What to ask when appointing an SEO Consultant
We all know we need to do more for SEO – making our websites stand out and giving Google everything that it needs to put us forward as a reliable and trustworthy solution for our target audience. And with an SEO consultant, all of that and more can feel achievable.
But what should you look for in an SEO consultant, to help optimise your recruitment services and ensure that your adverts for both candidates and clients are being seen by the right people?
The importance of SEO
First thing’s first, why might a recruitment business like yours need an SEO consultant in the first place?
Organic search is a key area of business growth and success online, as it uses the website’s content and usability to rank it and present it to a captive target audience group. An SEO consultant can help you to transform the way your business is interpreted by search engines, putting focus on the copy and features which support a high SEO ranking, and changing things which aren’t working.
While an SEO consultant may need time to get to know your business as they are not a formal employee, the benefit of a consultant is that they will bring a wealth of experience to your business. That is, if you find one that’s worth investing in (like us!)
Here’s how working with a consultant can benefit your recruitment agency.
The benefit of working with a recruitment SEO expert
When it comes to my clients, all of them know what to do when a company is engaged in their services and when candidates come knocking. They are experts in moving candidates through the recruitment process, and in ensuring that a client’s vacancies make it to the right platforms and job sites.
But when it comes to marketing themselves, it can often be a different story. When your business lies in working alongside and within other businesses, it can be easy to put your own marketing on the backburner – with SEO dropping as each day passes without a new content update or keyword check.
When you work with an SEO consultant, all of the hard work you do for your clients becomes part of your overarching marketing campaign for your own services. It allows you to focus on the great service you provide, without impacting your own online presence and ability to reach and connect with new clients and customers.
Now that you know the value of an SEO consultant, here’s what to ask in order to find the right one.
The questions to ask an SEO consultant
The following questions will help you in identifying the competency, success rate, potential plans and ideas, and the approach of each SEO consultant (not to mention their cost and the handover process upon completion of the project).
What SEO tools do you use?
This isn’t just about the tools they use, but the way they use them and how they put different tools to the test in delivering great results. The more they can tell you about their chosen tools, the more experience they have with them.
What do you do best?
Simple, straightforward, and eye opening. By asking an SEO consultant what they do best, you start to unpick their experiences and their own skillsets – giving you a better idea of what they do well themselves, and what they might outsource. Not to mention, when you know what each potential consultant does best, you can be sure to work with the one which best matches your business.
How can your work impact my business, and how soon will I see results?
A good consultant will outline the various touchpoints that their work will affect, including the organic traffic to your site, conversion rates, the creation of a cohesive marketing strategy, PR and content creation, and increased online exposure through your website and social media / other platforms.
If an SEO consultant has a strong track record, then they will understand the benefit of their work not just in terms of figures but in relation to how they nurture a strategy that will withstand the test of time.
What has been your biggest success to date?
Not only is this a great question for highlighting the success rate of the consultant, but it also gives you some insight into how they operate and what they value in terms of the way they partner with and support different brands and businesses.
What kind of SEO reporting can I expect to see from you?
This touches on both regular updates and the overall report at the end of the partnership and helps to set expectations for both parties. If the SEO consultant doesn’t immediately have an answer to this question, or if they don’t directly ask you about the way you want to be updated and the reports you want to see, then this is a red flag. Any great service involves reporting, and a strong consultant will want to deliver the information you need in a way which works for you.
How much do your services cost?
The final question – and it’s a big one. After all, recruitment SEO services can deliver the very best consultant candidates right to your door, but if you can’t afford their services or you are limited by your budget in terms of the timeline you can give them, it’s not a worthwhile investment of time or money.
Finding the right SEO consultant for your business can be a gold ticket to success – but before you can start capitalising on their experience and knowledge, you first need to be sure that you’re working with the right person. Asking the above questions will help you to ensure that the next steps you take are benefitting your business success and growth.
Entity-Based SEO: Everything You Need To Know
There’s no denying that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the most complicated aspects of digital marketing. It’s not helped by the fact that SEO keeps changing over time, with Google bringing out new ranking factors and ways of organizing the billions of sites on the web.
