Business owners don’t always have a firm grasp of search engine optimization, or SEO. They’re usually focused on increasing their bottom line and earning as much revenue as possible. But this line of thinking can get business owners into trouble. If they’re not careful, they will try to save money by opting for cheap SEO packages that don’t offer the same results as more costly packages. That doesn’t mean that ever business needs to spend a fortune to rank highly on Google, but quality SEO takes a lot of time and effort, and you should be willing to pay for it.
If you’re trying to boost your web traffic and rank highly on Google, watch out for cheap SEO packages that seem too good to be true. Here are just some of the reasons to avoid low-cost SEO packages.
Poor-Quality Content with Little Value to Readers
SEO is really about generating valuable, informative content that resonates with your target audience. Some cheap SEO packages will capitalize on a business owner’s lack of knowledge of SEO by throwing together a few blog posts with some random keywords stuffed in. These are not the markings of a quality SEO campaign. Instead, SEO experts need to be focused on writing content that speaks directly to the client’s target audience, offering valuable information or entertainment. This means the SEO professional should be prepared to scour the internet for interesting topic ideas by reading websites like Reddit, Quora, searching for trending topic on social media, and reading industry news outlets.
Writing quality content also takes a lot of time and effort. Quality SEO means attracting people to a webpage and having them spend time on it. But no one is going to spend time on the site if the content is mediocre at best. The average Google first page result contains 1,890 words, which means that your SEO strategist needs to spend time developing content that’s packed full of tasty information, not just spitting out 300-word blog posts that offer little to no value to the reader.
Subpar Backlinks That Won’t Help Your Site
Google recently announced that backlinks are now one of the most important aspects of SEO. They instill confidence in Google’s algorithm by showing that other websites are willing to link back to the content on your site. This means that these other websites found something of value on your website and they believe their readers will be interested in the content as well.
But, compiling a portfolio of backlinks for your website takes a lot of legwork. High-profile websites like Entrepreneur and Forbes with a lot of authority might be out of reach if you’re a small business, unless you have an amazing PR team. But, you can still use smaller, niche websites as backlinks that are directly related to your business. However, cheap SEO packages will usually entice customers by promising a lot of incoming traffic and some promising backlink opportunities. But business owners should be wary of promises like these.
Before hiring a SEO professional, a business owner should get an idea of what kind of backlinks the SEO expert is promising. These tend to be subpar backlinks that don’t really make much of a difference when it comes to search engine rankings. These websites linking back to your website need to have a healthy amount of incoming traffic and should offer valuable content to readers. If not, you’ll be better off not using these backlinks at all, as you don’t want your website to be associated with lackluster content.
Your SEO expert should be willing to take on the role of a PR person as they hunt down backlink websites that would be a good fit for your company. These should be websites that write about topics related to your products and services, another business that’s not a competitor, or a social media influencer or digital creator with followers that overlap with your target audience.
Every SEO Project Is Different
When looking for a SEO professional, remember that every SEO campaign should be different and unique. After all, every company has a different target audience and different products to sell. Yet, many cheap SEO professionals will try to use the same approach for every client that comes their way. This usually results from a lack of imagination and professionals trying to cut corners any way they can. If you’re thinking of hiring a SEO professional, ask to see some previous work samples and look for differences among the campaigns. Ask the professionals to show you how they used a different approach and what SEO services worked specifically for each campaign.
It usually pays to hire an professional SEO expert that costs a little extra. These people tend to have more experience and use a more tailored approach to SEO that will benefit your business. With that said, every business owner needs to be involved in their SEO campaign, instead of just assuming the SEO professional knows what they’re doing.
