But for years now we’ve offered SEO services, previously alongside our web design, and now as part of our SEO blog writing & management service. We’re experts, and so we know that not all SEO companies are created equal.

And, while we know that SEO is hugely beneficial for your business it’s also a BIG investment (both in time and money). And that’s why you need to choose the right company to get you to the top of those all-important search results.

Are we saying that SEO companies are full of problems?

Of course NOT. There are some GREAT ones out there that can help you get your website ranking highly on Google.

However, SEO is not well-known as being a trustworthy or reputable industry. And unfortunately, there are some common problems we see with some SEO agencies we think you should be wary of.

So in this blog, we’re exploring some of the most common problems with hiring an SEO agency and giving you a solution to fix them.

But First: Why do you need to think about SEO?

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is the process of making changes or additions to your website in order to help you rank highly in search engine results.

When was the last time you clicked on page two of Google’s search results?

Not very often, right?

So, ideally, you’ll want to rank on the first page of Google results, and with the first few spots if possible. The top five organic search results account for 67.60% of all website clicks from search engines. If you aren’t appearing within these first five spots, then you’re probably not getting much traffic from search engines.

A good SEO strategy gives you a higher chance of ranking for keywords, which in turn increases organic traffic to your website. And the best part is that organic traffic is free. So, it’s definitely worthwhile!

So, what is an SEO agency or company?

An SEO agency will partner with you to optimise your website, improve search visibility and ultimately drive more traffic to your website.

However, as with all marketing efforts, it should help to drive leads, sales and ultimately revenue for your business. And if it’s not, then it’s not doing its job properly.

But, there are some problems with SEO agencies that mean it won’t have an impact on your bottom line in the way that it should.

Related content: 11 Reasons You’re NOT Ranking in Google & How To Fix It

What are the main problems with SEO companies?

When it comes to SEO we’ve been there done that and got a lot of happy customers to prove it. We’ve provided SEO services in the past alongside our web design business, and now include it as part of our SEO blog writing & management service now.

So it’s safe to say that we know how to ensure that your website and content rank highly on search engines.

However, we’ve also seen the ugly side of SEO, so know what to look out for when finding a company. And we think that it’s something that you need to be aware of too before hiring a company.

1. They are expensive
2. They don’t advise on messaging and copy
3. They may not produce content
4. Reports can seem overwhelming
5. Difficult to find a reliable company
6. Can take a while to see results
7. May not be honest about search volume
8. They don’t practice what they preach
9. They guarantee search engine results

So, let’s get into it…

1. SEO agencies can be expensive

Did you know that Jammy Digital wasn’t our first foray into the world of business?

Years ago we started a business selling cushions and soft furnishings on the internet. We invested every last penny that we had into building a website. And then, once the website was live…tumbleweed. Absolutely nothing!

Why?🤔

Because we weren’t getting any traffic to our website, and so weren’t making any sales.

When we asked our web designer about it he told us that we’d have to spend up to £5000 a month on something called SEO 😱

You can imagine our shock, after spending all our money on our website, that now we were going to going to have to spend more money.

SEO can cost between £100- £10,000+ per month, depending on who you hire, what you need, how competitive the search terms are and the amount of work that needs to happen to get you ranking on search engines.

So, why is SEO so expensive?

A well thought out and executed SEO strategy requires expertise, time and work. Those three things cost money.

But however much you spend you absolutely should see a healthy return on investment. So yes, it may seem expensive, but if you’re getting a good ROI, that makes it all worth it, right?

Unfortunately, as we’ll explore further here, some of the issues around SEO companies mean that you might not get results even if you are paying a professional to do it every month. And this is why it’s perceived as expensive. Because of course, it’s expensive if you don’t get that money back!

Are you paying for SEO confusion?

Finally, SEO may be pricy because it can seem like a bit of a mystery. For example, SEO is (typically) more expensive than hiring a content writer, even though both will help you get better search results. The SEO industry can charge more simply because it’s more difficult to understand. Whereas with writing, people have a full understanding of how it works and may perceive it as less valuable.

Related content: 5 FREE ways to check keyword rankings in Google

2. They don’t advise on messaging and copy

Woohoo!

The SEO is working! Your website is drowning in traffic, with loads of hits every single day. But, it isn’t resulting in any more leads or sales. 😔

What’s going on?

The truth is that there are loads of different issues that can result in failed conversions.

Maybe you’ve got a bad user experience?

Or, maybe the copy isn’t compelling enough?

Or perhaps your website looks like it was last designed in 1992 and it’s putting people off?

Traffic is great! It’s often the precursor to more sales. But it takes more than traffic to convert those potential customers into paying customers.

SEO companies often won’t mention or even think to look for any issues with the user experience or copy. Because it’s not really their problem. They want to get lots of eyeballs on your website and once they’ve done that their job is done.

However, getting people to your website and not making sales is a massive waste of money. And it’s something that a good SEO specialist should be able to point out to you.

We’ve personally turned clients away if they don’t have what’s needed to make their content and SEO work – i.e. an easy to use website that clearly shows what you do and appeals to your target audience.

3. They might not produce content for you

If you want to grab one of those coveted top spots on Google then you’ve got to create amazing content that is going to be relevant to those searches. That means you’ve got to have blogs, videos, landing pages and sales pages – filled with keyword optimised content.

The average content length of the article in the top position on Google is 2,416 words. So if you want to rank highly on search engines then you need to be producing long-form content.

SEO companies (should) know this, however, they’ll often ask you to create your own content. Alternatively content will be an added cost, on top of the £100 – £10,000/month that you are already paying. Suddenly it’s all adding up and becoming very pricey indeed.

Or worse still, they might just not mention it and they’ll focus on link building or technical SEO. As long as they are getting you more traffic they are doing their job. 🤷.

But as you know to really utilise the impact of SEO you need content. So you either need to do it yourself or pay SEO specialists more to do it for you.

This is part of the reason that we’ve bundled content and SEO all together in one package (along with a few other things). So that you are getting quality, consistent content that drives traffic and is SEO optimised.

Related content: The Biggest SEO mistakes you’re making (and what to do instead)

4. Reports can seem overwhelming

The reports that SEO companies send you every month can seem overwhelming and full of jargon 🙄

Of course, you want to know what has been done, and what impact that has had on your business, especially when you are spending money. However, it’s important that the right metrics are being reported to you – rather than ALL of them.

SEO reports can include overall organic traffic, backlinks, website speed, technical website health and keyword rankings among other things. But this might not mean a lot to you.

Speak to your SEO specialist to understand what KPIs you might need to measure, and have reported on. These might include:

• What keywords are ranking and where?
• Are we getting traffic to our website?
• Is that turning into leads and sales?
  How is that affecting our revenue and profit?

5. It’s difficult to find a reliable company

Pretty much anyone could open up an SEO agency tomorrow and start selling themselves as an expert.

There is a really low barrier to entry ⛔, which is great in some respects, as it means that anyone can become an expert – even you!