With that in mind, you might have heard about something called entity-based SEO. What does this mean and what else do you need to know about it? Needless to say, it’s a crucial aspect of the modern SEO strategy, so you need to know as much about this topic as possible. This guide will walk you through everything you need to understand:
What is entity-based SEO?
Previously – and we’re talking about the very early stages of SEO – keywords were the main thing used to rank websites. Google would look at how many keywords and synonyms were on your site, ranking you based on similar keyword searches. The more keywords you had, the better you’d perform.
Nowadays, Google has moved away from solely relying on keywords. Instead, context is now a huge part of SEO, helping users find exactly what they’re searching for. You see, the problem with keywords is that, on their own, they provide absolutely no context behind what someone is searching for. A good example is someone searching for ‘Georgia’. On its own, Georgia can relate to so many different things – is the person searching for info on the state or the European country? Do they want to find information on a person called Georgia? There are countless options that can be considered if you look for further context behind the search.
Adding context to keyword searches is, effectively, what entity-based SEO is all about. Instead of just looking at keywords, Google uses SEO entities.
What is an SEO entity?
Google defines entities as:
“a thing or concept that is singular, unique, well-defined, and distinguishable.”
In more simple terms, it relates to pretty much anything:
- People
- Places
- Colours
- Dates
- Concepts
- Companies
- Events
The list is endless, but each entity is distinct and independent of all others – and of keywords. From an SEO standpoint, an entity is basically a subject that you can link to the knowledge graphs of search engines. If you’ve done a bit of research into this topic before, you’ll know that Google used Wikipedia as a primary trusted seed for its Knowledge Graph. What this means is that you can basically call an entity a subject that can be attached to a Wikipedia article page. So, if you look something up on Wikipedia, it will have a subject or category, which is basically what an entity is in the SEO world.
An even simpler way of breaking it down is by saying that entities are basically the topics relating to keywords. However, the entity itself must link to a knowledge graph that has information and data across the web. A knowledge graph makes it easier for search engines to scan your site for information.
How is entity-based SEO beneficial?
From both the marketer and the consumer standpoint, entity-based SEO has its benefits. Consumers will be directed towards the most relevant topics and websites for their searches thanks to entities. Going back to the Georgia example, if someone were to type this into Google, the dropdown box would already present a series of suggestions based on different entities. It can show famous people called Georgia, as well as the country of Georgia, and various information on the state in the US. Plus, if someone were to add ‘things to do in’ before Georgia, they’d get searches that showcase everything you can do there. This is because all of the websites include entities that let Google know they are talking about Georgia the place and what people can do there.
For marketers, entity-based SEO gives you a chance to categorize your business better than ever before. You can attach entities to your brand, providing more context behind it and allowing you to use more keywords. If Google knows that your brand name is attached to the ‘business’ entity, you can start using keywords linked to what you sell. This is why companies like Dell can be found when people search for laptops or computers. You can also connect your business to specific place entities, ensuring that only people within that location will find your content. It’s useful when the area you work in has the same name as other places around the world.
In summary, this whole idea lets you refine your SEO strategy to be found by the right people and grow your presence.
How do you implement entity-based SEO?
For starters, it revolves around your content and the words you use in the text. You can call upon lots of words and phrases that aren’t keywords but add context to the keywords you’re focusing on. As an example, let’s say your business focuses on SEM. You know this term to relate to search engine marketing, but it can also be an acronym for scanning electron microscopy, which is an entirely different thing. How will Google know what you’re talking about? By including lots of content revolving around marketing and search engines it is easy to find the right entity and include your pages in results relating to search engine marketing, rather than the other topic.
Secondly, listing your business online will be a massive help as it defines and creates your entity. Google My Business is a great place to start as Google will instantly recognize your brand and put you in the right category. Other business listing sites will further solidify this, establishing your company name as a business brand and letting you call upon keywords for searches relating to what you do.
Ultimately, it’s all about adding context to your website. Entity-based SEO goes beyond keywords by helping search engines understand what category to put you in when people search. It’s all built around creating a better experience for the user and finding the most relevant sites for their searches. Yes, it can be confusing, which is why it helps to work with a digital marketing agency to fully understand the process and how you can benefit from it.
