Many Options for SEO

The chances are that if you’re in search of SEO for your website there are multiple options available. You could use a dedicated SEO company or select from a variety of add-on service providers such as a PR or Advertising Agency, traditional marketing company or website development company.

Most likely, your website developer is pitching SEO. Which, may or may not be a bad thing. A quick Googling for your city name + SEO should reveal if they take SEO seriously. If they are not on page one, I wouldn’t have high hopes (unless they utilize the services of a dedicated SEO company with their own).

A Little Background…

We’ve had a lot of experience with web development. In fact, that is actually how I got started with SEO over in San Francisco at Les Concierges years ago. Those were the good old days of search engine optimization. The wild west, really. One could pull-in hundreds of thousands of ‘hits’ just by using the phrase ‘Britney Spears’ heavily in visible and hidden website copy among similar and related tactics. Ahh the good old days. 😉 SEO has come a very long way since then. Thank goodness.

Presently, Jtree has frequent engagements with web development in the form of:

• Helping programmers optimize their content management systems (CMS) for search
• Working with developers to help improve the efficiency of a given website in terms of speed and usability
• Helping clients ‘select’ search engine friendly web developers
• Managing project teams that include multiple web development shops that service hundreds of clients
• Aiding in the removal of any malware or virus attached to websites that hinder search engine rankings
• Providing consulting to web development agencies and companies as a component (project team member) of their web dev or marketing service to clients
• And on…

Web Development – A Prerequisite for SEO

Why doesn’t Jtree provide web development services? This is a question I’ve been asked a lot. We can work with just about any CMS, programming and scripting language out there, some of my sandbox websites have turned out to be quite successful and I was actually a web design and development consultant for years… so what gives?

While we have a vast working knowledge base of web development, which is a required SEO skill, we focus on what we do best… SEO. We have the advantage of learning from SEO implementations across multiple web development platforms and CMSs. This helps us understand which platform is the most suitable for a particular purpose or industry. The website design and development aspect is best handled by the pros. That’s not to say that SEO shouldn’t be consulted with during the early stages of development of any web-based project.

So, SEO and Web Development – BFFs?

You bet.

Should they be one in the same (provided by one company)?

Not necessarily. Only a handful of web development companies are going to be good at SEO, while companies specialized in SEO will be GREAT at SEO.

Developers should be focused on creating highly usable websites that look and perform beautifully. They need not be concerned with ‘which words appear where’. The creative balance between code and content is best leveraged by an experienced SEO. The inherent risk of blending elevates the potential of muddying web development efforts with SEO considerations.

In my own experience, it is extremely rare to see a combo company (providing both web dev and SEO) managed website outrank a website managed by a company exclusive to SEO.

Exceptions, of course, would be:

• Agencies that involve SEO specific consultants or companies with their own project teams
• Talented, boutique shops that have successfully embraced SEO and integrated it with their core development processes
• Veteran webmasters/developers that specialize in SEO and have an active history of design and development experience

There you have it. SEO and Web Development are definitely BFFs, but not necessarily best offered together.

SEO is Necessary Marketing (for Websites)

In this day and age, the Internet is rapidly becoming the hub of marketing, and consumers are looking more to their computers to find commodities of life. For this reason, savvy business owners are turning to SEO companies for their advertising needs. One of the key issues in online marketing is staying at or near the top of the search engine result pages (SERPs) so customers do not have to scroll through pages and pages of competitor results. Business owners need someone with an insider’s look at how Google works; a professional to keep track of how often search engines update their ranking criteria.

Why Do I Need an SEO Company?

In the same way businesses need a tax preparer or an attorney, you need an SEO professional. Unless an individual is aware of all the Google ranking criteria, plus able to stay abreast of frequent algorhythm updates, they are going to need to rely on an SEO specialist. While business men and women are busy keeping their company running efficiently, the SEO expert can maintain the company website’s position at the top of the SERPs.

Turbulance is the Norm

Google ranks websites according to several key factors, and puts the best ranking websites at the top of the SERPs. The ranking criteria changes often, with 2012 having the most far-reaching and sweeping changes yet. Some of the changes this year have been in regard to the quality of content available on a website. Google has grown more intelligent over the years, and now, actually look for well-written articles as part of the ranking criteria.

A few of this year’s ranking criteria updates dealt with:

• Quality of backlinks (lowering the rank of websites that have an abnormal number of low-quality, incoming links)
• Quality of On-Page SEO (lowering the rank of websites that are overly optimized)
• Quality of website content (lowering the rank of websites that contain poor, or low-quality content)

These are just a few of the highlighted ranking criteria changes. Unless you fully understand these and other SEO-related ranking criteria updates, your company will benefit more by having you doing the job at which you are best. Leave SEO for the pros.

Who to Hire?

The easy way is to find an SEO company whose website is at or near the top of their industry in a search of your locality. This will be a good indication that they know what they are doing, and that they can also keep your company at or near the top of the SERPs for your industry.

When it comes to ranking, monitoring, and reporting, let the experts keep tabs on your keyphrase rankings. Call the friendly professionals at Jtree today, and let them do for you what they do best for themselves and others.

See Also: The Top 5 Reasons Why Businesses Choose Jtree