By now, you must have realised that the only thing standing between your website and your target audience is the search engine.

The other aspect that people rarely consider is the enormity of effort, technology, expertise, and intelligence that is applied in search algorithms to effectively rank about 861,379,000 registered host names. If you truly value your online presence, you too cannot do without a dedicated team of highly proficient experts, who consistently evaluate and adapt to the rapidly changing online space.

That is the singular purpose of an expert SEO agency Bedford. However, following recent major search engine updates that drastically affected search engine results page rankings, SEO agencies must uphold a much higher standard than ever before. Based on such significant changes, here are a couple of pointers to help you grade a proficient SEO agency in Bedford.

An Update of the SEO Activities

It’s extremely necessary for webmasters to be updated on the ongoing search engine optimisation activities within specific time-lines. This will help you evaluate whether an agency is involved in above-board strategies or unhealthy black hat tricks.

Some of the things you should be updated on include:
1. A complete and professional audit of your website
2. A thorough analysis of your website’s link profile
3. On-site optimisation activities, which include relevant keyword optimisation, well-written page titles, description tags, alt texts on images, appropriate tags on different types of page content (includes title and subtitle tags), navigational elements (includes anchor texts and flowing links), site maps and many more.
4. Off-site optimisation activities, which include articles published on other websites containing links to your site, social networking strategies, forum posting, and search engine submission, among many others.

Not Just Focused On Ranking

If ranking was all there was to it, then search engine optimisation would be so much easier. However, there are so many other factors that come into play, including:
(i) Conversion rates: More often than not, websites are a conduit for making a sale. Only a highly experienced professional would have the necessary expertise to transform traffic into tangible sales, otherwise you would have wasted a very good opportunity. This usually involves intelligently designed landing pages and content themes aligned to overall marketing campaigns.
(ii) Ranking on specifically targeted keywords: Obviously, you have no interest getting high search engine rankings for piano lessons’ if your target keyword is guitar lessons’.
(iii) Targeting specific geographical regions: This is a critical aspect to consider in case you intend to hire an agency based in a different location from your target area. You have to be assured that they have the capacity to draw traffic from your targeted client base.
(iv) Managing your site’s bounce rate: Obviously, the longer people stay on your website, the more likely they are to click on affiliate links or buy a product that you are selling. Therefore, your website has to be as captivating as possible and extremely user-friendly in order to keep people entertained long enough. This can only be achieved with a highly skilled SEO agency in Bedford.
(v) Increasing subscribers to your blog/ website or members to your social networking site/ online forum.