Search Engine Marketing Consultant
What We Do and The Process
A search engine marketing consultant is a professional who helps businesses to improve their visibility and ranking on search engines. Through various methods, the consultant can help a business to achieve better online visibility, which in turn can lead to more website visitors, leads, and sales.
The process of working with a search engine marketing consultant typically involves four stages; research, planning, implementation, and evaluation. Learn more below.
Site Audit
Let’s start by taking a look at your current site’s structure, traffic and core metrics.
Increase Traffic
Increasing traffic begins with increasing your ‘digital landscape’ (i.e. content).
Measure Results
Measuring the results of link structure, inner-connections and leads generated.
Stage 1. Research
In the research step, the consultant will assess the business’ current online presence and search engine rankings. This analysis will help to identify any areas of improvement that can be targeted in order to improve the visibility and ranking of the website. It’s also important to take into account what the local and national competitors are doing in terms of their online search marketing efforts.
This not only takes into account what the competition is offering but also what the market expectations are. Market expectations are the unspoken or spoken needs of the people in a given market (more on this in another article).
Stage 2. Planning
Once the research is complete, the consultant will work with the business to create a plan of action. This plan will outline what needs to be done in order to improve the website’s visibility and ranking. It may also include recommendations for keyword research, on-page optimization, link building, and other search engine marketing activities. Sometimes it’s best to start with the low-hanging fruit first, which would be activities that are easier to implement and have a higher chance of success (and track).
Stage 3. Implementation
In the implementation step, the consultant will help the business to put the plan into action. This may involve implementing changes to the website, such as optimizing content and tags for search engines. It’s important to note that depending on how your website was initially built and developed there may be need for working with your developer to maintain the site foundation, security and theme-specific code (that if lifted might break your site).
SEO consultants are specialists to help with search rankings and while they may know a bit of code themselves, it’s always best to have the website developer on board so that they can communicate directly and make any changes needed.
Stage 4. Evaluation and Analysis
In the evaluation stage, the consultant will track the progress of the website’s visibility and ranking. This will help to determine whether or not the desired results are being achieved. If not, then adjustments may need to be made to the plan. The evaluation stage is an important part of the process, as it allows for course correction and refinement of the strategy.
Popular tracking tools include, Google Analytics and Google Search console for measuring web traffic and more.
How Long Does It Take To Rank In Google?
There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to this question, as the time it takes to rank in Google depends on a number of factors, such as the competitiveness of the keyword, the website’s current ranking, and the amount of competition from other websites. However, in general, it can take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months to see results from search engine optimization efforts.
It’s important to note that something like Google ads rely on a very similar strategy of research and keyword strategy (traffic to your website based on search queries) but the traffic is instantaneous. This means that the site will show up as one of the top results (in an ad format) for those keywords searched, but paying for that space. In organic search, your website can take time to work through the algorithm changes and updates (which are continuous) before ranking in a higher spot.
Google ads, while pay-to-play, can be a good way to get some initial data to your local market (what are some of the top search queries, do they resonate for your business and convert with your current toolset).
Here are some other resources and thoughts on search marketing:
Search Engine Marketing Consult
Search Engine Marketing Consultant What We Do and The Process A search engine marketing consultant is a professional who helps businesses to improve their visibility
What Is Search Marketing
Let’s Chat What Is Search Marketing? Welcome to search marketing 101. Below you’ll find some frequently asked questions, examples and best practices on search marketing.