tool, we can now conduct SEO audits far more quickly and cost-effectively.

How To Conduct An SEO Audit Effectively (and Manually)

To conduct a really thorough SEO audit, i.e., to determine if your website and other digital/online properties are optimized to rank high in search engine results listings for terms relevant to the products and services you offer, there are a whole host of items you should investigate and consider. But, our aim with this blog post is to address the simplest and most frequent SEO audit marketers and business owners tend to conduct, and that is — entering the search terms (keywords) they want their digital properties to “rank for” into a search engine, such as Google and Bing.

google search engine

Unfortunately, conducting the above actively can lead to a false sense of security related to how the organization in-question ranks. Why? Because Google and other search engines have great memories. They know what websites you visit frequently and/or have visited recently, and what links in search results listings you’ve clicked on. Let’s face it, particularly when we are in a marketing or business owner role, we’re constantly visiting the websites of our organizations, or clicking on links to them that appear in search engine results.

The unfortunate outcome of the above is that search engines are more likely to serve your website listing up high in search results to you than they are to serve it up high in results listings to individuals not affiliated with your organization. But, you may believe that all individuals are seeing the same search engine results you are. You may be seeing a listing for your organization on the 1st page of search results, while target audiences may not see it until page 3 (and they likely won’t make it that far!)

Another key reason testing to see where your organization’s listing appears in search engine results can lead to a wrong SEO perception is because search engines take into consider your location — where you physically are when searching and/or your device’s IP address. So, let’s say I want to see where my firm appears in search engine results pages (SERP) for the term “SEO strategist MA”, a results listing for my organization, Results Communications and Research, might be presented to me at or near the top of the SERP simply because I’m searching from a computer with an IP address that is associated with the town where my business is located, i.e., Braintree, MA.

When a client engages my firm to help with technical/organic SEO activities, I always like to conduct an audit of where they rank for agreed-upon keywords/search terms, so that 3, 6, and/or 9 months down the road, we can see if the SEO tactics we’ve implemented have moved the SEO needle. Because I always visit prospective and new clients’ sites countless times in the initial days of discussions or working with them, I know it doesn’t make sense for me to conduct the simple audit activity described above on their behalf. I subcontract such work to a fellow marketing professional who has no association with the organization, and I specifically request that she doesn’t visit the client in-question’s site before she conducts the audit. Although, this doesn’t completely remove the “location bias” described above. I provide a variety of geographic and location triggers to include in her search to minimize “location bias”. Therefore, I instruct her to include certain towns, cities, and states, in the search phrase itself, such as “general contractors Boston MA” or “window cleaners Providence RI.”

Tactics to employ to avoid getting “misleading” results in response to the simple audit activity featured in this blog include:

  1. Use the “private” or “incognito” sessions/search capabilities associated with your browser, so that search engines won’t associate your past website visit history with you.
  2. Clear your cookies, cache, and browsing history.
  3. Ask an individual, such as a friend or family member, who hasn’t visited your site at all, or hasn’t visited frequently or recently, to conduct this audit for you.

Get more details about the above tactics, and learn about factors beyond your “history” and “location” that influence what results are served to individuals conducting a search engine query: https://www.webpresencesolutions.net/7-reasons-google-search-results-vary-dramatically/; https://www.crazyegg.com/blog/rankings-you-see-on-google/ 

SEO Services, Including SEO Audit Services, From A Boston SEO Company

In 2022, our Boston SEO Company began offering one-time, as well as monthly, SEO audit services to help your organization understand where both organic listings with links to your website and your Google My Business Profile/Google Search & Maps listing appear in Google search results for desirable search terms, i.e., keywords.

SEO is a constantly evolving opportunity and challenge, and we’re always here to help, so don’t hesitate to reach out.