However, it also means that there are a lot of dodgy SEO companies out there who aren’t qualified or experienced to deliver results to your business. This is exacerbated by the fact that SEO can seem like a total dark art to many business owners. The lack of knowledge and understanding on the business side, coupled with a dodgy SEO company means that a LOT of money can be spent with not a lot of results.

Looking for SEO agencies with good testimonials, who implement a good content and SEO strategy themselves is a good place to start.

If they can’t show that they have a successful SEO strategy themselves how are they going to do it for you?

6. It can take a while to see results

How long does it take to see results from your SEO efforts?

The magic number you’ll hear bandied about in the SEO world is 3-6 months. And that can be the case, it can take a while for SEO agencies to deliver results. Especially if they are focussing on the technical SEO aspects of your website rather than creating content.

However, one of the biggest SEO myths is that it takes 6 months to see results. When the truth is if done well it can take less than a day to rank for your chosen keywords and phrases.

We recently wrote and published a blog for a client that ranked on the first page of Google for their BIG target keyword within a couple of days. But of course, it doesn’t end there, you keep writing and publishing relevant content. The more content you create the more keywords and phrases you’ll rank for. (As long as you follow the right strategy and optimise it correctly).

There’s not a 1-month limit. Or a 3-month limit. Or a 6-month limit. If you want to be successful at SEO and content, then it needs to be part of your business forever. And you need to work with someone that is open and honest about this commitment. It doesn’t always have to be via an agency, you might eventually hire in-house, but it will always need to be a part of your business.

Related content: WordPress SEO For Blogging – How to Optimise Your WordPress Blog Post

7. They may not be honest about search volumes

We could write a blog today about “moon exercises” and rank number one on Google pretty quickly.

We’re not just blowing my own trumpet🎺 (although we’re pretty good at creating content). It’s because the term moon exercises barely have any keyword volume – meaning no one is searching for it. This makes total sense as no one is casually joining an exercise class on the moon.

It would also make it pretty easy to write a blog that would rank highly on search engines.

But why would we bother when no one is searching for that keyword?

You might think that there are certain keywords and search terms that you want your website and blog to rank for. But they won’t always be the best terms, and sometimes SEO companies won’t be upfront about the search volumes of those keywords.

Recently we did some keyword research on behalf of a client. They were optimising their website and content for the name of their service followed by the word ‘partner’.

But actually, their audience didn’t use the word ‘partner’ they used the word ‘consultant’. And there was a vast difference in search volume (less than 10 searches a month for ‘partner’ and over 600 searches a month for ‘consultant’).

That’s why keyword research is essential and finding an SEO & content specialist who will be honest about what you need to be ranking for in order to grow your business is crucial.

8. They don’t practice what they preach

Found an SEO agency that doesn’t rank for any of the keywords in their industry?

It’s an ongoing joke (especially in marketing circles) that your own business comes last. SEO companies aren’t paying themselves, and so sometimes their own SEO comes after client work.

Which is totally understandable to an extent. However, if they aren’t doing any of the things they are suggesting that you do then you’ve got a problem. Not only does it make you question the effectiveness of their SEO strategies, but it calls into question their expertise and qualifications.

Your SEO company should be creating content that is optimised for search engines, and that is ranking for the relevant keywords.

If they can’t do it for themselves, how are they going to do it for you?

9. They guarantee search engine rankings

Unless an SEO company owns Google, they can’t guarantee rankings!

Of course, they can show you examples of client work and how their SEO strategy was implemented, and the results that it had. They can show you testimonials from existing clients. But they cannot guarantee that you will achieve the same.

Google can be a fickle little beast, that changes on a whim. And in addition, you’re competing against competitors in your industry and have no control over what they post.

So no one can absolutely guarantee that you’ll be ranking in the number one spot for every single keyword. And if they are – run the other way.

Should you hire an SEO agency? (and how to find a good one)

So, after telling you all the problems with SEO you might think they are the devil 😈

Are we saying that SEO is useless and shouldn’t be invested in?

Absolutely not!

As SEO specialists we know just how crucial a good SEO strategy is to the success of any business. However, it’s just part of the success puzzle, not the entire picture, and there are many other things that you need to think about.

But, the truth is, if you are spending thousands on a fancy SEO strategy every month and you’re NOT creating quality, consistent content, that is speaking to what your customers are searching for then you might be wasting money🤷.

Rather than spending thousands a month a better place to start might be with a good, SEO optimised, content strategy. This will help you rank on search engines as well as build trust with potential customers and convert them into paying customers.

So, what should you look for when looking for a company to help improve your website SEO?

1. Companies that create content for their clients and themselves
2. Ones that don’t guarantee rankings
3. Are honest with you about what to expect, and the best way to get there
4. Companies that don’t use stupid jargon

As part of our SEO Blog Writing & Management package, we do ALL the work for you including planning, writing and optimising for SEO. And we do all this for a very reasonable price if you are looking for a complete package that will take everything you need into consideration.

If you want to see how your current blog is ranking on the six key components, then take our blog quiz now – and see where you need to improve and more importantly how.

Martin & Lyndsay

The post The Biggest Problems with SEO Companies (and how you can avoid them!) appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

We know better than most just how time-intensive writing consistent and high-quality business blogs can be. We’ve been doing it pretty much every week (or more) since 2017. 

Back when we kicked off our blog we were primarily web design and SEO specialists. And we’ll admit there were times when blog production dropped to the bottom of our to-do list due to lack of time. ⏰

But, we also know just how crucial a strong content strategy is for growing your business.

So over the years we’ve tried and tested a bunch of business blogging tools to help with SEO, improve the quality of writing and shave some precious hours off the process. 

In this blog, we’ll share our best blogging tools to help you create blogs faster than ever before. 

IMPORTANT! There are zero affiliate links in this blog post. We don’t earn any money out of recommending these companies, we’re here to just give you the best tools for your business.

And don’t worry, these tools aren’t going to set you back hundreds or thousands of pounds. They are all either completely FREE to use or pretty cheap – so they won’t break the bank.💰

There are some key areas that these blogging tools can help in, so we’ve split the blog post into these sections:

Table of Contents

Evaluating Where You Are Right Now

First thing’s first, you’ll want to evaluate where you are now with your blog and how you can improve. That way, you’ll know exactly what you need to focus on moving forward (and what blogging tools you can use to help you do that).

Luckily, we created just the tool for you…

1. Business Blogging Quiz (FREE)

If you have ever wondered how “Good” your blog is, then check out the Business Blogging Quiz. We created this FREE tool that will automatically assess how well your blog is performing.

It will also tell you exactly how to improve your business blog so you can increase your website traffic, rankings and sales.

Click the link below and get your Business Blogging Score instantly.

The Best Blogging Tools for Generating Blog Post Ideas…

“I’ll run out of things to write about.” 

Have you ever found yourself saying this? ⬆️

We know that coming up with amazing, traffic-generating ideas is one of the biggest barriers to getting started on your blogging journey. 

But if you’re tearing your hair out trying to come up with blog ideas then stop. 🛑

We’ve been consistently blogging since 2017, and trust us when we say we’ve still got loads more to write about. 

