WordPress SEO Services & Plans | What’s Right For Your Business

There’s a reason that search engine optimization is the hottest topic in the marketing world today, and why WordPress is helping to lead that charge. Believe it or not, over 455 million active websites use WordPress today!

Well, WordPress services can do a lot for your digital marketing strategy, and expert services can help you reach almost any of your SEO goals. Let’s talk about WordPress SEO services and see if they’re right for you!

Quick Definitions

If you’re not familiar with SEO or WordPress, let’s quickly give a rundown on these two digital tools.

You’ve almost certainly heard the term before but search engine optimization is simply optimizing your web content for Google’s algorithm. This process, if done correctly, allows your content to rank more highly on Google, which will help you build organic traffic. That’s traffic that is brought in organically as opposed to using paid advertisements.

WordPress is a web designing tool that’s been around for a long time. It’s online and it’s similar to Wix or Squarespace but with a few key additional features that it offers. Many people use WordPress when they are trying to increase the SEO value of their content, and they do that for many reasons. Let’s talk about some of those reasons.

Why Use WordPress For SEO?

The number one reason you’d want to use WordPress for your SEO strategy is simple; you’re already using it! However, that’s far from the only reason.

Even if you aren’t already using WordPress as your go-to web design tool, there are plenty of reasons why it’s beneficial, particularly to your SEO efforts.

Imagine having an easy-to-use website developer that came with Google Analytics and Moz’s keyword researcher, making it a one-stop shop for your website development and insight needs. Well, WordPress is essentially that.

If you’re not already using WordPress as your standard web developer, you should consider the switch, unless you have a professional web designer on your staff. The reason is that WordPress offers expert-level insights and analysis into how your website is performing, how it can improve, and more.

Now, that’s only on the free version. If you have a premium account, or if you hire the services of someone who does, you get direct information about your SEO strategy, how it’s holding up, and what you could do to improve it. They offer several benefits to your SEO strategy, and if you have a WordPress SEO expert helping you, you’ll be amazed by the results.

Automatic Metadata

It’s always a gamble on whether or not results pages (SERPs) will use your meta description, so it’s best to assume that they always will. If you’re not familiar with technical SEO terms, metadata includes your SEO title and your meta description. There are two major ranking factors on Google, even though it isn’t what your readers are seeing most of the time.

WordPress automatically analyses your content and optimizes your metadata for search engines to use. If the meta description is shown on the SERP, this will help improve your click-through rate (CTR). Either way, it’s good for search engines to see uniformity across your site.

Optimized Images And Site Speed

Speeding up your page-loading time, offering bots more contextual information, and making images fit any screen. This is what WordPress does for you automatically when you post images, throwing Google’s crawlers a nice bone.

Search engine bots can’t read images the same way that you and I do, so they require a lot of contextual information. The way they use these images in the rank is by ensuring that the image isn’t hurting your content by slowing it down or being irrelevant to the page.

Images and videos can really delay load times, and that’s not something search engines want to see. Believe it or not, the average web user will leave a page after only 3 seconds if it hasn’t loaded, so optimizing your images is a must.

This all comes with the side benefit of improving your user experience, potentially lowering your bounce rate, and provide additional opportunities to rank. Remember, all of that is done automatically.

Social Media Assistance

WordPress integrates social media into your content, allowing you to easily link your content to and from your social media accounts. The platform automatically includes social media buttons on every new page you create and recommends you to post new website content over to your social media.

If you don’t think social media affects your SEO prospects, think again. Building up traffic from any medium will help with your brand visibility, link-building, and more. If you engage with your audience well on social media, you will ultimately rank higher.

Focus On UX

WordPress has an obsessive focus on user experience when it comes to website development. Not only will this help with your customer retention but it will help with your SEO.

Half the battle in your SEO strategy is user experience. Google’s algorithm is designed with the intent of ensuring that each user will get valuable information along with a quality experience. That’s it. Everything from backlinks to keywords and to image optimization. Every factor for ranking relates to those two ideals.

Nice Permalinks

WP offers you the ability to easily create ideal permalinks for your pages. They will be easy to remember, related to the content, and free of ugly characters that make it too long. This helps reinforce the basis of your page content to Google along with your metadata, which helps you to rank higher.

Mobile Optimization

This is one of the most critical factors now on Google’s radar. It’s important to remember that 56% of web traffic comes from mobile devices, making mobile optimization critical to user experience.

