You don’t have to search very far to find a digital marketing agency in South Africa promising to master your business SEO [Search Engine Optimisation]. But how can you be sure they can offer what they’re promising you?
To answer this question, you need to first understand what SEO is and why we do it.
- SEO 101
SEO involves optimising how your brand (including its website, profiles, listings and mentions) appears in Google or Bing search engine results. Search engines exist to meet the needs of customers by offering the most relevant result for their search query.
SEO involves various efforts to ensure that your website and various brand profiles can respond these searches accurately, so it will be prioritised by search engines and therefore be first choice for customers.
SEO isn’t a single process. It can involve using the right keywords, ensuring your website loads quickly and is easy to navigate, listing your website in the appropriate directories, and other on-page (website) and off-page (internet) factors.
SEO is not a short-term process, because proving your website’s content is relevant, authoritative in its field and can consistently meet customers’ needs,can take months. It’s not something you can pay to have done, as that would mean that the business that spends the most appears at the top of the rankings, and that customers don’t get the most accurate search results.
- Can my South African digital marketing agency deliver SEO?
Knowing what SEO is and why it’s done will help you decide if your agency can deliver on what they’re promising you.
There are two major promises than many agencies make that will immediately tell you that they don’t understand what SEO is and how it should be used.
The first promise is that they can guarantee you number one on search engine rankings instantly, and the second is instant and direct financial rewards from their SEO efforts.
Ranking well takes several weeks or months of effort and might never be possible if you’re in a highly competitive industry. Additionally, SEO cannot directly drive instant sales – this is something you can expect from paid search advertising.
Now that you know what to look out for, go forth and choose the best South African digital marketing agency for your SEO!