That’s because we employ a few different blogging tools that help us generate ideas. They hack into what our potential customers are actually searching for online. 

Not only do these tools help create blog ideas, but they will allow you to see what terms and phrases people search for on Google. These are known as longtail keywords. 

For example, if you bake cupcakes, it’s unlikely that people are just typing “cupcakes” into Google. They are probably searching for things like:

• Where to buy cupcakes in Blackpool?

• How much do cupcakes cost?

• How to make my own cupcakes?

This is a crucial step for SEO, as you can sprinkle these phrases into your content. And this will allow you to be found by search engines.

Using these tools allows you to integrate topics your potential customers are actually searching for rather than guessing. So when they type their query into Google guess who’s blog will pop up first – that’s right, yours. 

• Related content: 5 FREE ways to check keyword rankings in Google

2. Answer The Public (Free)

Answer the Public is an amazing tool that helps you clearly visualise real questions that your potential customers have asked via an image known as a “search cloud”. 

Simply enter your topic into the search bar, and Answer the Public will produce a “mind-map” of questions that have been searched for.

Remember people ask Google questions they would never ask someone else (or you). So it’s a great way to gain insight into the inner workings of potential customers’ minds. 

It’s a useful tool to come up with blog titles, but also individual sub-headings and sub-sections. 

The free version gives you up to three searches per day, which will be enough for most small businesses. But if you think you’ll be running multiple searches a day, then you can upgrade to the PRO version. Below, we’ve shown an example of when we put in the phrase, ‘book editor’. 

3. Quora (Free) 

People ask a lot of random questions on the internet…

How long would it take me to walk to the moon?

Which country in the world has the strangest shape?

If you’ve ever searched for something online then you’ve probably come across Quora. 

It’s a free-to-use, search and answer website, that is completely user-generated. This means users generate the questions asked and the answers given.

It’s a really great insight into what people are searching for, and what the common answers (or potential misconceptions) around your industry are. All really juicy information when you are trying to come up with blog ideas. 

Plus, you can follow specific topics and keep tabs on any new questions that are popping up. Below, I typed in the phrase ‘book editor’ and look at all the juicy questions that could easily make great content!

4. Keywords Everywhere (Free and Paid Version) 

Keywords Everywhere is a free Chrome extension that helps you with keyword research, and SEO. 

It allows you to do keyword research on the go, as you type queries into Google. Once installed it will pop up on the side whenever you do a search and will give you access to:

• Trend data and search volumes for that keyword
• Related keywords to the search term you selected
• ‘People also search for’ suggestions.

It’s free to use but a paid-for version is also available if you want more information on monthly searches and competitor analysis. However, most people will find the free version more than adequate for their needs. 

Below, we’ve shown you an example of how this works by searching for the keyphrase ‘business book editor’. We do pay for this tool, but it’s incredibly cheap at just $10 for 100,000 credits (which is a lot!)

5. Semrush (Paid) 

Semrush is the creme de la creme of keyword research tools, but with a price tag to match. 

It’s is a full-service research tool and allows you to figure out what people are searching for in relation to a specific keyword using their content marketing topic research. 

It is a paid tool with prices starting at around $119/month, however, you can sign up for a free trial to see if it would be worth it. This tool is something that we use to get really deep insights into keyword research, rankings, backlink data and more. Below is a screenshot of SEMRush, with us searching for the keyword ‘book editor’ – and this is just surface level stuff (yes, we do geek out over this!) 

The Best Blogging Tools for Planning Blog Posts…

“Aghhh, I’ll just wing it, and see what happens.”

Does this sound like you?

We can almost guarantee that this is the easiest way to fall off the content bandwagon. We’ve seen it time and time again in the 90-day content challenge we run within our membership.

The people that fail to plan are always the ones that struggle to complete the challenge. Every👏 Single👏 Time👏.

Putting a little time aside upfront to plan out your content, and organise it into a schedule will give you a fighting chance. 

Not only will you not have to worry about what you are writing about every week (especially if you use the brainstorming blogging tools above). But it will also help you plan and prioritise blogging as a task on your to-do list. If it’s written down in black and white it’s not as easy to push it to the bottom of the list.

Everyone plans in a different way, so we’ve got a couple of different blogging tools that will suit depending on your brain works. 

• Related content: How to plan 50 pieces of content in 30 minutes

6. Trello (Free and Paid Version) 

Trello is an amazing visual planning tool if you have a logical and linear brain. It is a very simple visual planner that allows you to layout all your blog posts via boards and cards. 

The cards allow you to add more detail in an unstructured way. This makes it easier to create content plans than something like Google Sheets/Spreadsheets. 

You can create columns for each of your products and services so that you can manage what blogs are coming up, and what ones have been done. 

Trello is a free tool, however, if you need more than ten boards or want a calendar view then you can upgrade to a paid plan (starting from $5/person/month). But we’ve found that for most small businesses, the free tool is more than powerful enough. 

7. MindMeister (Free and Paid Version) 

Did you know that mind maps are 30% more effective than linear documents when it comes to generating ideas? 

MindMeister is a mind-mapping tool, and it’s a brilliant way to plan out content for people who love to inject some creativity into their planning process. 

The free plan allows you to create up to three mind-maps, which should be enough for most businesses. However, if you have a team, or if you really want to get into creating mind maps, then you can upgrade to a paid plan. Below is an example of how we use MindMeister.

The Best Blogging Tools for Creating Blog Post Images…

Have you ever seen a blog post image and immediately known who wrote the blog at a glance?

This is definitely something we’ve managed to achieve throughout pop-art blog images (or so we’ve been told). And while we create a new blog post image for every single blog, there is a definite and distinct theme running through them all. 

With over 4 million blogs published every day, and shared all over social media, you need a way to stand out from the crowd. 

Creating an eye-catching image for every blog post is a great way to do this and to convey your unique brand personality in the process. 

This might seem like a daunting process if you aren’t a graphic designer, but we use one great tool that is simple and effective. 

8. Canva (Free and Paid Version)

You’ve probably heard of Canva, it’s got a bit of a love-hate relationship, especially among the graphic design community. We are definitely on the LOVE side for Canva, and it’s a tool we happily recommend to all our clients and MYMO members. 

It’s much easier to use (and cheaper) than Photoshop. And it’s brilliant for creating consistent and beautiful images for your blog post. 

The free version has tonnes of functionality and allows you to overlay text onto existing photos, or add graphics to your website. 

There is also a paid-for version that offers a little more functionality and access to more images and graphics. 

The Best Blogging Tools for Editing Your Blog Posts…

Ever hit publish and then realised there is a glaringly obvious, totally embarrassing error?

Oh no, you’ll never be able to show your face in public again😳

Not really, we’ve all been there. But it is a good idea to eliminate as many errors from your blogs as possible. 

And we know the fear of errors is one thing that can hold people back from writing and publishing blog content -especially if they aren’t confident writers.

