Just because you can do it yourself doesn't mean you should.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is one area of website development that we talk about constantly: Infomedia has written dozens of blog posts about it, we host Lunch & Learn events centered around it and we’ve even got an entire playlist of SEO-related tutorials. With all of that coverage, how is there still confusion over SEO? Because it’s a complicated, constantly changing field.
While it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to grasp the basics of SEO (write a keyword here or there and add in a dash of alt text), it does take a dedication of time and resources to become a master of SEO. So unless you want to take hours to brush up on Google’s latest algorithm changes and scope out your competition, not to mention shell out a chunk of cash for the software used to gather some of this information, then it might be a good idea to consult an SEO professional like ours at Infomedia.
Still not convinced? Here are three reasons why you should considering hiring an SEO specialist:
1. We’ve got tech on our side
Making an educated guess usually won’t cut it when it comes to SEO. Professionals in the field rely on using various (expensive) software programs and algorithms to get proven data that will help with your optimization strategy. Using these tools, we can suss out important details about your current site’s potential, how Google views it now, and more.
2. We know your competition
“Know thine enemy” still applies in the digital age. Scoping out your competitors’ websites and marketing strategies can help an SEO specialist figure out your competition’s strengths and weaknesses (we can help identify yours, too). By knowing where to look and what tools to use, we can find the sources of your competitors’ traffic, learn what their top-performing content is and what backlinks they have.
3. We can gauge what’s worth going after
Having a trained eye after years of working on SEO is an invaluable resource. Specialists can pull recommended keyword lists — which include data on everything from how often these words are searched to who your main competition is for them — but it takes industry knowledge to assess which of these are worth pursuing. Your website’s Google Analytics can also be easily dissected by an SEO specialist who can often glance over the data and know what it means for your site’s traffic and progress.
The real key to getting your money’s worth when hiring an SEO professional is a little bit of give and take. While we’ll bring our optimization experience to the table, you too need to arrive prepared to speak about your knowledge. The SEO specialist can’t be expected to know everything about your business’s specific industry, so it’s up to you to help guide their choices of keywords by what you know will or won’t make sense to your client base.
If you’re interested in possibly hiring an SEO professional, reach out to us at Infomedia and we’ll be happy to set up a free consultation for you.
