What kind of SEO work do consultants or businesses do?

Ultimately, SEO consultants or businesses (sometimes just called ‘SEOs’) are tasked with helping clients gain search engine traffic. SEOs use a variety of tactics to help with this, all starting with properly analysing errors and opportunities.

SEO encompasses a wide range of tasks including but not limited to writing content, keyword research, creating metadata, working on backlinks, local search, and creating strategies that hone in on user intent and user behaviour.

The best SEO practices are constantly evolving as Google continuously creates algorithm updates, so the tools and tricks an SEO consultant or business employs are changing too. But many of the tactics, like ensuring quality content, remain evergreen.

What kind of SEO results can you expect?

SEO isn’t magic and results don’t happen overnight. Results can vary based on the competitiveness of your market, how your website is built, how often you update content, and many other factors.

If you focus on improving SEO, you will likely see an increase in the amount of traffic your website gets and see some of your keywords rise in rank. With better content, you’ll likely notice people stay on your website longer too.

Potential red flags to avoid when looking for an SEO expert or business

If a company or consultant is claiming they can get number-one slot rankings for all your keywords overnight it might sound good. In fact, it’s too good to be true.

SEO is a long-term and ongoing process. You might find fluctuations in rankings and website traffic. It’s important to track how well different pages are doing, edit them, and create new content as needed. It’s also important to adapt your strategy as you go.

If you don’t know what you’re paying your SEO company or consultant to be doing or if they make promises they can’t keep, it’s time to find a new consultant or team to work with.

Other red flags to watch out for include spammy backlinks which hurt your SEO, having your website dramatically decline without any explanation, and any use of ‘Black Hat’ SEO tactics like keyword stuffing.

How to tell if the business or SEO consultant you’re considering engaging is trustworthy and can provide results

Some companies or experts like to act like SEO is a magical profession and refuse to reveal the trick. SEO is complex and can take a long time to master, but there is no secret recipe.

There’s no reason a business or consultant can’t be upfront with you about what is wrong with your website, what they can do to fix it, and explain the steps involved. You should know what you’re paying for and what to expect.

If you want to gauge whether or not an individual or business is the right fit to work with, you can ask them about their process, ask for case studies, or simply start with an SEO audit or report to get an understanding of what it might be like to work together.

If you’re not ready to start working with an SEO company or expert quite yet, there are some things you can do yourself in the meantime. You can create your own alt text, optimise your images,  and start working on improving your local SEO.

And if you have questions about web design, web development, management or SEO, you can contact us at Digital Bridge at hello@digitalbridge.com.au or +613 8658 2434.