There are a couple of blogging tools that will help you write like you’ve got a team of editors and proofreaders on your team (well almost, they aren’t quite as good as trained humans).

9. Grammarly (Free and Paid Version)

Grammarly is an AI-powered tool that helps you write mistake-free content across loads of apps including Google Docs, Gmail, Facebook and Twiter. 

Contrary to what the name would have you believe it’s about more than just grammar (although it certainly does help with that). It will also check spelling and punctuation, as well as ensure the content is clear and easy to read. 

Basically, it’s an absolute life-saver if you are writing lots of content. It’s one of our favourite blogging tools!

And the best part is that it’s free, although you can upgrade to a premium version. 

Yes, you‘ll still need to read over your work, as some slip-ups will bypass the super-smart AI. But it’s a quick and effective way to check your work for mistakes and make your writing better in seconds. Below, we’ve shown you an example of how it works using this blog post!

10. Power Thesaurus (Free) 

If you’ve ever seen Friends then you might remember when Baby Kangaroo (a.k.a Joey) turned to a thesaurus to help him sound smarter. 

And while running every single word through a thesaurus is not a good idea – it can certainly help. 

Power Thesaurus is a free, community drive app that allows you to find synonyms or antonyms for over 80 million English language words. 

Perfect for when your brain stops working after lunch and you just can’t think of a smart-sounding way to say nice.

Ps. amiable, charming and good-natured could all work. 

The Best Blogging Tools for Optimising Your Blog Posts…

Despite what the latest marketing doomsday opinion piece will have you believe, Google is very much alive. 

And paying homage to the Google Gods can really make or break the success of your blog.

You could craft the most informative, beautifully written blog post, and still have it flop if you don’t adhere to some of Google’s rules.

The algorithm is ever-changing, so appeasing the search engines is an ever-evolving task. We call this optimising content, and we’re taking what we’ve created and tweaked it to give it a better chance of being found online. 

However, there are some blogging tools that remove the guesswork and help us adhere to the rules. 

• Related content: WordPress SEO For Blogging – How to Optimise Your WordPress Blog Posts

11. Yoast (Free and Paid Version – WordPress Blogging Tool Only)

Once you’ve written your blog it’s time to get it uploaded and hit publish. 

Well, yes but there are some steps to take before hitting publish to make sure that everything SEO related is in ship-shape for Google (and other search engines).

Yoast is a WordPress specific plug-in that double-checks the soundness of your blog content, and give you practical suggestions for improvement, including:

• Readability improvement (ie. sentences are too long)
• Keyword distribution and density
• Text length
• As well as loads of other features…

It’s one of our favourite blogging tools. It’s great for issuing practical prompts and presenting them in a traffic light system. Perfect if you’re like us and like competing against the machines. 

Ps. don’t worry if you can’t get all greens. It’s not always possible but it’s a good goal to have. 

The basic version of Yoast is free, but you can also upgrade which gives you access to even more SEO based tools to improve your writing. It is a tool that every self-respecting blog writer should include in their repertoire. We’ve included an example below of how Yoast looks evaluating this blog post for the keyword ‘blogging tools’. 

12. Tiny PNG (Free and Paid Version)

Have you ever tried to get on a website or a blog and it just takes forever to load?

Not only is it super frustrating (who has time to wait for a page to load). 

But if people get tired of waiting and bounce off the page then this can negatively affect your Google stats. Which can cause them to rank you lower than they would if your website was super speedy. 

One of the ways that you can stop this from happening is by compressing your images so that they take less time to load. You can use a free web-based app called Tiny PNG helps to compress the image size. 

It’s a really simple thing that you can do to help improve your site speed and overall Google ranking. 

This is us, showing you Tiny PNG by compressing this image of Tiny PNG (how meta!)

13. Pic Resize (Free) 

Got the ideal image but it’s HUGE, or needing to be cropped down?

Having images that look good, and are appropriately sized for your blog is essential in making it look good. 

And luckily Pic Resize helps you with just that. Allowing you to resize image dimensions, and crop out sections that are necessary quickly and easily.

Once you’ve done this you should still pop it through TinyPNG to compress the image size and make sure it loads.

The Best Blogging Tools to Make Your Blog Look Good…

While we’ve all been led to believe that looks don’t matter, that just isn’t the case for your blog posts (or websites in general).

Have you ever been on a website and left straight away because it’s a wall of text?

Of course, the content and what you are saying really matters, and there is no point in creating a beautiful blog with no substance. 

However, creating a visually appealing blog post is arguably just as important as writing amazing content. And the last thing you want is for people to not read your super amazing blog because it doesn’t look good. 

Getting people to click on your post and stay there requires a balance of content, SEO and visuals. 

Especially when there are some really simple solutions…

15. Depositphotos (Paid) 

We always recommend that you have professional images that you dot around your website and blog posts. This helps add personality and ensures people know what the person behind the site looks like. 

However, we know that sometimes stock images are needed, and when that is the case we recommend Depositphotos. It’s a bank of royalty-free images, videos, vectors, illustrations, and music, that you can use on your website. 

It is a paid tool (either on-demand or subscription-based), but we find that it’s much better quality than many of the free tools out there. And you can be confident that they are licensed to use for business. 

Just be careful of those super cheesy stock photos. You know the ones, where everyone has a psychotic smile and are way too happy!

16. Death to Stock Photo (Paid) 

Sick of cheesy stock images? Enter Death to Stock Photo. The clue is in the name really but this website provides the most amazing images that look, well, non-stock-photo-like!

There are no cheesy smiles or fake-happy looking people. Here’s an example of one of the images that came up when we typed in ‘office’.

17. Pixabay (Free)

If you’re on a budget, using a free stock image website like Pixabay can come to your rescue! They have literally millions of stock images you can choose from. And the best thing is, they are free. Although, it’s nice to ‘tip’ a cup of coffee sometimes to the photographers!

If you want to do even more than just create images, check out this blog post on how to make your blogs look good.

The Best Blogging Tools for Collecting Leads on Blog Posts…

Ultimately the aim of creating a blog post is to make sales. However, while we’d love for someone to pop on a blog page and buy straight away it’s not always realistic. 

People need to come into contact with various touchpoints before they buy from you. And that’s why it’s important to drive people towards an email list so that you can stay in contact with them and nurture them towards the eventual sale. 

We’ve recently launched our new SEO and blog management service, and this prompted us to look into who bought from us on launch, and whether they were already on our email list.

And guess what…they all were. 

In fact, we found that:

• they were on our email list for at least 12 months before investing in our 1-2-1 services
• they are engaged, email subscribers (ie. they open, click or reply to emails)

So aiming to get people off your blog posts and onto an email list is a good one to have. 

But how exactly do you do this? Well below is a good example using one of the tools we recommend. 😉

18. ScoreApp (Paid, with Free Trial)

One of the BEST ways of gaining leads from your blog post is by creating a quiz. Quizzes are fun, interactive and offer a ton of value. And our favourite quiz software has to be ScoreApp.

