Last Updated on October 20, 2017 by
Choosing the best local SEO services company to improve the rank of your website in local searches can be a confusing prospect. A quick glance at reviews will reveal a plethora of negative experiences; it can get you wondering if there are actually any reputable services out there, or if the industry as a whole is unreliable. To clarify the situation, we will now take a look at the ways in which you, as a responsible business owner, can apply your time and energy towards effective local SEO service provider research.
Best Local SEO Services Elements to Look For
When choosing a company to handle your local SEO marketing, it can be very helpful to take into consideration the agency’s reputation, whether it will use your existing website or not and the types of strategies its executives have in mind for your campaign; these include website optimization strategies, onsite content and link-building, each of which come along with specific elements to look for:
- Website Optimization – Does the agency perform audits to fix any issues that could affect page rank? Can its engineers build you a new SEO-optimized website?
- Onsite Content – Will content writers work with you to create at least five in-depth topic pages? Will they publish four topic pages and four to eight blog articles per month? Does the agency work on a case-by-case basis, with no standard onsite content strategy?
- Link-Building – Will the agency add your business to directories while building links in other industry-related websites and local websites?
There are a myriad of different SEO marketing companies out there, but a truly professional one will take a unique approach to local search engine marketing, touching on aspects such as:
- Handling everything for you, the client, from creating and updating your website to generating content and listing your website in directories.
- Working with your existing website and opting to be more flexible with its services; if the agency charges by the hour, there are many different ways you can develop a strategy with its representatives.
- Not only working with your existing website, but also functioning more like a “training course;” some standard services last six months, in which time the agency can build the foundation and train you to handle the ongoing work once the service is up.
When it comes to local SEO marketing, we can tell you that if you can’t go “all in,” you should probably save your money. What do we mean by that? Well, effective SEO requires you to indulge in the full package we outlined above: website optimization, onsite content and link-building. Gone are the days when vague, poorly-written blog posts could alone boost your site’s ranking – today, Google does a good job of favoring the best article on a subject…though well-written blogs definitely have their place in an effective online campaign (just read the ones we publish here at Multiverse!). To achieve this, professional companies such as Multiverse Media Group work closely with clients to ensure it captures our industry expertise.
What the Best Local SEO Services Should Offer
There are three main factors that determine how highly your website will rank on search engines:
- Technical Setup – Can the search engine “read” your site?
- Content – Is the content on your site of high quality, and/or better than your competitors’…and is it optimized for search engines?
- Links From Other Websites – Are there several high-quality sites in your industry linking to your website each month?
The bottom line: To rank high, you must focus on all three of these elements. If you cut corners on link-building, for example, it won’t make a difference how awesome your website and content are.