Google knows this well, and they take it seriously. Luckily, WordPress creates two separate versions of every page you create on the platform. They optimize each page for mobile devices, again automatically.

All of these factors together make WordPress one of the leading tools for optimizing content. Okay, so should you try to do it yourself or look for professional WP developers?

Plug-Ins

Last, but certainly not least, is WordPress’s unbeatable array of plug-ins that are specifically geared toward SEO. While there are thousands to choose from, some of the most popular will include:

• Google XML sitemap
• Google Analytics
• Yoast SEO
• WP Rocket
• SEMrush
• Google Search Console

There are plenty of others to help you boost your SEO products. The best part of these plugins is that you won’t ever have to touch any code. They make it a very easy experience from every angle of your SEO strategy.

While they all perform different tasks and carry different metrics, you can use a wide range of them for optimal SEO performance. This alone makes WordPress a difficult tool to beat in terms of SEO quality.

What Are WordPress SEO Services?

There are many types of WordPress SEO services, but here are the most common:

• Keyword Research
• Competitor Analysis
• Content Creation
• Content Optimization
• Technical SEO Audits
• Website Speed Audits
• Citation Management
• Local SEO
• Regular Reporting

You may be wondering if WordPress is so user-friendly, why would you need the services of someone else to do it? Well, there wouldn’t be an industry of SEO services for WP if there wasn’t a demand. Let’s talk about some of the biggest benefits and see if it’s right for your company.

What Are The Benefits?

The most obvious benefit of WordPress services is that you won’t have to do it yourself. If you’re unfamiliar with the ins and outs of WordPress, then you are bound to waste a lot of time on tedious tasks that could have been done more efficiently.

WordPress makes web design easier but if you don’t have web design experience, that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Just because they optimize certain things for you, doesn’t mean they’re optimizing the right content for Google’s algorithm. That’s where human intervention is necessary.

Having somebody with professional web development experience, especially on WP, will offer enormous benefits. That’s especially true if they have SEO experience. Will you be able to check if your HTML code is right? What about your CSS or XML? Do you know how to add “no follow” tags to your links? If not, you need help.

With that being said, it’s important to note that any business telling you that they can get you ranking to the top of a Google search in a week is not even worth the time it takes to laugh at them. SEO is an ongoing process that takes time to develop, and building a strong foundation with your website really is the best way to start.

Make sure you are being offered realistic expectations and goals with any services before signing any papers.

How Much Does It Cost?

This will depend on a lot of factors. The size of your business, your SEO goals, the amount of content you need, and more will determine the size of the bill. However, if you hire serious WordPress SEO experts, you’ll be ensuring that the job gets done in the most efficient way possible, making it a lot more affordable than having your regular marketing team do it.

If you’re a local business and you only have a few competitors, it will be a lot easier to get ahead of the local competition. Local SEO does not need to be as precise in order to dominate, and because of that, it will require fewer resources to do so.

These factors will also determine how long you will need to wait to start seeing the results from your SEO strategies. We’ll go into detail on that later.

Types Of Plans

WordPress SEO services are fairly uniform only with certain variances. For example, you may want your website completely revamped or built from scratch. In that case, you’re going to require web development services.

You may already have a website running and you’re just trying to optimize your existing content a little further and maybe get some advice on your site. Well, you may just need some technical SEO services and minor bug fixes. In that case, it will be affordable and finished quickly.

Maybe you already have a concrete SEO strategy you’re working on. That doesn’t mean you couldn’t benefit from some expert consultation and SEO services. If you know what your business needs, then you’ll be able to choose the right service by consulting with the company.

Maybe you have no idea what an SEO strategy should look like and you simply want to forget all about it and let somebody else handle it for you. That’s okay, too.

No matter what SEO services you’re looking for, we mentioned that prices will vary depending on a number of factors, so it’s best to get a quote and see what you should expect to pay based on your needs.

What To Look For In A Company

If you want to hire a WordPress SEO company, the first thing to do is to make sure they are qualified. A WP specialist is necessary for this type of job to limit time waste, and an SEO specialist is worth it to get the job done correctly.

Look at their qualifications. A marketing degree is fine, as long as they have the relevant experience. No degree is also fine, as long as they’ve been certified in WordPress SEO as well as other related niches.