ScoreApp allows you to create beautiful quizzes easily. It’s so easy to create your quiz, and it comes with:

• Beautiful landing page designs
• Results page designs
• Personalised feedback depending on the results your audience gets
• Category scoring – so you can give people a score for different categories

19. OptinMonster (Paid)

OptinMonster is a very powerful, and intuitive lead generation tool that allows you to create beautiful and eye-catching opt-ins, pop-ups. Their ultimate goal is to help turn blog visitors into email subscribers. 

Ideal!

You can integrate these into your blogs, and on other pages on your website to drive people towards your email list. 

OptinMonster is a paid tool, however, the entry-level package is very affordable, and has all the essentials for building a lead generation campaign from your blogs. 

20. Thrive Leads (Paid) 

Another one that we love is Thrive Leads which focuses on driving uses from your blog onto your email list. 

It allows you to create visually stunning opt-ins in the form of pop-ups, widgets, in-line forms, screen locks as well as others. 

Thrive Leads is also a paid plugin, that you buy as a yearly subscription, however, it’s well worth it for those serious about making their blogs work for them. 

The Best Blogging Tools for Measuring the Success of Blog Posts…

Before you kick things off with your blogging you need to know your starting point. 

What pages or blog posts are the most read on your website?

Where do your visitors spend most of their time when on your website?

Knowing this is invaluable because it allows you to understand what is working, and more importantly what isn’t. From this, you can tweak and optimise your content to do more of what works. And if you’re struggling to see rankings, check out this blog post on why you’re not ranking in Google (and how to fix it). 

So how do you measure your website traffic?

21. Google Analytics (Free)

Google Analytics is a brilliant free web analytics tool that helps you analyse your website traffic in pretty minute detail. 

While the background workings are pretty technical (involving code, and tracking links), Google Analytics allows you to access easy-to-read reports that will give you insight into who has visited your website, how they found you, what content they consume and how they behave on your site. 

If this sounds a little scary, then don’t worry Google has a free course to help you get started with Google Analytics. Below is a screenshot of our daily users from Google analytics. It’s good to know!

22. The Hoth Rank Checker (Free)

The Hoth Rank Checker is a free tool powered by Semrush that helps you identify your website’s top traffic driving keywords. Simply put, what are people typing into Google that is leading them to your website. 

It’s a great way to figure out what is already working, and how to utilise these current top-performing keywords to boost you to page one. 

Think of Hoth Rank Checker as a soft “quick-wins” identifier. It will still require some work to boost these rankings, but it’s a good place to start.

It’s completely free, and the same website can also give you access to other tools such as backlink checkers, and keywords planners – but the rank checker is our favourite.  

23. Fat Rank Chrome Extension (Free) 

Fat Rank Chrome Extension is as it sounds another Chrome extension tool to help with on-the-go keyword ranking research. 

After installing the extension, simply visit a website and click the Fat Rank icon to find out where that website currently ranks in Google, and which page URLs are ranking. 

Again it’s a great, free, way to figure out what pages and keywords your website is already ranking for and might help with some potential quick wins or areas to focus on. 

Below is a screenshot of us using Fat Rank to determine where we’re ranking for the keyword ‘write blog post headline’. This shows us we’re number 12, so with some more tweaks to that blog post, we should be able to get to page one! Handy to know, right?

Does this sound like a little too much work?

Phew! That’s quite a lot of work and quite a lot of blogging tools to get your blogs in tip-top performing shape. 

Loads of people think blogging is just banging out some words, uploading it to your website and hoping for the best. 

But the reality is that in order to produce successful blogs, that actually drive traffic (and sales) there is a little more to it than that. 

And while these blogging tools will help you shave hours off your blog writing sessions, they will still involve some time on your part. 

If this all sounds like a little too much work then you might want to consider our SEO content writing and blog management service. It’s a full blog writing and SEO service, that could shave 10 hours off your to-do list every week. 

Just think about what you could be doing with that time?

We take care of:

• Generating search-drive blog ideas
• Writing the blog content
• Keyword research
• Planning the content
• Creating blog images
• Edit the blog (using a professional proofreader)
• Optimising the blog
• Ensuring you can collect leads
• Measuring the success
• Uploading it to your website

Basically, everything that we’ve covered above is included in our SEO and blog management package. 

Not sure if this service is right for you?

Don’t forget our free blogging tool! 

Take our Blogging Superstar Quiz – a quiz that tests how well you’re doing in the 6 key areas that make a successful blog post to see if you’re all sorted or need some help.

Martin & Lyndsay

The post 23 of the Best Business Blogging Tools that Increase Traffic and Conversions appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Something mysterious. Completely technical. And totally unattainable for the average business owner to wrap their heads around.

Luckily, this view has changed. And we’ve noticed more business owners ask themselves the question: should I do SEO myself or hire a company to do it?

To answer this important question for you, we’ve created this blog post.

But First Things’ First: What Does SEO Actually Mean?

SEO is the process of making changes or additions to your website to help you rank highly in search engines results.

If you rank highly for a particular keyword (a word or phrase that someone types into Google), this will give you more organic traffic to your website. And the best part is, you don’t have to pay for that traffic (win).

Ideally, you’ll want to rank on the first page of search results. When was the last time you clicked on page two of Google’s search results? Not very often, right? So the first page is vital. Ideally, you’ll want to be in the top three results on the first page.

What Does SEO Involve?

Whether your DIYing or hiring an agency/freelancer to do it for you, SEO typically involves the following:

1. Keyword Research

Keyword research is where you research what words or phrases people enter into Google around your products/services/general topics of interest. And this research informs your ‘keywords’.

Keyword research is the foundation of your SEO strategy. Without this research, you won’t know what keywords to optimise your website and content for. A lot of business owners guess what people are searching for in Google. But this is a HUGE mistake.

2. On-Page SEO

This is where you optimise your website pages and blog posts for your keywords (this is why the research part is so important!)

It will help you write your website copy. And you’ll have to do what we like to call Website admin tasks, such as optimising your title tags or images. On-page SEO can sound technical but is pretty easy to understand.

3. Creating Content

This is where you can (typically) create blog content that gets in front of what people are searching for on Google.
For example, if someone types into Google ‘How much does a website cost?’, you can write and optimise an article on your website that covers that topic. Yes, that’s a very basic explanation! And there is a lot to it, but it gives you a basic idea.

4. Off-Page SEO

This is everything that takes place off your website, such as backlinks to your website from another website, social media marketing, guest blogging or podcasting etc.

All this good stuff proves to Google that you are trustworthy and an authority in your space. And therefore increases your chances of ranking in search results.

5. Technical SEO

This is improving the technical aspects of your website to increase your search rankings.

It can be things like increasing your website load speed or making your website mobile-friendly.

Is it possible to do SEO yourself?

In short, yes.

Most things are possible to do yourself. SEO is not nuclear physics. But equally, just because you can do something yourself doesn’t mean you should.

We could do our own accounts, but we choose to outsource it because we hate it with a passion. But we do our own email marketing because, well, we like it and we’ve learnt a lot about it.

