SEO is not really that complicated, but it is a lot of work. It is a very task-intensive process. There are a number of things you have learn how to do, but then you simply do them over, and over, and over, and over… SEO is an ongoing process. You can never stop. If you do, all that you have gained over the years will begin to deteriorate. Getting the pages of your website to the top of the search engines is not particularly difficult. Keeping them there is.
The only “nearly sure” way of appearing on the first page of search results use to be to pay for it via paid advertising. However, even that has changed over the years. There used to be a time when whoever was willing to pay the most, was put at the top of page one of the ‘Search Engine Results Pages’ (SERPs). However, search engines now look at a number of different factors such as relevance between ad copy and the landing page to which a user is directed, Click-Through-Rate (CTR), and many other factors to determine which ads even show up on any given SERP (Search Engine Results Page). Additionally, search engine algorithms also continuously evolve to keep up with the ever-changing environment online when it comes to organic search.
Here’s essentially what you are paying for when you hire a search engine optimization company. The first thing they are going to do is ask you who your target market is. Describe them in detail. The next thing they will want to know is what are you selling? What are your products or services? What is the benefit of ownership of your product? What is the benefit they get from your service? What search terms do you think people use to search for what you have to sell? What they will do with this information is begin their keyword search using a variety of free and paid tools. What they want to do is figure out what search terms your target market uses when searching for what you sell. This is a critical first step. If keyword research is wrong or ineffectively done, everything else will be like spinning your wheels. Additionally, you need to review your keywords from time to time as the terms people use to search for what you sell may change over time.
