Small businesses drive growth in any industry as they offer innovative services and products to new-age customers. Some good examples are Uber, Mail chimp, Airbnb, and many more; these were start-ups with a mission to revolutionize technology, process which they convincingly achieved.

But at the initial stages, these companies would have faced a common challenge which is winning the trust of customers. Now, we should acknowledge that sales and revenue are directly proportional to customer trust. So, it becomes essential to bring customers closer to your brand.

Now, the million-dollar question-

How small organizations could win customer’s trust?

We know that the majority of customers prefer services from large enterprises to acquiring the same from small businesses. There are many reasons for that and the top one is that small companies don’t get the required brand visibility as compared to larger organizations. This is why prospects don’t have the right idea about their products, further reducing the opportunities for conversions.

 Moreover, many of these small companies are new to the market, fewer customers have used their services or product. So, prospects who are looking for reviews, couldn’t check much information from existing customers. So, you should present right information (you could also post reviews) about your product or service on the best platforms.

While social media marketing is a popular choice, you should look to other platforms concurrently. SEO or search engine optimization has become one of the useful platforms to show that your organization exists and offers wonderful services to its customers!!

But executing search engine optimization isn’t that easy and small businesses need credible SEO services from organizations aligned with their goals. As a small business, you also need right promotion to attract the attention of your customers. And it should be subtle. You have to keep in mind that too much marketing may lead to losing credibility.

Just as a famous quote by Brian Halligan, Co-founder of HubSpot:

“Just because you’re the loudest, doesn’t make you right.”

And that is true, customers nowadays are smarter, and it puts them off when you pester them with too many ads and calls. Please find the below graphical representation:

As you could see here, how customers have rated different ads for dislike. The online pop-ups are rated the worst with a rating of 4.52, while the search engine ads are relatively rated good with a rating of 7.61. This is because most search engine ads match the search criteria of the user. This should convince you to acquire the SEO service at the earliest. 

So, what should you look into before acquiring a service from an SEO company?

Some of the crucial points that you need to look into while choosing the right SEO service company are:

1.    Testimonial and Case Studies of Current Customers:

Every organization is different so are their challenges. When you look for an SEO company, you need to check whether that business has resolved any similar SEO challenges as yours. And how could you know the same?

You need to first ask case studies and testimonials of current customers. While testimonials show acknowledgement of existing customers for good services, case studies would delve deeper into how the same was achieved.

When you know how the entire process was executed- from finding the root cause to resolving the challenge, you’ll know whether they could offer the right solution for your company.

The below example is of a case study that an SEO service company posted on its website:

As you could see here, how the SEO service company helped its customer to resolve the challenge- to engage potential clients. The solution was obtained after thorough research on keywords and identifying page optimization opportunities. The service company raised the customer’s local profile, besides increasing the number of conversions. The results were impressive; the customer had a 9x increase in page one keywords.

It also witnessed an almost 861% increase in monthly website traffic. This is a good percentage that any prospect would easily notice and appreciate.

2.    Good Off-Page SEO Services:

You should have good off-page SEO service to have good visibility on search engines. Now, for beginners not aware of off-page SEO service, it’s a process where the organization uses varied techniques such as guest posting, building links from good websites to your site, improving domain authority, and many more.

In the below image, you could see guest posting as one of the effective ways for off-page SEO:

It also shows, replicating competitor’s back links is the second most popular tactic to improvise the process, followed by others such as resources and links list pages, broken back links, adding URL to a post, and many more. The experts’ choice mentioned in the heading means these are some of the proven strategies tested by professionals for good search engine optimization results.

So, ask the organization, whether they are using all these techniques to deliver optimized results. You must have heard “one size doesn’t fit all,” and it’s true in this scenario. The techniques that have worked for one organization might not work for yours. The right practice is to discuss about your product and service briefly with the service company and understand the tactic perfectly aligned with your goals.

Eventually, when you use their service, this strategy would save time and minimize the effort of professionals working to improve the ranking of your website.

3.    Machine Learning:

This technology is the latest in the market and is already making waves. Now, for starters, machine learning or ML in search engine optimization helps in understanding the behaviour of users from the keywords that they use in Google search.

The professional can also understand the prospects’ mindset by analyzing which website page keeps them engaged, time spent on specific content, and so on. Later, they could develop strategies, and plan accordingly to rank websites higher on search results.

Find the below graph to understand the importance of ML:

As you could see in the graph almost 18.7% of respondents stated AI/ML would cause the biggest shift in SEO over the next 2 years. It is even higher than Google updates (18%), proving the role of AI/ML in search engine optimization to increase exponentially in the coming years.

Nowadays, many machine learning SEO tools are available through which professionals could optimize the content with the ML keywords. You just need to check whether SEO service companies are using such tools to generate results in a short span.

Some of the popular search engine optimization AI tools are SEM rush, Market Muse, Diib, Surfer SEO, Frase, and others.

Find the features of one of the SEO-AI tools in the below representation:

As you could see here, the Surfer tool improves the organic traffic further improves visibility and later improves the website rank. You should know that organic traffic is important if you’re looking to increase conversions. Because organic means keywords the user searches on the Google search engine. It shows what exactly they need and how you could leverage it for your process.

The tool presents the AI/ML keywords for any content type and heading so that professionals could add to the content. And that would be the game-changer for your SEO.

Another result-oriented ML search engine optimization tool is NeuronWriter:

This tool facilitates in development of SEO-optimized content and that too with AI enhancement. NeuronWriter supports more than 170 languages which is helpful for varied audiences in the quest to rank their website higher.

What Are the Benefits of Integrating SEO Services From An Organization?

Well, the answer is simple, as you’re a small business, you need to stay afloat in the market. At the initial stages, you’re in a safe zone if you generate the right ROI. But later, you should increase profits, and that could be achieved by improving the customer base rapidly.

With a highly competitive market, you’ve to stay on top of customers’ minds with information about your product and service on varied platforms specifically on search engines. When you have a professional SEO service from an organization, you have a higher chance of getting good visibility on search results. Most customers look for the first and second pages of search results for information and a good SEO service significantly helps you achieve the same.

You’d also improve the brand awareness through which new prospects would approach your product or service. And the most crucial thing- Gradually, you’d built trust which is highly needed to have good growth in the industry.

But you need to be aware that even after acquiring their service, it’s likely you’ll never get results immediately. SEO takes time, a minimum of 6 months to even one year. You should have patience to get wonderful results in the long run. 

Conclusion:

This blog explores how to know more about an SEO service company before acquiring their service. As an organization, you need to execute thorough research, choose the best company to collaborate with, and get the right visibility on search engine results.