SEO stands for search engine optimization. It’s an organic, long-term marketing strategy that helps your business get discovered online. Done right, it can:

• Grow your website traffic and improve the quality of your traffic

• Pre-qualify leads, meaning warmer prospects + higher conversions

• Help you build an engaged audience of fans, readers, and ideal clients.

You won’t be paying for ads or keywords - that’s called search engine marketing (SEM). Instead of interrupting prospective customers, with SEO, you’re empowering them to make their own choices. SEO pays off over time and continues to build, as opposed to short-term paid advertising campaigns.

Doing your keyword research and filling in meta-descriptions are important aspects, but SEO (search engine optimization) requires a combination of efforts working together as an SEO approach, rather than separate tactics. A great SEO strategy will focus on providing the best digital experience for your target audience. That strategy will include things like creating high-quality, relevant content and improving technical factors such as website speed.

SEO is vital for “local” businesses.

When you look at how people are using the internet, especially with smartphones becoming ubiquitous… And you see how search engines customize results to each user (including where they happen to be at that moment in time), then SEO is an absolute game-changer for bricks & mortar businesses – cafes, restaurants, dance & yoga studios, theaters, spas & fitness centers, realtors, agencies, event venues, surgeries, stores of all kinds, etc.

The results speak for themselves:

• 78% of local-mobile searches result in offline purchases*

• 86% search for the location of a business on Google Maps

• 46% of all searches on Google are local*

The time it takes to see results from SEO can vary depending on a number of factors, including:

• The search terms you're targeting

• The competition in your niche

• The quality of your website and content

• The amount of time and effort you put into SEO

In general, you can expect to see some initial results from SEO within a few weeks to a few months. However, it can take up to 6 months or more to see significant results.

Marketing agencies throughout the US agree that SEO provides the best ROI compared to any other marketing activity. This is because SEO can help you attract more qualified leads and customers, leading to increased sales and revenue.

Compared to paid advertising, which can provide quick results, SEO is a sustainable, long-term marketing strategy. By building authority and improving your website's user experience, you can improve its ranking in search engines over time.

The short answer is: no one can guarantee the #1 spot, even with ads.

SEO is a complex and constantly evolving process, and many factors can affect your rankings. Implementing a human-to-human SEO strategy means you'll naturally focus on providing the best experience for your site visitors, and the results will compound over time.

By investing in SEO, you’re investing in finding the people who need what you have to offer, making it all the more likely that they’ll invest in you.

See more details and examples here: Myth #1: If you can’t get into top result on Page 1 of Google, there’s no point in bothering with SEO.

Even out-of-the-box platforms like Squarespace can help you rank in search engines if you're creating content tailored to your audience. Which platform to choose and how well you'll be able to optimize depends on a number of factors, including your skill level, the type of business you have, and the goals of your website.

WordPress is a popular content management system (CMS) that gives you a lot of flexibility and control over your website. This includes the ability to install SEO plugins and make changes to your website's code. However, WordPress can be a complex platform to learn and use, especially if you don't have a lot of technical experience.

Squarespace is a more user-friendly CMS that doesn't require any coding knowledge. Squarespace's SEO features may be more limited than WordPress on a page-by-page basis, but the platform is built with many site-wide SEO considerations from the start.

Ultimately, the best CMS for SEO is the one that best meets the needs and skill level of your team. Including an SEO consultant during a website redesign will ensure your site is not just beautiful and functional, but also primed for visibility.

If it’s the right type of traffic and you’re receiving the kinds of client sales, enquiries and year-on-year growth you want, that’s great – you’ve got it cracked! 

If you’ve got a high volume of traffic, but it’s not converting, then SEO can help you pull in traffic that’s targeted to your specific ideal clients.

The value or ROI of SEO depends on tons of factors ranging from external things that no one has control over to indirect benefits you may not attribute to your SEO strategy. Here are a few of the broad benefits of SEO:

• It’s the difference between new and recurring customers finding and choosing YOU rather than your competitors.

• Clients become pre-qualified thanks to your strategic SEO content, so you’ll find yourself attracting more ideal clients with less effort.

• You’ll use your website to its full potential - after spending time and money on your site, SEO can help you get more eyes on it.

• Planning content becomes easier because you understand the kinds of phrases (aka keywords) your ideal customers use and the information they're looking for.

• The right strategy can bring more money into your business within 3-6 months, and implementing SEO best practices can have compounding value for years to come.

• SEO is a game-changer - more clients & visibility, less guesswork & wasted effort - helping you make a greater impact on the people, places, and causes your business is aiming to help.

Essentially, an SEO specialist works to increase your visibility online - not just your site, but your business - helping to increase both the quantity and the quality of your web traffic so that more ideal clients find you when searching on Google and other search engines.

While many SEO professionals and agencies also offer support with paid traffic/advertising, it's important to note that these are two separate disciplines and strategies.

For example, an SEO specialist may be able to provide guidance on how to use paid advertising to improve visibility and site traffic, but they may not be able to provide hands-on support with setting up and managing campaigns.

It really depends on the person/company, their expertise, how involved you want them to be, and how experienced they are. Some will stick purely to the “techy” side, some will provide hands-on implementation, whereas others expect to be more involved in your digital marketing by advising on content and strategy, and some will do it all!