So, you’ve written a blog – great! Now what?
From the smallest sole trader businesses right up to the largest corporations, we are all guilty or occasionally creating content but then taking a back step when it comes to marketing and pushing that blog into the eyesight of our target readers. In fact, we often hear about businesses who create blogs purely for the purpose of SEO, with no real goals or CTAs attached to drive action from their readers and prospective customers.
But what if we told you that great content can not only boost your SEO, but can also attract the right people towards your website, encourage them to engage with you, and help convert visitors into customers if you are trying to sell something?
In this article, we share some top tips on how to make sure that people actually read your content – looking at the best ways to increase traffic and encourage the most productive action from each and every piece of content on your website.
The Power of a Great Piece of Content
A great piece of content can:
- Let Google and other search engines know what your website/webpage is about, proving credibility and reliability.
- Show users and prospective customers that you are knowledgeable and trustworthy.
- Start conversations and encourage engagement.
- Provide you with a landing page for campaigns or social posts.
- Give you some leverage for email campaigns and social campaigns.
- Support your SEO with keywords.
But in order to tick all of those boxes and ensure that every piece of content you upload adds value to your website and draws the right readers and potential customers, you first need to make sure that what you’re writing about is targeting the right audience in the right way.
Introducing our step by step guide to creating content which will benefit your business and/or online presence.
STEP ONE – Know your Audience
Whether you’re writing a blog to support a new product or service launch, to provide insight into a specific topic within your industry, or to share an opinion and start a conversation with your readers, knowing who you are talking to lies at the heart of every word on your webpage.
This includes knowing where your target audience spend their time online, so that you can target them and use those same platforms and channels to market your blog once it is complete – enticing the right people to engage in the right way with your content. You will find that the more you know about your audience, the easier it will be to write in a way that organically engages and entices them.
STEP TWO – Think about Keywords
Organic traffic is easily the best way to bring in new readers if your blog or website is fairly new, or if you are trying a new approach to content creation – mainly because focussing on organic traffic allows you to write and use keywords to connect with the kind of users who are searching for your industry and the keywords you prioritise. And the best way to gain organic traffic to your blog is to focus on identifying and using those keywords.
Keywords refer to the words and phrases that your audience will type into the search bar and that can bring them to your blog if you play your cards right (and use your keyword strategy correctly), so it’s important to think both big and small – with more generic industry-specific keywords, and more targeted niche ones as well.
TOP TIP: Think about problems that your audience might search for and how you and your blog can link. Factor the keywords relating to those problems into your blog and frame yourself as the best solution.
STEP THREE – Decide on a Perspective for your Blog
Once you know your audience, it will become easier to know how to approach each topic and new piece of content. The first thing to do in terms of perspective is to decide on an area of expertise that you and your blog will become known for – and then build on that, becoming a go-to resource for your target audience.
You can support this by using research and keyword tools to anticipate trending topics in your industry and write about them as part of a growing trend.
STEP FOUR – One vs. A Series
Before you start writing on a specific topic, consider if it will all fit nearly into one blog or if it could be better presented as a series. While this will inevitably take more time, it will also give you a lot more material to work with and implement into a marketing campaign, social media, and even a larger downloadable resource in the future.
STEP FIVE – Start Writing
Ready to go? Make sure that as you write your blog(s) you keep on track, refer back to your audience and what they are searching for, and implement those keywords effectively and productively.
Publishing and Promoting your Content
Once your blog or piece of content is complete, it’s time to publish and promote – and that means more work from your end in getting your blog link out among relevant communities, in the right industry groups, on your social media and email campaigns, and across your customer base.
If you decide to put some financial backing behind your blogs and content, then you can use PPC campaigns to build on the reach of your page. Alternatively, you can create some social media campaigns that are targeted towards your blog and promote these. Or you can keep it simple and throw your weight behind gaining an organic following – using the power of recommendation, sharing, and discussion to drive prospective readers towards your blog.
And remember, consistency is key – so don’t give up if your very first blog only draws in a handful of readers. Keep providing value and the followers and customers will come.