SEO, website

All Backlinks Aren’t Created Equal: Some Hurt, Some Help SEO

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Through Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Google Analytics work I recently completed for a client, I was reminded, and prompted to share via this blog post, that all backlinks (links to your website from another website or blog) aren’t created equal when it comes to SEO. For years, I and most fellow marketers, have known that having links to one’s website on the websites of other creditable, highly regarded websites was a good thing as far as Google’s SEO algorithm goes. Such backlinks cause Google to view your site as also being creditable and trustworthy, and therefore, improves where your website appears in Google search engine results for search terms relevant to your organization’s products and services. But, many marketers lose sight of or are not aware of the fact that all backlinks are not “good.”

Like Anyone Else, Google Judges You By the Company You Keep

The bad backlink news is that if your website is receiving a lot of referral traffic from non-creditable and “spammy” websites, i,e., “bad” sites, it can really harm how Google treats your site from an SEO standpoint. As it should, Google has never been one to reward websites and their owners for trying to “play” or “game” them. They recognize spammy backlinks for what they often are, an attempt to improve SEO by purchasing or placing links to one’s website on low-quality sites, and Google will be less likely vs. more likely to present listings with a link to your website in its search engine results for your desired search terms. (A quick, but relevant digression: A past blog post called out how Google is more likely to reward authentic sites, and that includes sites that have “mutual admiration” relationships with organizations who respect their work, products, and services, and are willing to share links to their website.)

Based on my review of many clients’ Google Analytics data, it’s not uncommon to have a few “spammy” sites referring traffic to your website, and it’s unlikely that having a half dozen or less such sites driving traffic will cause Google to ding you significantly related to where you appear in search engine results. Of course, the aforementioned assumes that your website is reputable and relevant and meets other SEO best practices and standards, not just backlink ones.

While the purpose of this post is really to alert readers of this potential SEO danger and to explain how you can identify if your backlinks may be hurting vs. helping you, at the end of my post, I will share some experts’ thoughts on how to fix this bad SEO equation. If your site has close to 10, or many more than 10, “bad” sites referring traffic, you should take immediate steps to remedy this.

A Google Analytics data review allows you to see how visitors are finding your website. Once logged into your Google Analytics account, you can view this data by accessing the “Channels” report under the “Acquisition” left-hand menu tab as shown below.

Website Acquisition Channels - Google Analytics.png

  • direct = someone entered your website’s domain/URL directly into their browser or they had your website bookmarked
  • organic search = someone entered relevant terms in a search engine and then clicked on a link included in a search results listing
  • paid search = someone clicked on an online ad as part of a online advertising campaign you ran on a search engine advertising platform, like Google Ads
  • social = someone clicked on a link to a page on your website included in a social media post on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.
  • referral = someone clicked on a link to your site found on a website or blog

An immediate red flag — one I saw with the client that I referenced at the top of this post — is, in most cases, when too large of a percentage of your website traffic is “referral” traffic. Ideally, your two largest traffic channels would be “direct” and “organic search.” If the percentage of traffic associated with these two latter channels, individually, is lower than the % of traffic from “referrals”, that’s an indication that you could be driving a lot of traffic to your website from “spammy” sites. Let’s face it, the folks you most want visiting your site are quality visitors, i.e., current/returning customers and individuals who have found your site because of a relevant search engine search.

Your next step in assessing whether your SEO is likely being negatively impacted by “bad” backlinks is to click on “Referral” where it is listed under the “Default Channel Grouping” in Google Analytics, as shown in the image above. A list will immediately be generated showing you the various websites and blogs that are referring traffic to your site. It should be pretty obvious to you by the names of the referral sources which ones aren’t reputable blogs and websites with which you want your own website and your organization to be associated.

Bottom line is this — whether you intentionally had an organization who claimed they could improve your SEO purchase/provide/set up such backlinks on your behalf, or such backlinks were established by someone your organization did not engage for SEO help or who is not affiliated with your organization and who was/is looking to negatively impact your organization and SEO results, you’ll want to eliminate spammy backlinks since they’ll harm you in the long run.

Learn more from experts, including Google themselves, about backlinks and get advice on how to resolve “bad” backlink scenarios, or reach out to us for assistance.

https://prowly.com/magazine/stop-spam-backlinks-ruining-google-reputation/

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2648487?hl=en