Best SEO Companies & Services

Search engine optimization is a set of processes to improve the quality and quantity of organic traffic by increasing the website's visibility in search engines. As search engines focus on providing optimum service for the users, it ranks those sites higher with appropriate information and easy to navigate and understand. SEO service providers improve the design and content of web pages to make them appealing the search engines. They further ensure that the website contains relevant keywords so the search engine displays the site to the people searching for specific topics.

There are three main categories of SEO:

• On-Page Optimization: On-page SEO concentrates on the contents of the individual pages. The SEO experts strategize the content accordingly to drive rankings. Professional SEO services perform site audits to ensure that the URL structure of the site is strong, along with the meta tag and meta description of the page. Three factors play a critical role in on-page optimization:

1. Keyword research

2. Quality Content

3. Keyword Optimization

• Technical SEO: This focuses on improving the backend structure of the site. Technical SEO increases the site's readability making it easier for search engines to crawl it. This offers the readers a good user experience and can influence overall traffic and engagement rates. Technical SEO concentrates on the following:

1. Site speed

2. Site architecture

3. Crawlability

4. Security

5. Mobile-friendliness

6. Indexing

7. Structured data

• Off-Page Optimization: Off-Page SEO emphasizes building relationships between clients and other websites. This tactic helps sites gain high-quality backlinks from other websites with higher DA. The search engine assumes that the site has great content when it receives references from varied other authority websites. Following are the top off-page SEO techniques:

1. Guest Blogging

2. Broken Link Acquisition

3. Competitor Research

Apart from the top digital marketing companies, several SEO companies offer a wide range of services to boost the rankings on the SERPs.

The most common services included in SEO campaigns are:

• Keyword Research: This identifies the most searched and popular terms to locate a specific service, product, or information.
• Local SEO: Local SEO solutions optimize the brand for local searches. The SEO experts understand the market and help improve the local rankings thoroughly. 
• Website Audits: Website audits analyze the site's ability to rank in SERPs organically.
• SEO Consulting: Top companies for SEO services offer advice and recommendations on actions required to boost the site's rankings. 
• Link Reclamation: Old URLs must be redirected to the new page while updating the new pages. These redirects are essential for preserving the link juice. 

The SEO agencies offer several other SEO services, such as:

• Link Building
• Conversion Optimization 
• Split Testing
• Analysis and Reporting, etc.

Step 1: Look for content/topics relevant to the core business.

Before commencing keyword research, find out the topics you wish to target. These topics can generally relate to your business in a close group or a broader sense. It is essential to consider buyers' cogitation and compile a list of issues that would allow your business to be discovered by the target audience.

Step 2: Shortlist Keywords and Phrases to Identify Sub-Topics.

The next step is finding keyword phrases to help you rank in SERPs. These are the exact keywords that the potential customers are searching for. Targeting these strings of keywords will return your web pages in search engines. Use various analytics tools such as Google Analytics to distinguish the keywords prospects use to discover your site.

Step 3: Focus on Related Search Terms.

While targeting keywords, you must thoroughly cover multiple keywords or strings to grab a spot on search result pages. You may manually discover different search terms by searching for a specific topic on Google.com and scrolling to the bottom of the results. You will find several other long-tail or short-tail search results related to the original keyword that you should consider.

Step 4: Analyze Your Competitors

Ranking on SERPs does not solely depend on your SEO campaigns. Instead, the SEO tactics applied by your competitor can affect your ranking. If your competitors have an active keyword strategy, your website will likely rank behind theirs. You can take the help of various SEO tools to analyze their site. You may focus on the keywords your competitors are ranking for and the keywords they have ignored since this may serve as an excellent opportunity for your website to create its market share on different terms.

Step 5: Trim down the Keyword List.

Keywords help the crawlers identify the topic you are offering. But it is vital to avoid keyword stuffing in the articles. Although Google has not specified the exact keyword density, SEO experts believe that the ideal percentage of general keywords is somewhere between 2% to 4%. If keywords are used excessively in an article or web page, the chances of Google penalizing the website are exceptionally high. The Google AdWords Keyword Planner is an efficient SEO tool showing the shortlisted keywords' volume and traffic approximations. This will help you eliminate low-volume keywords and narrow down your list.

