SEO looks like something anyone can do.
Marketing websites post extensive guides about it. Business magazines write articles about it.
The information is out there waiting for you to apply it, right?
The “nailed it” memes showing the difference between pro and amateur recipe attempts beg to differ.
So, let’s jump in and look at the signs you need an SEO expert.
1. You Aren’t an SEO Expert
You don’t hesitate to hire a lawyer or an accountant for your business. Why?
They’re experts who spent years learning their professions. They’ll do the job and do it better than you can do it for yourself.
SEO is no different. Unless you spend years learning the skills that go into it, you’ll struggle more and get lesser results.
No one expects a first-year med student to perform complex surgery. It’s not realistic to expect expert SEO results from yourself.
2. Customers Don’t Find Your Site
Your site is up and running. You’re publishing content like clockwork. You’ve implemented the SEO advice you read about.
Despite all of that, customers still don’t show up at your site, which is a problem on two levels.
On the first level, your site doesn’t appear in search engine results. That means your SEO isn’t doing its job.
On the second level, over 80% of people research products and services online. Combine that with the first-level problem, and 80% of customers will never find your business.
If you aren’t seeing traffic, you need an SEO expert.
3. Link Building Is Mysterious
Link building is one of the critical elements in SEO. The quality of your backlinks and internal links plays a role in your ranking.
Developing good internal linking is fairly straightforward. You use a judicious number of links between related content and pages on your site.
Backlinks are another story. You need a strategy for creating and sharing high-quality content, guest blogging, and even developing local links.
An expert can help you build that strategy.
4. You Can’t Find Time for SEO
If you’re like most small business owners, you find yourself wearing many different hats and responsible for all aspects of your business.
You can’t create good SEO overnight. It takes a sustained investment of time in several areas, such as:
- keyword research and selection
- content creation
- metrics analysis
- site modification
If you can’t pour 10-20 hours a week into the work yourself, you need help from an expert.
Beyond that weekly time investment, SEO takes time to start showing results. You can expect to wait 3-6 months before you start seeing a serious uptick in traffic.
5. You Don’t Recognize Blackhat Techniques on Sight
When it comes to SEO, there are legitimate (white hat) and illegitimate (blackhat) tactics and techniques that can be employed.
It’s very easy to get dinged or even banned from a search engine.
There are lots of blackhat SEO techniques floating around out there.
While some blackhat tactics look harmless, they do not help. In fact, most hurt your SEO.
A few examples include:
- keyword stuffing
- duplicate content
- link trading, link buying, link farming
- cloaking text &/or links
- redirecting to another site or page
- blog comment spamming
If you can’t spot a blackhat technique on sight, you need an expert’s help.
Parting Thoughts
The abundant information about SEO makes it seem like anyone can do it well. SEO is a skill and skills take time to master.
Bringing in an SEO expert is like hiring any other professional. You do it because they’ll do the job more efficiently and get better results.
LocalBizGuru specializes in digital marketing and SEO. For more info about us or our services, contact us today.