For example, on a day-to-day basis my team and I may be:

• Working with a web designer or agency on delivering their client sites

• Carrying out SEO and digital presence audits

• Analyzing data & creating SEO reports

• Conducting research on a client's competitors, industry, and content opportunities

• Meeting with a new client to discuss their specific:

  • Long-term and short-term business goals

  • Digital marketing strategy as a whole

• Training a client’s marketing team on how to SEO their own site

• Providing SEO support, such as implementing strategies, updating sites, fixing issues, evaluating progress, verifying results...

• and so much more!

The needs of your company, team, and projects will heavily influence what working with an SEO professional will look like. Read this post to learn more about what SEO specialists do and how to choose the right one for your business.

Some designers and developers may include basic SEO-related tasks, like creating a sitemap or installing a plug-in, but most aren't incorporating a full SEO strategy into the plan unless specifically stated otherwise. They're typically focused on the design, layout, and functionality of your website and may not have the time or expertise to also focus on SEO.

Unlike ads, cold pitching, and direct mail, SEO is an inbound marketing strategy (aka permission-based marketing). Instead of interrupting your prospects, you're empowering them to make their own decisions. With an SEO strategy customized to your unique business, more potential clients will discover you online, be the right fit, and choose you.

While SEO is technically free - you don’t pay to rank on search engines unless you’re buying ad space - it IS an investment of your own time away from client work and/or hiring a specialist.

Proper marketing support is essential to implement SEO strategies and recommendations effectively. Relying on just one person to handle everything from website updates to content creation can be challenging and lead to low-quality results.

While my team and I offer various types of help with implementation, our clients still typically have team members who:

• have the access, knowledge, and time to update the website

• create content in different formats like writing and graphic design

• handle marketing promotions such as email newsletters and social media management

With the right team, no matter the configuration, you can focus on growing your business and achieving your vision. Don't let your business suffer - invest in support to ensure long-term success.

A great way to find an SEO provider is to ask for recommendations from business networks and people you know and trust. Once you have a recommendation, check out their site and About page. Are they experienced in the areas you need help with? Do their values align with yours? Schedule a time to chat, and trust your gut feeling.

Get more tips in this post: How to Hire an SEO Specialist Who Won’t Ghost on You

It's important to be cautious of self-proclaimed SEO "gurus" who promise quick results and top rankings on Google, as these cannot be guaranteed. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Check out this post for more tips on hiring a reliable SEO specialist who's the right fit for your unique needs.

When moving a website to a new platform (such as Squarespace, WordPress, Kajabi, etc.), it is important to:

• Plan your migration carefully. This includes creating a migration plan, mapping out your old URLs to new URLs (if there are site structure changes), and making sure that all of your SEO metadata is transferred correctly.

• Keep your old URLs live during the migration. This will help to prevent any traffic loss during the transition.

• Use a 301 redirect for all of your old URLs if there are structure or URL changes. This will tell search engines that your old pages have been moved to new URLs. You'll want to make sure the content is the same or a very close match in order to maintain your rankings this way.

• Check your website's crawlability after the migration. Make sure that search engines are still able to crawl all of your pages that you wish to be available to searchers. It's common for the robots.txt file to disallow search bots to crawl the site during the staging process, so be sure this file is updated.

• Keep your website's content up-to-date. This will help to ensure that your website continues to rank well in search results.

In this blog post, there is a free PDF download available titled "Essential SEO Architect & Rank Booster: How to Maintain and Improve Your Clients' Search Rankings with Every Site Build."

Additionally, the blog post offers valuable considerations for partnering with an SEO professional if you offer web design and development services.

Head to the inquiry page and submit a short form to start. My team will follow up with a brief questionnaire to help us better assess whether we might be a good fit.

If we could be a good fit, we'll schedule a marketing exploration call to discuss your goals and how we can help.

If we think we're not the best fit for your needs or don't have any project openings, we'll likely be able to refer you to someone who can help. Over the past 10+ years, we've built up various trusted referral resources and are happy to direct you toward a solution.

While our team has the most experience with WordPress, Squarespace, and Shopify, we believe that an effective SEO and content strategy can be implemented on most platforms as long as someone knowledgeable can assist or implement the necessary changes. This includes platforms such as Wix and Joomla, among others.

While many SEO professionals and agencies also offer support with paid traffic/advertising, it's important to note that these are two separate disciplines and strategies.

For example, an SEO specialist may be able to provide guidance on how to use paid advertising to improve visibility and site traffic, but they may not be able to provide hands-on support with setting up and managing campaigns.

At this time, my team and I fall into the latter group. We have expertise in inbound, organic marketing, but we often make recommendations for how advertising may tie into your holistic marketing strategy. For more information on our current offerings, view the services page here.

Typically, there are no ongoing costs outside of my offerings that are required. In some cases I might recommend a paid tool or plug-in after we've gone through the discovery period and I understand your needs better. The recommendations would be for tools that could save you time rather than locking you into something, though. I don't use any that would be vital in order for your site to run or anything.

For example, if we decide together that getting local listings, directories, etc. cleaned up is a priority, I would recommend a service or two that I have experience with and could help you decide which to go with. There are some services that require a yearly fee to "maintain" your listings, but even that I don't typically recommend.

Lastly, the interactive reports I set up and the site crawl reports would come from tools that I pay for and maintain. Therefore, you would only have access to those during our time together, but it isn't an added expense.