Hiring a Search Engine Optimization Agency in Charleston, SC.

In South Carolina, Charleston is the largest and oldest of its cities. It is an important city, serving both as the seat of the county area as well as the Charleston metropolitan area’s (one of South Carolina’s metropolitan statistical areas) principal city. Charleston, lies south of the state’s coastline’s midpoint was founded in 1670 in honor of King Charles II of England.

As of 2018, its population was estimated to be about 136,208. For the Metropolitan Area which comprises of Charleston, Dorchester and Berkeley counties, its population as at 2018 was estimated to be about 787,643. This makes it the state’s third-largest metropolitan area and the country’s 78th largest. If you want to learn more about Charleston, you can read this article here.

Now to the crux of the matter, if you own a local business located in Charleston, South Carolina, you need people searching for your product or service to find you. This you can achieve by having an online presence and implementing search engine optimization on your website.

What is SEO?

Search engine optimization or SEO is the process of optimizing websites using different strategies like keywords, meta-tags, descriptions, links and the likes to rank high in web searches and ultimately get traffic to the website. It involves designing or making changes to your website in a way that makes it attractive to search engines. One of the purposes of search engines is to deliver high-quality results that are relevant to a user and due to this, it looks out for specific keywords, phrases, image tags and so on that are connected to what the user is searching for. See https://ahrefs.com/blog/what-is-seo/ for fuller explanation of what SEO is.

Other SEO strategies also involve optimizing the load speed of a website which includes optimizing codes and scripts including HTML and CSS used in designing the website and limiting the number of components like images and videos used that might make rendering the website slow.

Adhering to the different SEO standards makes your website rank high in web searches. Since more than 60% of users usually will not look beyond the first few search results or first page, you can only be sure that your website is getting viewed and ultimately getting increased traffic when it appears top in the first search result page.

Benefits of SEO

One beautiful thing about SEO as a strategy is that you are not the one going all out to look for clients; they are the ones looking for you. All you need to do is put the necessary search engine optimization processes in place so it is easy for them to find you when they are looking. You do not want to make it difficult for them to find you or what you are offering. That is what SEO does for you.

Rather than doing the pursuing and following up of clients, you put processes in place, the customer starts looking and then they find you.

Recent studies show that 97% of people search for local businesses using search engines. The advent of mobile phones has made it easy for consumers to just pick their phones and search for a local business around them. When they do, the SEO process you already implemented will promote your business by listing it high enough for consumers to see. This helps you to capture leads which you can then follow up through whatever means necessary; emails, phone calls, retargeted ads, etc.

SEO, aside being cheaper than most other marketing methods, is also more effective in the sense that it leads to a higher return on investment than traditional advertising tools or methods like radio or TV. You pay through your nose for a 30-second radio or TV commercial and a lot of times, new or young businesses will not be able to afford these rates.

Despite this, only about 3-5% of consumers who hear or see your ad will be interested in your products or service. Furthermore, they might be busy when your ad comes on TV or radio and may forget to contact you later on.

SEO is much cheaper to implement, whether you are a new business with a small budget or an already established one, you do not have to pay exorbitant amounts to implement it. More importantly, you are targeting customers who are actively searching for what you are offering. This naturally results in a much higher conversion rate that you will get from your traditional marketing methods.

How to Choose the Right SEO Agency

To implement SEO processes on the website of your Charleston based business, you need to hire a good SEO company in Charleston, SC. Typically, businesses with websites and online presence hire experienced SEO agencies to improve their search engine results because they understand the intricacies of how web searches work.

When choosing a company to handle your SEO needs, there are some factors you should consider. We will quickly discuss some of them.

• Search for them. If a person is offering you a business, then they must be doing it right themselves. It is therefore good to search for them and see how well they are doing in search rankings. They may not be on top of the rankings but should at least be on the very first search result page.
• Much more than searching, find out the results achieved with past and present clients.
• Ask how long it will take get desired results.
• Know how much it will cost you.
• Finally, ask them for the minimum threshold of results.

The above factors are guides to help you determine how good an agency is. More than this though, you need to do due diligence and be sure that the agency you choose to handle your SEO needs will help boost your business immensely.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is not wise these days to have a business and not have an online presence through which you can reach consumers digitally. Technological advancements have made it easier for businesses and consumers alike to find each other using more effective and cheaper means.

As a business in Charleston, you need to implement these methods into your business so consumers can easily reach you. As much as it is tempting to do it yourself, experts and professionals will be in a better position to help you fine-tune the process, improve your site ranking and ultimately cause an increase in traffic to your website resulting in greater sales of your product(s) or service(s).