A hybrid of DIY and Outsourcing SEO is Also Possible.

You can also do a hybrid of the two. Some people we know have great success by producing regular, well-optimised content. And they prefer to outsource link building (off-site SEO) and anything technical like speeding up their website and making it mobile-friendly.

Deciding on whether to outsource your SEO or DIY will depend on many factors. We’re going to go through these below.

We’re going to compare DIY SEO vs Hiring an Agency for the following factors…

1. How much it costs
2. How long it takes to do
3. The guarantees of results
4. How long it takes to get results
5. How to track your progress

1. How Much it Costs for SEO

The big question! We’re going to go through how much SEO will cost you if you do it yourself (because there’s always a cost attached) and if you hire a specialist or agency.

How Much Does It Cost When You Do It Yourself?

It’s obvious that a DIY SEO option will work out A LOT cheaper than outsourcing your SEO. You could do it for free, but if you’re doing it yourself, it would be advisable to invest in some tools to help you.

You should firstly use the following tools to help you with your SEO…

Google Analytics – a must and it’s free! It helps you track your website traffic, see what pages your readers visit and where they’ve come from (such as Google or Facebook or organically putting in your web address).
Google Search Console – this is also free (so far, so good, eh?) and it will help you see who is linking to your website. As well as which queries your website is appearing in the search results for.

Both Google Analytics and Google Search Console are tools that will help you track how well your SEO is doing.

It’s also worth noting that you should have these set up anyway. And you should definitely have them set up if you’re outsourcing to an SEO agency/freelancer. That way, you can track how well they’re doing.

Free SEO Tools – The Hoth

An integral part of SEO is ‘keyword research,’ i.e. finding out precisely what words and phrases people put into Google around your products/services/industry. Keyword research informs your website copy and content.

To see what keywords you’re currently ranked for, you can use this extremely helpful free tool from The Hoth. Just pop in your website address, and away you go!

This tool will allow you to see where you’re ranked currently. And it will also show you if there are any further opportunities for rankings. For example, you may find you’re ranked on page two for a certain keyword. And with a bit of work, you could easily get that up to page one!

Paid SEO Keyword Research Tools – Keywords Everywhere (from $10)

Keywords Everywhere shows you what related keywords people are searching for in reference to your keyword. You can see with the example below what we mean. We typed in ‘plumber Manchester’ into Google, and this ins the information it gave us.

It also tells you how competitive each keyword is (allowing you to see which keywords might be easier to rank for) and the historical search volume.

It works on credits so (no monthly fee) and is one of our favourites to recommend to small business owners.

If you want to learn more about keyword research tools, you can check out our article on how to check your keyword rankings.

Powerful SEO Platforms/Tools

You can also invest in powerful SEO tools and platforms that allow you to do a lot more than just keyword research. Here are the two that we have used…

SEM Rush – (From $119.95 per month)

SEM Rush is a powerful SEO tool (amongst other things). It will show you what people are searching for on Google. And it will also let you check out your competitors’ rankings, analyse your backlinks, give you a technical audit and track your daily SEO rankings.

We personally use SEM Rush (for ourselves and our clients). Below is an example of their ‘magic keyword tool’ which allows you to search for related keywords to your particular topic.

Ahrefs – (From $99 per month)

Ahrefs is a powerful SEO tool. And they also stand behind the idea that you don’t have to be an SEO pro to rank highly on search engines!

They allow you to look at your competitors’ rankings, find the right keywords, perform website audits and research content ideas.

These tools seem pretty steep, guys!

We get it. These tools seem pretty steep, right?

But you don’t have to continuously pay the monthly fee!

You can use the SEO tools to do keyword research, find content ideas and see where you’re ranked currently. Then you can cancel them when you’re finished. In fact, Lyndsay was on a training session with the CMO of Ahrefs, Tim Soulo, who said you can even use the 7-day trial (which costs $7) to do a lot of the work for you!

Remember, you can always cancel. Even after one month or two or three. But, they are helpful at the beginning to help you with SEO.

Learning SEO – The Costs

You can find SEO courses on Udemy for as little as £12.99. You can also invest in a much more in-depth course, for example from Click Minded which costs $997. We also offer an SEO Starter Pack that is aimed at non-techies and the price will be $97.00 (currently available for pre-order).

What is the Approximate cost of DIY SEO?

Total – $10 per month – $120 per month (depending on how much you invest in SEO tools.)

How Much Does SEO Cost When You Hire an Agency or Freelancer?

The cost of SEO can vary drastically – from $99 per month to thousands per month.

Can You Get Results By Paying $99 per month for SEO?

But let’s start with the ultra-cheap SEO. By ultra-cheap, we mean companies that promise you first page rankings for just $99 per month. We’re not saying it’s not possible, but we’d question this cost considering the amount of work that needs to go into SEO.

As we said at the beginning of this blog post, SEO encompasses five key elements. If a company is claiming that they can get you to the first page of Google without you having to do any work yourself (such as write content), then this would set off alarm bells for us.

So, ignoring the cheap SEO companies (of which there are thousands!), let’s look at what more established and trustworthy SEO companies would charge.

What Would a Professional Agency or Freelancer Charge for SEO?

It’s easiest to break this down into two categories:

Local SEO Costs 

Local SEO is ranking for ‘local’ search terms. Let’s say you’re a beauty salon and you have local clientele. There would be no point going after search terms like ‘beauty salon’ because that’s just too competitive. It’s far better to focus locally (as that’s what your target audience will be searching for) with terms like ‘hairdresser, Manchester’ for example.

Typically, you would look to pay between £300-£1000 per month for local SEO.

This would depend on how competitive your keywords are, and therefore how much work a company would need to do to get you to the first page of Google.

A local plumber, for example, might find it easier to get to page one of Google, than say a hotel. Hotels often have to compete with larger companies like booking.com for their local keywords.

National SEO Costs 

National or international SEO is where you want to target keywords either without a geographical focus. They are (usually) more competitive, but they can bring you a lot of website traffic. If you sold luxury chocolates online, for example, you might want to rank for ‘luxury chocolate’ or ‘luxury chocolate gifts’.

You could look to pay anything between £500-£2000+ per month for national SEO.

We realise that there’s a huge differentiation in cost!

A lot of this will come down to content. Content marketing (such as blogging) should play a key role in your SEO strategy. It’s challenging to rank on search engines without it.

Some companies will work with you and support you while you produce content. Others can create the content for you. And choosing the latter is more expensive.

It will also depend on how competitive your keywords are and what precisely you want to rank for on search engines. However, any SEO company you hire should do keyword research to uncover what keywords to target.

E-commerce SEO Costs

Ecommerce is a different ball game entirely. Getting your product pages ranked on Google is usually way more competitive (but way more rewarding financially!)

The costs for e-commerce SEO would usually start at £2000+ per month.

What is the Approximate cost of hiring an SEO specialist or agency?

Approximate cost to hire an SEO agency or freelancer? £300-£2000 per month. Depending on exactly what you need!

