SEO For Scottish SMEs
There are literally hundreds of Search Engine Optimisation Companies in Scotland (according to Google) each making strong claims as to why they should be your first choice. This can make choosing a SEO company to partner with difficult; however there are a few steps you can take to ensure the SEO Company you chose is right for your business. There is much at stake and search engine optimisation can be expensive, so choosing wisely is important. Hopefully this guide will help you through due diligence and choose wisely.
About Scotland’s SMEs
The value of Scotland’s international exports (excluding oil and gas) exceeds £20 billion. For a small country with a working population of around 2 million this is proof positive that Scotland’s high quality produce has global demand. A major contributor to Scotland’s export figures are the thousands of Small to Medium Size Businesses (SMEs), which represent for over 90% of Scottish enterprises and employ around 53% of the Scotland’s working population.
The nature of many of Scotland’s SMEs is such that they target local and UK markets only. If you run a small plumbing business for example, the idea of exporting to exotic shores has probably never crossed your mind, and why should it! However, regardless of the size of your business, whether you trade locally or internationally or depend on B2B or B2C custom one simple business rule remains constant – nothing happens until a sale is made.
No matter how good your products are, regardless of how much support and after sales service you provide it all means nothing unless you make a sale. Making sales in today’s high speed digital world means being visible at the precise time and place your customers interest is piqued, when they are actively seeking information about the products and services you provide. That is, you need a highly visible web presence.
A highly visible online presence means more than simply maintaining a website, your website needs to be easily found by the right kind of people and guide and help them through every phase of the buying cycle. Your content needs to be relevant, informative and actionable. Above all, your website needs to be usable and accessible and help your customers reach their goals with the least amount of clicks. This is where search engine optimisation can help your business.
How Search Engine Optimisation Can Help Scottish Businesses Grow and Prosper
Your customers are online right now, searching for the products or services you provide, but if they can’t find you they’re never going to buy from you. These are potential customers who know exactly what they want and, for a large part, have already made the decision to buy. The question is, who will they buy from?
It doesn’t mater how niche your products are, whether your market is local or global, the simple fact is your customers decisions to buy are heavily influenced by search. Search engine optimisation puts your marketing message in front of your customers at the time it will have the greatest effect – while they are actively seeking information about their next purchase.
Choosing A Search Engine Optimisation Company
Choosing a Search Engine Optimisation Company is a decision that SMEs throughout Scotland regularly make and it can be a difficult process. With this in mind we have created the following 5 point guide to help you select the best SEO firm to partner with.
- Insist on references from previous clients. Contact those clients and find out if they were satisfied with the service they received, if their SEO campaign achieved its objectives and if they would recommend the company to others.
- Do not get tied into a long contract. If their services are good you will probably stay with them anyway, however, you don’t want to be tied to a company that cannot deliver.
- Do not work with any SEO company that contacts you out of the blue. The services of top performing SEO’s are in constant demand they simply don’t have the time or the necessity to cold call.
- How well does the SEO Company’s own website rank. You would expect a top SEO in Scotland to rank for a wide range of well searched terms, ‘SEO Scotland’, ‘Search Engine Optimisation Scotland’ and ‘SEO Company Scotland’ for example.
- Choose a SEO company that practices a strict no-spam policy. To avoid your website being penalised or completely removed from search engine indices make sure you are dealing with an ethical ‘white hat’ company.
Remember, SEO takes time especially if you are in a competitive market so be prepared for the long haul. The good news is that anything is possible, any ranking is achievable but it takes time and a lot of hard work.