SEO stands for ‘Search Engine Optimisation’. It is the process of making online information easily discoverable to both search engine bots and users.

Although there are virtually hundreds of search engines around us (think of Amazon, Ebay, Youtube, Spotify, Bing, or even the internal search within your website), we commonly tend to refer to Google when talking about SEO. This is because it’s the largest search engine in the world with over 92% search engine market share worldwide (StatCounter Global Stats, 2021).

SEO works through three primary functions: crawling, indexing and ranking.

Crawling is simply the process of discovering your pages across the web while indexing allows search engines to understand which type of content is included in each of your website pages whether is an image, text or a video. Once those have been fully understood by search engine bots, they get stored in a huge database called ‘index’. Once a page is crawled and indexed, search engines decide what information is most relevant to users based on the specific search query they type as well as their language, location and device (mobile or desktop).  

An SEO Consultant is almost an extension of your team. He or she can help you navigate through the complexities of search engine optimisation and supporting you with implementing the best strategy so you can maximise the visibility of your website in search engines.

A great SEO consultant will make your life easier, adopt a test and learn approach to your SEO strategy and finally training and coaching you and your team on all the best practices you can adopt to put your products in front of your target audience.

It’s important to rely on an SEO Consultant with both strategy and execution experience so he/she can work with you to get all recommended changes implemented, whether it’s hands on in a CMS, or working in tandem with your development team.

The benefit of hiring a freelance SEO consultant over an SEO agency is that you simplify the communication process. Most of the times, agencies have different point of contacts including an account manager, an account director, perhaps a client service team, a business director, a head of SEO and sometimes even a senior leadership based on the size of the agency.

Agencies also have a high staff turnover so if you liked that amazing SEO consultant, you might be disappointed when you see her/him leaving. A Freelance SEO Consultant can be the person you trust along your journey of your site optimisation and they will become your go-to-person as long as you need.

Lastly, agencies generally rely on a bigger network, an office and higher expenses which will affect the final price you are paying. Hiring a freelance SEO expert might be then a more cost-efficient solution for you as he might work remotely and deal directly with you, without any mediation.

The biggest advantage of SEO is that organic search results are not ads which means that you don’t have to pay for them to be shown in front of users in search engines.

This nurtures trust for users who know that what they are served to are the best results for their search query and that businesses didn’t pay to be there.

SEO is in fact defined as an inbound marketing channel, which means that consumers can find information around your product or service exactly when they are looking for it. Contrary to outbound marketing channels which involve reaching out to consumers whether they want to hear from you or not, often solely with the advertiser’s goals in mind.

The answer to this question is absolutely yes. Search engines algorithms are built to deliver the best results for the user, which means that if the content you produce answers the search intent of the user, you can compete with both other small online stores and large corporations.

Any online store that also has a physical location or serves a geographic area can also benefit from local SEO.  Local SEO is a search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy that helps your store be more visible in local search results on Google and other search engines (e.g. Google Maps). 

However, realistic expectations should be set up based on the level of competition, the budget available and the time required to see results which will be longer, especially if the level of competition is high. 

Usually, the timeframe a website can see noticeable results can vary anywhere from 3-6 months to 12 months.

This is because the success of a website in search engines depends from a lot of factors, including but not limited to:

–  the industry a business operates in
–  the competitiveness of keywords that a site ranks for
–  the nature of the search results landscape (i.e. search features available in search results)
–  the brand equity and authority a site benefits from vs its competitors.
– the maturity of that industry

One of the biggest advantages of SEO is that it targets free results in search engines.

Unlike PPC or paid search, which involves website owners getting involved in a bid with competitors and paying to get their results shown in search engines, organic results coming from SEO are free and entirely based on the quality of the content as well as how this content answers user’s search intent.

However, this doesn’t mean that SEO is completely free. As any other marketing channels, it requires investments. This can include investments towards an SEO consultant, an agency or an in-house team as well as tools and tech stack, development resources, copywriters and content creators among others.

SEO and organic search engine traffic can provide a long-lasting ROI over traditional forms of paid advertising. Unlike PPC, it has the advantage of improving over time and doesn’t rely on short-term tactics.

While SEO doesn’t come for free and it’s not easy, it is also generally more cost-effective than all other paid marketing tactics like PPC in delivering relevant traffic to your website.

If your budget allows it, SEO and PPC can easily both work together in synergy to support your overall cross-channel digital marketing strategy.