10 Essential Ways Professional SEO Can Give You Better Ranking

Search engine optimization has brought advantages to marketers and business owners alike. And while you can do it in-house and take care of optimizing your website like a pro yourself, learning how to do it takes time and effort to master. Working with a professional SEO expert may be the best way to make sure you are not missing important algorithm updates or SEO trends.

How about you? Have you taken advantage of an SEO services pro yet, or are you training to become a master yourself?

Whatever the case, you already know SEO is not a new concept. Many companies can testify that an SEO pro helped them greatly when building brand image and authority. While managing their own enterprises, business owners have the opportunity to optimize costs wisely, improve their online presence, and reach a new audience. Furthermore, if properly implemented, SEO can also boost your overall marketing ROI.

With the help of an SEO professional, you can improve your online initiatives and even grow your business. Read on to learn how!

Components of Professional SEO Services

When hiring a professional SEO expert, you will receive the full package of optimization services for your website.

However, even if you decide to manage your SEO yourself, you should implement the following components of a successful strategy:

1. Keyword Research

One of the fundamentals of search engine optimization is having the right keywords. You can reach your target market by using strategically placed keywords in your content, website, blogs, or social media posts.

Efforts here start with identifying words or phrases that users are most likely to look for. These include keywords related to your products and services as well.

There are various tools that can be used by both an SEO services pro and a novice to research keywords, such as:

• Keyword Planner,
• Semrush,
• Majestic SEO, etc.

Narrow down your keyword options by comparing the trends. Evaluate the suggested bid estimates and see how often these words are used or searched for. Note the volume of these keywords; monitor how they change over time.

 2. Link Building

Link Building can give you a better ranking. This term refers to increasing the number of high-value links that direct to your content from other websites. Link building increases the likelihood that a website will rank better in search engine results.

You can do link building yourself if you are advanced enough in your SEO knowledge, or you can hire a professional SEO expert to help out. Whatever the case, make sure that you only rely on legitimate practices and techniques.

White Hat Link versus Black Hat Link Building

As the title suggests, white hat link building is an excellent link building strategy that complies with the search engine’s rules. Marketers and business owners widely implement this approach because of the long-term advantages it brings.

On the other hand, black hat link building is the total opposite. Although it has short-term benefits, this strategy involves malicious and unethical practices which may not be suitable for your business over time. Furthermore, they can lead to penalties by Google that can negatively affect your ranking.

There are different types of links:

• Resource link
• Editorial link
• Acquired link
• Reciprocal link
• Forum signature link
• Image link
• Director link
• Social bookmarking

Using a tool like LinkOkay, an app that monitors the backlinks on your website will help you optimize your link-building strategy.

You can learn more about the two kinds of SEO in our article:

Forget Black Hat SEO, Think White Hat SEO

3. Content Management

An SEO services pro can help you manage the information on your website, which is essentially the source for your customers. Content management is the process of researching, gathering data, writing content, organizing, and developing information for your website.

The content and design of your website can attract potential customers. However, it is more than that. If you have relevant and high-quality content, your website will perform better too.

Here are a few pointers when it comes to content marketing:

• Content must be aligned with your overall organizational goals and objectives.
• Information should be correct, up-to-date, and should live up to Google’s E-A-T standards.
• The message has to be consistent.
• The right language, tone, relevant photo, and topics should be used.
• There should be a clear definition of your products and services.

Some content management software include WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Alfresco, DotCMS, Concrete5, Nuxeo, and others.

4. Press Release Optimization

By working with an SEO professional, you can also enhance the user experience with your brand and improve your reputation through press release optimization. This refers to the written or recorded means of communication directed at a particular group of individuals or target market. Any form of press release aims to announce something valuable and newsworthy.

Here are a few press release optimization tips you may look into:

• Define your target audience for the press release.
• Identify your objectives (e.i. to inform, to persuade, To sell, etc.).
• Add relevant keywords or phrases to the title, headings, body of the message, landing page and other web pages.
• Incorporate media in the forms of audio, images or video.
• Count conversion of your content and track codes in the links or URLs.
• Distribute the press release via wire service software (e.i. Business Wire, PRNewswire, Marketwired, etc.).
• Create a blog version of your press release.
• Always monitor the performance of your press release in search engine ranking, mentions in social media, etc.