Agency Vs DIY SEO – How Does it Work Out?

DIY SEO – approximately $10-$120 per month
Hiring An Agency – approximately £300 – £2000+ per month

2. How Long Does It Take To Do SEO?

Time is money, right? And if you’re spending 8 hours a day wrapping your head around SEO, that’s not a good use of your time. You didn’t go into business to do all that SEO stuff!

So how much time does it take to ‘do SEO?’ And how much time would it take if you hired an SEO agency? Because even if you outsource your SEO, you’ll still have to spend some time on it.

How Much Time Does It Take to Do it Yourself?

This depends on your skillset. If you’re approaching this whole thing like ‘Wow, what’s this internet thing I’ve heard all the cool kids talk about?’ Then yes, it’s going to take a little while to get your head around everything!

However, if you can create blog posts or edit the text and images on your web pages, then you have the skills to do SEO without it being a big learning curve.

Learning About SEO – How Long Does It Take?

Firstly, you’ll need to learn about SEO. This is where you’ll need to spend a bit of time upfront in your learning.

You’ll want to start with keyword research as this forms the foundation of your SEO, and you’ll need to invest in a keyword tool (like we spoke about in the first point). It should take you a few hours to get a grasp of basic keyword research (again, it’s not rocket science). And this investment of your time is well worth it.

Once you’ve done your keyword research, you will need to learn how to optimise your blog posts and website pages.

Again, this is not rocket science! If you can create blog posts and edit website pages on your website, you can easily do optimise your web pages and posts.

The amount of time it would take to learn to do keyword research and on-page SEO is around 2-6 hours.

How Long Does it Take to Produce Search Engine Optimised Blog Posts?

Then there are things you’ll need to do regularly to rank on search engines.

You’ll need to take what you’ve already learnt about SEO (keyword research and optimising pages) and apply this to creating content and web pages.

Content writing, typically blogging, is something you’ll need to do regularly. Writing a blog post could take you anywhere between 3-8 hours. And on top of that, you’ll need to do keyword research and optimise your blog posts (which adds on approximately 30 minutes).

So How Long Does SEO Take to Do Yourself?

A big chunk of SEO will take you approximately 2-6 hours to learn.
And then let’s say you want to create a blog post every week? This will take you approximately 4-8 hours.

What About Technical SEO – How Long Does This Take To Do Yourself?

Technical SEO covers things like site speed, making your site is mobile-friendly, making your site secure, ensuring there’s no duplicate content or dead links etc.

If your website has technical issues that prevent or limit it from getting ranked in search engines, it’s much easier to hire a website developer to help you.

Otherwise, you might find yourself spending a long time trying to fix issues!

The best thing to do is use a tool like SEM Rush or Ahrefs and produce a website audit. This will tell you if you have any problems on your website that prevent it from ranking. You can then give this to your website developer to fix.

The cost will depend on the number of problems and how much time it will take to fix them.

How Much Time Will You Have to Spend on SEO if You Hire An Agency?

You’d think that hiring an SEO agency or freelancer would mean you have to spend very little time on SEO. But that isn’t always the case.

SEO is often a partnership between the agency and the client. And you may find yourself having to do certain tasks to increase your rankings.

We work this way with our SEO/Content transformation programme. We work with our clients to get them the best results. But both us and the client have to do the work.

Do You Still Have to Produce Content When You Work With an SEO Agency?

Content should play a huge part in your SEO strategy. And we’d be wary of any agency that tells you you can rank in search engines without content.

SEO agencies would usually recommend what types of content you should create i.e. give you ideas for topics or even blog post titles. Alternatively, they can produce the content themselves.

The problem is, which option do you choose? Do you write your own content with the guidance and support of an SEO agency? Or do you get an agency to create the content for you?

That really depends on how much you want to pay and how much time you have available.

If you’re committed to creating one piece of content per week, this may take you around 4-8 hours (ish!). An SEO agency may then optimise this content for you – improving it for users and search engines.

Or you could hire an SEO agency to do it for you. This may increase your monthly cost by £500-£1500 per month – depending on the package you choose.

Agency Vs DIY SEO – How Does Long Does it Take?

DIY SEO – 2-6 hours learning keyword research and how to optimise posts/pages
4-8 hours per week creating content.

SEO Agency –  4-8 hours per week creating content or…
0 hours per week if you hire someone to create the content for you.

3. What Are the Guarantees?

So you’re either going to spend quite a bit of time or money or both on SEO. What are the guarantees? Is it possible to guarantee rankings? And if so, is it better to do it yourself or hire an SEO agency?

We’ll start with this optimistic statement, shall we?

You cannot guarantee first page rankings on search engines.

Why? Because we don’t own Google (it would be pretty nice if we did!)

So no one can guarantee you a first-page ranking. Or any ranking, for that matter.

But which option (DIY or hiring an agency) gives you more of a chance of ranking in Google?

What Are the Chances of Having SEO Success if You Do It Yourself?

You may think that it would be difficult to see success from doing SEO yourself.

But we have members in our membership community who have achieved first page rankings (for some highly-trafficked keywords) just by producing consistent, well-optimised content.

Many people in many different industries manage to get a lot of traffic to their website organically from search engines.

The main way people do this is by producing content regularly. But not just ‘any old content’. They produce the best piece of content they can on the particular topic they are talking about.

And that’s how you should treat your content creation – you should aim to produce the best piece of content you can on the topic.

Take this blog post. It’s over 4000 words. And we looked at other similar articles in this space. We wanted to do better and give more. Unfortunately for us, our competitors know what they’re doing – what with being SEO experts! Damn!

The biggest thing that holds people back from ranking on Google is not the technical stuff; it’s producing regular, beneficial content that answers people’s questions thoroughly.

What Are the Chances of Having Success When You Outsource Your SEO?

If you hire a good SEO company, who ethically approach SEO, you should see good results.

Especially if the SEO company you work with prioritises content and works with you to create an SEO-friendly content strategy.

We know of quite a few SEO experts who get incredible results for their clients. They never make promises or guarantees for their clients (because they don’t own the search engines), but their knowledge and expertise means they deliver impressive results.

SEO Agencies that Offer a Guarantee: Can You Trust Them?

There are companies that guarantee first page rankings (but many don’t say for what keywords). We always find this strange as you can’t guarantee any results when you don’t own something. It’s best to look at other factors about the company before you hire them, and not trust the guarantee.

If you’re going to hire an agency or freelancer, ask for previous results and case studies.

Also, make a note of how ‘frank or upfront’ they are. We’ve found the best SEO agencies are realistic. They explain that there are no guarantees. They emphasise the importance of content. And, most importantly, they ‘do what they preach’. They rank on search engines themselves, and they produce regular, helpful content.

Agency Vs DIY SEO – What Are the Guarantees?

DIY SEO – In short, there are no guarantees when it comes to SEO! However, if you do it right you will increase your chances of ranking.
SEO Agency – Some SEO companies offer a guarantee – where they say they will get you to the first page of Google, and if they don’t, they’ll continue to work on it for free until they do. But, we’ve found that most reputable agencies or specialists don’t offer this kind of guarantee to their clients as they understand they cannot make promises on behalf of a search engine they do not own.