You’ll also want to look at their portfolio and possibly even speak to references. Read reviews on their company and see what people say about their services. Remember, these companies are expert web developers, so you won’t see anything on their website that they don’t want you to see. Read their reviews thoroughly and double-check their portfolio to see if their services meet your needs.

Are WordPress SEO Services Worth It?

No matter where your business is on its SEO or digital marketing journey, the simple answer is that SEO services are always worth it. If you take away one thing from this article, let it be the knowledge that SEO is a marathon, not a sprint.

If you have a WordPress SEO company that you regularly use, they’ll become familiar with the ins and outs of your website over time. When you need more help with your website as Google updates their algorithm, as practices evolve in your industry, or when it’s time to get a new website, you’ll already have them on hand.

The right team will come prepared with expert WordPress SEO knowledge while developing a knowledge of your company, its website, and its goals.

To put it simply, ranking on the first page of Google instead of the second page could literally be the difference between a business sinking or swimming, especially for a local business. Because of this, using all of the tools at your disposal to ensure that you build up that foundation with Google is critical to your business’s success.

Think about it this way. Could you imagine another business surviving for very long without any organic traffic? Ads are great, as is social media, but the people that you most want to attract will often need to find you, and not the other way around.

How Long Does It Take To See Results?

We mentioned before that SEO takes time, and it does. It does not provide the same amount of instant gratification as PPC ads, email chains, or even social media marketing. However, most marketers now prefer SEO to PPC and say it’s a more valuable resource and for a lower cost.

In terms of long-term value, that’s absolutely correct. SEO brings in organic traffic that’s more likely to be interested in purchasing your products and services. CTRs tend to be higher, as do conversion rates, and as does your overall ROI. However, if you’re looking for a timeframe, a few factors need to be taken into account.

How Old Is The Website?

For a new website, you will face an uphill battle trying to earn Google’s trust. In some circumstances, a fresh website may even play to your advantage.

For example, a new website that’s creating quality content on a regular basis, working in tandem with a social media strategy, and getting some attention from other blogs will have an easier time climbing the ladder than an older website that has lost Google’s trust.

However, if you’ve been steadily building for months and it feels painfully slow to see results, professional web services will be exactly what you need to speed up the process. If you’ve already laid the groundwork, you could start seeing results within a couple of months. When developing from scratch, it could take anywhere from 4 to 6 months to really start seeing results.

Not only that, the services will be cheaper. It’s easier to fix what a website is lagging than to build one from scratch. If you’ve already built the foundation, having an expert build on it may be exactly what you need.

Scale Of Strategy

Another factor to consider is the scale of your business, its goals, and its competition. If you’re trying to compete with the New York Times as a small-scale newspaper, that’s going to take lifetimes. The NYT just has too many resources, well-established authority, and too much content to compete with.

However, if you’re a local newspaper trying to compete with other local newspapers, or a pizza shop trying to crush the local competition, it could be a walk in the park if you have the right tools.

With a clear, concise strategy, regular (quality) content, and the right keywords and backlinks, you could be at the top of a Google search in a matter of months. It depends on the nature of your competition and the scale of your operation.

Online Behavior

Google penalizes websites for behaving in ways they don’t want them to. This includes buying or selling links, poor interactions online, and ratings from review websites. These are only a few examples but there are a number of factors that could slow down the process of climbing up the rankings.

However, if you follow Google’s best practices, have a clear SEO strategy, and have a professional team assisting you with that strategy, you should expect to start seeing results in around 4 months to start seeing serious results.

This is assuming you are building links at the average pace, optimizing your content, and avoiding penalties. If 4 months seems like a long time, don’t worry. You will see increases over that time, especially if you’re using ads and social media marketing in tandem with your SEO strategy (which you should).

You can also speed up the process by developing and implementing a link-building strategy. This is the foundation for Google’s trust in a website and it needs to be executed properly. Again, buying links will get you penalized.

If you create the proper “link bait” on your website and work on your networking and affiliate marketing, you will be able to speed up the process dramatically.

Once you start seeing these serious rankings, the wait will be well worth it. Ranking at the top of even one or two Google searches could show positive benefits to your company (and even keep it afloat) for years to come.

Watch That Traffic Build!

Now that you know the benefits of WordPress SEO services, you know what to do. There’s a lot of traffic out there and you could be getting some of it without having to pay for an ad. Look around for the right deal for your company and you’ll start seeing lasting results. Stay up to date with our latest marketing news, and contact us with any questions you have!