5. Local SEO

The process of developing better pages to rank in search engines in the local context is called local search optimization. Local SEO refers to all strategies that improve the visibility of websites, products, and services in local and “near me” searches.

Google statistics show that an average of 74% of online transactions is related to local searches. People browse online for products or services available in their area before they visit a brick-and-mortar store that meets their needs. For example, some users will type “Local Surf Instructor,” “Restaurants in My Area,” or “Local Transportation.”

Here are a few of the local SEO strategies you can implement for your business:

• Identify keywords or phrases to learn what people are looking for in a specific location. These may refer to the geographical area (city, town, region, state) where the products or services are available.
• Identify and target a local market. Understand what your target market needs and direct all optimization strategies towards this group of people.
• Add a map to your website for easy identification of your location and enhanced user experience.
• Make your content local as well. Create blog posts and articles that are relevant to your target customers’ needs.
• Boost your local SEO management with social media, local events, and activities.

6. Mobile SEO

With the never-ending changes in the digital world, mobile SEO should not be overlooked by any marketer or business owner.

While if you are working with an SEO services pro, your agency can help you with suggestions on what to improve, making your website mobile-friendly is entirely on you and your dev team.
Since Google’s mobile-first indexing update, only the mobile version of websites is being crawled and is eligible to show up in search results. This means that if you don’t have a responsive design or a different type of properly optimized and well-functional mobile-friendly website, your ranking will suffer. Mobile Optimization is about making sure your customers have ease of access to your website, blog, or social media via mobile devices. The enhanced user experience should be the result of mobile SEO.

The following tips will help you enhance user experience.

• Consider implementing responsive design on your website.
• Ensure fast website speed when loading the pages.
• Support languages such as JavaScript or CSS.
• Show images, never block them.
• Customize website design for mobile devices.
• Avoid using flash.
• Ensure there are no pop-ups.
• Do not forget to optimize local search.

7. Video SEO

Video search engine optimization is the process of enhancing the reach and visibility of your video content. Furthermore, it ensures a good ranking in various search engine. Video SEO further directs internet users to your website, instead of a video hosting provider.

Here’s a video that explains everything you need to know about video SEO:

Videos are also taking over the SEO realm as a useful marketing tool. They are useful for conveying messages to your audience because they come as a combination of text, images, and clips.

8. Web Marketing Analytics

Measuring the effectiveness of your website and your digital marketing strategies through marketing analytics can be done either in-house or by a professional SEO expert you hire.

The advantages of marketing analytics include,  but are not limited to the following:

• Provides qualitative and quantitative customer-centric data.
• Measures effectiveness of digital marketing initiatives.
• Integrates various social media platforms and online applications.
• Helps build synergy with the sales team and other departments within an organization.

9. Shopping Search

Make the online shopping experience for your customers hassle-free. Shopping search is another service a professional SEO expert can help you with.

It allows customers to easily compare products from different vendors and sites. Thus shopping is made easy through various categories as specified by the customer.

Google has been on top of this service. Google Shopping is a “dedicated shopping search engine.” This tool allows shoppers to find products more efficiently since it provides SKUs, prices, product availability, product details, and even merchant ratings for the product searched by the shopper.

10. Competitive Analysis

Any company should know how they fit in the marketplace. That’s why it is essential to invest in competitive analysis to make sure that your goals are relevant and achievable.

Competitive Analysis is a strategic approach to studying the competitive environment outside the organization’s boundaries. This strategic management approach allows a marketer or business owner to assess their strengths and weaknesses in the marketplace.

Stay on top of the game by utilizing competitive analysis tools; some of which are even free.

Conclusion

Advancements in the digital world have changed the entire competitive business landscape. Therefore various strategies are being implemented by marketers and business owners alike, and this includes the implementation of search engine optimization techniques.

And while companies can do SEO in-house with flying colors, understanding the processes behind it and staying on top of the ever-changing rules is a laborious endeavor. Therefore, if you don’t have the time and resources to learn how to do it yourself, using the help of an SEO professional may be the best choice to improve your online presence and boost your website and content performance.