Search engine optimization (SEO) is crucial for driving relevant organic traffic to your website from search engines like Google. But with hundreds of potential SEO tactics and strategies, it can be overwhelming to know where to start.

The best approach is to partner with an experienced SEO agency that provides core optimization services to set your website up for long-term success.

In this post, we’ll explore the key SEO services an agency can provide to improve your search visibility, traffic, and conversions.

Ongoing Keyword Research

Thorough keyword research lays the foundation for an effective SEO strategy. An agency will research and analyze your top industry keywords using tools like Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, Ahrefs, and Moz Keyword Explorer.

Some key aspects of keyword research include:

• – Identifying high-traffic, low competition keywords to target.
• – Looking at keyword intent to create content that matches searcher needs.
• – Grouping keywords by product lines, services, locations, and other topics.
• – Monitoring keyword rankings against top competitors.
• – Analyzing trends in search volume and keyword difficulty over time.
• – Adding brand and product name keywords to watch for new competitor content.

The agency should provide ongoing keyword reports and recommendations to inform content creation and link building efforts.

Optimized Content Strategy

An SEO content strategy takes your target keywords and turns them into blog posts, guides, and other content designed to rank. This includes:

• – Creating blog editorial calendars based on keyword research.
• – Producing new long-form content like guides and ebooks for lead generation.
• – Repurposing existing marketing assets into SEO-friendly formats.
• – Optimizing pages and posts for keyword density, placement, and readability.
• – Adding media like images, graphics, and videos to boost engagement.
• – Promoting new content through social media and email marketing.
• – Monitoring performance to identify new opportunities and topics.

Your SEO agency will handle content creation or provide optimization guidelines for your in-house team.

Technical Website Audit

A technical SEO audit examines the technical health of your website to spot issues impacting crawlability, indexation, and page experience.

Elements the audit covers include:

• – Indexing issues like duplicate content, thin content, or excessive pages blocked by robots.txt.
• – Site speed benchmarks and recommendations for optimizations.
• – Broken internal and external links.
• – Image alt tag audits.
• – Schema markup implementation and usage.
• – Sitemap quality and indexing.
• – Site security scanning and threat detection.
• – Page experience factors like SSL implementation, URL structure, site architecture.

Addressing problems revealed in the technical audit removes barriers to ranking potential.

On-Page Optimization

On-page optimization improves individual page elements to boost relevance for target keywords. This includes:

• – Optimizing page titles and meta descriptions.
• – Adding keywords to URLs and headers (H1, H2 tags).
• – Including related keywords throughout the content naturally.
• – Adding media and formatting content for maximum retention.
• – Structuring pages and content using best practices for SEO.
• – Implementing schema markup for rich results.
• – Ensuring fast page speed through testing and optimization.

Proper on-page optimization signals search engines what each page is about so they rank well for targeted queries.

Link Building

Link building campaigns aim to acquire new high-quality backlinks from other relevant websites to improve domain and page authority. Tactics include:

• – Reaching out to similar sites for guest contributions and backlinks.
• – Creating resources like guides, tools or quizzes to generate natural links.
• – Getting featured in roundup articles and link posts from authoritative sites.
• – Building relationships with influencers to get mentioned and linked to.
• – Participating in relevant online communities and forums.
• – Securing press mentions and interviews on industry websites.
• – Publishing and promoting content on social media for followers to share.

The focus is on building links slowly and naturally, not using manipulative shortcuts. More links from reputable sites equal higher rankings.

Local SEO Optimization

For businesses operating locally, optimizing for local SEO results is critical. Local SEO services include:

• – Updating Google My Business and other local listings with keywords.
• – Building localized landing pages and content for each served area.
• – Getting rated and reviewed on various local platforms.
• – Targeting local keywords with geo-modifiers like “city” in content.
• – Securing links and citations from relevant local directories.
• – Optimizing Google Posts and other social media accounts with location.

The goal is driving more local traffic by appearing prominently in map packs and local search results.

Conversion Tracking & Analysis

SEO agencies don’t just stop at rankings. They also track how optimizations impact goals like leads and sales. Conversion tracking includes:

• – Creating UTM parameters to tag traffic sources in Google Analytics.
• – Adding conversion tracking like Google/Facebook pixels to capture actions.
• – Analyzing search acquisition reports in Google Analytics.
• – Building custom reports and dashboards for key metrics.
• – Monitoring site analytics regularly for changes and optimizations.

Having solid conversion tracking ensures you know exactly how SEO impacts the business bottom line.

Reporting & Recommendations

Each month, your SEO agency should provide reporting recapping activities, rankings, and results. Reporting may cover:

• – Traffic and rankings for target keywords.
• – New content performance.
• – Link building wins and losses.
• – Site audit changes and progress.
• – Ranking fluctuations of competitors.
• – Ongoing keyword research.
• – Conversion rates of SEO traffic.

They’ll also provide strategic recommendations for capitalizing on new opportunities and addressing issues. With regular reporting, you stay up to date on the health of your SEO strategy.

Conclusion

As you can see, effective SEO requires a multitude of ongoing tactics, not just a one and done project. Partnering with an experienced SEO agency provides the skills and bandwidth needed to tackle core optimization services and see tangible results.

With a solid foundation of keyword research, technical audits, optimized content, link building, and conversion tracking, your website will gain authority in the eyes of search engines and climb to the top of relevant rankings over time.

If you’re ready to take your SEO to the next level, reach out to learn more about our optimization services and what we can do for your business. What core SEO services have you found most valuable? Let me know in the comments!