When you consider taking your existing business online or want to start a new ecommerce business there is much to think about. You will need an SEO agency such as Digitrio and a good web designer to sit with you and plan your future online presence. You need a marketing strategy and will want to arrange finances and budgets to promote and function. You will also need a way to get people to find your new website and buy your products.
It is simple to believe that all you need to do is make a website and that is it, unfortunately, this is not a Field of Dreams where if you build it they will come; thousands of websites have been built that no one went to. To gain traffic you need an SEO Analyst. But first, you need to know the what, how, and why of search engine optimization and what an analyst can do.
What is SEO?
Website owners require visitors and preferably the means targeted audience who are likely to make purchases. SEO is a means of gaining those visitors through a search engine's organic rankings. This means employing several techniques such as building relevant backlinks, keywords, and phrases, optimizing the site, and writing quality content.
There are various ways of increasing traffic and some people look for a quick fix. Black hat SEO is where the search engine rules are broken and practices such as spamdexing and keyword stuffing are used. This results - sometimes - in a speedy surge up the rankings on a search engine results page or SERP. However, it usually leads to an equally swift drop back down the rankings too, and can even lead to a website not even showing up anymore because of a ban.
On the other hand, there is what is known as white hat SEO. This is where an SEO Analyst comes in.
What does an SEO analyst do?
They have a number of responsibilities all based on helping to improve SERP rankings, traffic, and visibility. They find ways to improve search engine rankings and their responsibilities can involve on-page SEO, link building and not to forget technical SEO.
They also perform many other SEO related tasks and must be able to think creatively, communicate clearly and have experience in search engine marketing (SEM) as they will be linked very closely with the overall marketing of a company. Here are some of those areas in a more detailed manner.
Keyword research
Analysts will spend a lot of time researching the most relevant keywords for your business and its website. This is an important area as it is how you will get traffic from organic search results. Semantically related keywords are becoming important too as search engines change the way they read user's search queries.
Semantically related keywords mean not just looking for the actual phrase that is keyed in but also anything that relates to it. This could mean if someone keys in ?how to look after a cat', the search engine will look for vets, pet shops, and pet supplies as they are semantically related.
Creating content
This is a very important part of SEO and when Google or another search engine looks at your site they will analyze how relevant your site is to a user's search query. It is not enough to make lots of irrelevant content stuffed with keywords as a black hat might. To be ranked highly you need quality, relevant, long-form content.
Ideally, your content will be around 3,000 words but generally the longer the better. Short-form content is perfectly fine depending on what you are using it for but long-form is king. Not only can they help create content but they will make changes to existing pages too to make them easier for Google to see. They will decide what content should be written to help improve search engine results and they will also optimize everything.
Digital marketing
This area is something that an SEO analyst will be heavily involved in. Digital marketing is any campaign or advertising that is performed online. It can involve social media, be advertising on websites or in mobile apps. Digital marketing is a very important area for businesses today and performing correctly can result in a large increase in traffic and return more sales conversions.
Do you need an SEO analyst?
In May 2021, new metrics will be introduced for Google. These new measures are being introduced to judge the overall UX (user experience) of a website. Although the usual SEO practices will still be important it is now vital that websites meet these new measurements too.
The Google Core Web Vitals will look at how a website loads and performs for a user and any business that doesn't have this sorted will end up dropping down the rankings. This is one reason you need an SEO analyst. Some of the other reasons are above. If you want your website to perform at its highest potential then an SEO analyst is a must.
Summary
A professional SEO'er doesn't just perform keyword research, and optimize a
bunch of photos, they can help your website thrive in a competitive landscape
with extensive link building campaigns, a content calendar to increase your
topical authority and so much more.