Read almost any blog on marketing, and among the top tips will be to hire an SEO consultant. London businesses often turn to SEO consulting services for help optimising their sites so more customers can find them, but their role in digital marketing is sometimes confusing. What does a professional SEO consultant actually do, and is it worth it to hire one for your business?
What is an SEO Consultant?
Hiring any kind of consultant means hiring an expert on a given topic for advice. In the world of SEO, hiring a consultant means hiring an expert on SEO (or search engine optimisation) to get advice on how you can reach a higher page rank in a given search engine or get more targeted traffic.
What Does an SEO Consultant Do?
Knowing what a consultant is, though, and what they do is often two different things. The right consultant does a number of things for your site. First, they look at the factors directly on your site that help your rank better with the search engines. These are things that you can change directly. Your site’s meta tags will typically be examined. Things like signaling to the search engines that you have a good title, a good page description, and great headings on that page are actually really important. The keywords you’re using are equally important. A good consultant will help you not only identify which keywords you’re ranking for right now, but what you should be ranking for and at what density you should be using those keywords on your site. Beyond that, consultants can help you identify site structure problems and page load speed issues.
They typically don’t just work with on-page SEO issues, though. Off-page SEO issues can be just as important. Often consultants will help you understand what your backlink profile looks like now and how to create a stronger link building strategy. They can also help you learn more about content marketing, video marketing, and the best possible social media strategy.
Why Hire a UK SEO Consultant?
If you’re not sure you actually want to spend the money on a consultant, you may wonder why you should hire one in the first place. After all, there are thousands of blogs out there on how to handle SEO on your own, so why do you need to hire a consultant to take on the task for you? There’s a pretty simple reason – time. SEO is fairly complex. The search engine algorithms are changing on a regular basis, and understanding those changes and implementing them to meet the needs of your site is complex. It’s even more complex for companies that have a local store where they want customers to visit. This is why hiring a consultant in the UK is absolutely essential. They have an intimate knowledge of your area, as well as the ongoing changes to search engine algorithms, and they can help give you a path forward for your business. You won’t have to spend the extra time learning more about what search engines are looking for or how to address what’s coming. Instead, your consultant will lay a simple path forward for you, then all you have to do is follow it to traffic success. Local SEO consulting services know your target audience, and they can develop a plan that’s ideal to meet your needs.
Is It Worth It?
Working with an SEO professional is the only way to get the results you want. While it may not seem like it as you write that check each month, when you begin to see your traffic numbers tick upward, your revenue increase, and your customer numbers head for the skies, you’re going to be pleased that you’re working with a professional. Define your goals carefully, then search for the right consultant to handle your account. You’re certain to be pleased that you made the right decision when you begin to see the real digital marketing results you wanted, and next year, you may even decide to allocate a bit more money to your overall digital marketing budget to help realise your overall marketing goals and reach out to more people than you ever thought possible.