4. How Long Does it Take to Get Results?

SEO is a long-term marketing strategy. But if you do it right, it can pay dividends for years. We have articles that still rank on the top spot of Google from 2017. And these articles still deliver us leads!

But, ya know, it would be nice if we didn’t have to wait such a long time, right?

So how long does it take to get results? And is there a difference between doing it yourself or hiring an agency?

How Long Does it Take to Get Results When You Do SEO Yourself?

If you:

• Do your keyword research
• Optimise your content (and any web pages)
• Produce regular, original content

Providing there’s nothing technically wrong with your website, there’s no reason you shouldn’t see results in less than three months. The more great content you produce, the faster your results.

This is exactly what we did in 2017. We didn’t do anything whizzy or magical. We just followed those three steps above.

We’ve seen the same for our members too. We run a 90-day content marketing challenge. And during the 90 days, they’ve managed to get some fantastic results from producing regular, well-optimised content.

But, if you don’t do it right. If you don’t produce content or produce only poor content (that’s all about you and not about the problems you solve), it’ll take a long time to see results.

How Long Will It Take to See Some Results (i.e. an increase in Website Traffic)

If you do it right, it could be as quick as three months. The amount of traffic increase will depend on how much great content you produce.

We will say this, you can rank extremely quickly on Google. And this happens all the time. Your blog posts can be ranked in a day. We recently published an article about the best web designers in the world which was ranked in less than 24 hours. It’s certainly possible!

If you don’t invest in content marketing, don’t create the right content or have technical issues with your website, you will struggle to see results.

How Long Does It Take To See Results From an SEO Agency?

You would typically invest in an SEO agency for six months initially. And in that time, you should expect results.

In that time, an SEO agency are likely to:

• Do a technical audit of your website and either fix any ongoing issues or advise you of them for your web developer to fix
• Do keyword research to understand what your audience is searching for
• Continuously look for opportunities for rankings
• Either create content for you or support you in content creation
• Build backlinks to your website

With the guidance of an SEO professional, you should see excellent results in that time. And if you follow their advice and do any work required, you should expect to hit the goals set out at the start of the project.

Agency Vs DIY SEO – How Long Does It Take To See Results

DIY SEO – If you do it yourself and do it right, then you could see results within three months.
And again, if you do it yourself and do it wrong, then you may never see results!

Hiring an SEO Agency – If you hire the right agency, you should hit your SEO goals outlined at the start of the project. And you won’t waste time producing the wrong type of content. You may see that you get better results than if you DIY it as you’ll have a company optimising your content as you go and continuously tweaking things.

5. How Do You Track Your Progress?

A big part of SEO is tracking your progress – seeing what works and what doesn’t work. And spotting opportunities where you can rank. For example, you might discover that you have an article ranked on page two of Google, and with a bit of work, you can get that article to page one.

Tracking Your Progress Yourself

To track your progress yourself, you’re going to have to use the tools we talked about in point one, such as Google Analytics and Google Search Console. And maybe a paid tool such as SEMRush or Ahrefs.

You’ll want to keep an eye on:

• Your website traffic (ideally, you want to see this going up!)
• Your rankings generally (you’ll want to see your rankings for keywords increase)
• Where you’re ranked for specific keywords (i.e. page 1/2/3 etc)
• Where your traffic is coming from

It’s good to do this process at least every month (if not more!)

How Does An SEO Agency Track Your Progress?

An SEO agency or specialist should give you a report every month which tells you how well you’re performing.

If an SEO agency is creating content themselves, they’ll spot opportunities and create content around them. If not, they should advise you on what content you should create regularly.

Tracking Your Progress DIY vs SEO Agency

DIY – You’ll have to do this yourself and learn to understand the tools and software. Luckily, there are plenty of helpful training videos on Google analytics or search console. And if you invest in a paid tool like SEMRush or Ahrefs, you can follow along with tutorials.

SEO Agency – It’s much easier to track your progress with an agency as they’ll provide you with a report or overview of how well you are doing.

Which One Should You Choose DIY vs SEO Agency?

We hate to be THOSE GUYS. But it depends.

However, we would say this. It’s highly advantageous if you know SEO basics, even if you plan on outsourcing it.

And this is the same for anything. We outsource our accounts and bookkeeping (because we hate it), but that doesn’t mean we don’t know what our profit is every month. Or what comes out of our account. It doesn’t mean we don’t understand the basics of running a business and finances.

After you have this understanding, it’s simply a case of time vs money.

Where Are You Now?

1. Zero Time + Lots of Money
If you have zero time and a lot of money, hiring an SEO agency that produces good content for you (or at least recommends good content writers) is the best way to go.

But this could cost up to £2000+ per month. Or more depending on how much content you need.

2. A Bit of Money, A Bit of Time

If you fancy doing some bits yourself. We recommend you focus on content and work with an SEO agency to help support you with keyword research, optimising your content, technical help and supporting you with building backlinks and PR.

This will save you money as you won’t have to spend out on writing content. But it will also save you time on the more technical aspects of SEO.

3. You Have Time to Learn SEO and Create Content (But You Don’t Want to Invest Loads) 

If you don’t have that much to invest, do not worry!

If you have time to learn SEO and time to create content then you will see results.

Yes, it’s a time commitment. But if you do it right, it will pay dividends for a long time. We have thousands of website visitors every month that find us from blog posts we published in 2017.

SEO is one of the best long-term strategies for getting more leads and sales from your website.

It helps your website act as an unpaid salesperson for your business, continuously delivering you leads and sales.

The Content Isn’t Just For Your Blog!

When you create regular content, it’s not just for your blog. You can transform that blog content into social media posts (we’ll probably get 10 Linkedin posts and 10 Facebook posts out of this very article!)

When you have a ‘website first’ mentality, you can create content for your website, get more website traffic and then use that content across your social media channels and email marketing. It’s actually the most time-effective way of creating content.

So what are you waiting for?

Don’t forget, you can learn all the good stuff about SEO in our SEO starter pack.

Here are the benefits of the SEO Starter Pack:

1. Everything you need to know about getting started with SEO is in one place – no more scouring the internet and getting confused by conflicting info.

2. It includes easy-to-follow, short lessons aimed at non-techies – no one big boring video that’s hard to follow. And no getting confused by silly SEO jargon!

3. It’ll teach you the key parts of SEO that have the biggest impact – this pack will not teach you all there is to know about SEO because, quite frankly, you have better things to do. But it will teach you the things that will make the biggest impact on your business and deliver more traffic to your website.

4. It’s not boring – okay, it’s SEO. It’s not the hottest Netflix TV show. BUT, we don’t make it boring! It’s easy to understand and includes bite-sized videos that aren’t too overwhelming.

Lyndsay Cambridge

Owner at Jammy Digital, Digital Marketing Specialist and Writer of Young-Adult Fiction.

jammydigital.com

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