For your business to capture the attention of nearby prospects, SEO specialists must enlist a robust local SEO strategy.

The following are the most effective actions to perform local SEO for multiple locations.

• Single Domain: When a company targets multiple geographical areas, it may be tempted to design websites using separate domains for individual locations. However, this may harm your SEO marketing efforts since each domain's content, links, and keywords will clash with the attributes of the other. Using a subfolder within the primary site is advisable to manage and highlight the multiple locations where you offer services.

• Location-Specific Content: To rank on local search engine pages, you must create content relevant to the focus area of your business. Optimize on-page elements for individual target regions. For instance, conceive page titles, H1, HTML tags, and the content and image in a manner that resonates with the local population. Businesses offering services in multiple regions must create a unique ‘Location’ landing page that branches out further to include separate location pages.

• Claim Your Business Listings: To improve your standing in local search results, you must create and claim your business listing on 'Google My Business' and various online directories like Yelp, Bing, etc. You should also provide added information such as contact details, working hours, available services, etc. This will streamline your business's data and allow local prospects to discover your company effortlessly.

• White Hat Technique: White hat SEO is an ethical and technical practice focusing solely on the requirements and interests of the audiences as opposed to the SERPs rankings. White hat SEO creates a steady, long-term layout to garner organic search traffic to the site. The SEO experts consider the guidelines established by the Search engines to warrant exceptional user experience. The primary white hat techniques incorporate generating quality inbound links, creating original, engaging, and informative content, using keywords, keyword analysis, keyword-rich meta tags, etc., to constantly improve the SEO ranking. 

• Black Hat Technique: Black hat refers to SEO techniques and strategies where unlawful practices are implemented for higher search rankings. Black hat SEO is considered a 'quick-fix' to appeal to the bots in search instead of focusing on audiences. Although this SEO technique may offer a quick return on the site, it is a rather harmful practice in the long run. Google is known to ban websites from search engines or de-index as a penalty for malpractices. The most common black hat techniques include link farming, keyword stuffing, hidden texts and links, plagiarized content, misleading redirects, etc.

Google's algorithm is ever-changing. Hence, SEO experts have to improve their tactics to get results constantly. However, there are particular mistakes that the algorithm despises. If these activities are enacted, the site can suffer significant damage. 

• Intrusive Ads or Sneaky Redirects: A page filled with irrelevant and bothersome ads will fail to rank high on search results. At times, the ads and the page content are difficult to distinguish. This will compel Google to categorize the site under the "bad user experience" column. In addition, if there are unnatural links from the site, Google will detect them and implement a ban on the site.

• Hidden Texts: Certain agencies hide main keywords using white text on a white background. They employ this tactic so only the bot can spot it while crawling the site. But this practice can get the site permanently banned from search result pages. 

• Plagiarized Content: Search Engines hate duplicate content. SERPs display content that is original and unique on the top. Whereas websites posting copied content frequently will be penalized.

• Avoiding Social Media Marketing: Social media marketing is considered to be one of the indirect ranking factors. The top social media marketing companies will help boost the reach of content. This, in turn, will increase the chances of gaining credible backlinks from reputed sites. In short, by avoiding social media marketing, brands can lose an enormous opportunity of boosting SEO rankings.

• User-Generated Spam: Guest posting or user-generated content is a great way to post unique and engaging articles on the site. However, low-quality or gibberish content published without moderation will cause a decline in the ranking on SERPs.

The responsibilities of the SEO experts do not end after the implementation of the SEO marketing strategy. They must keep a constant watch over their performance. Key performance indicators (KPIs) are measurable metrics that indicate the campaign's success.

The most vital SEO KPIs are as follows:

• Organic Sessions: Organic sessions define the entire duration from the redirection of a visitor from the search engine to their exit from the site. The organic session also analyzes the activities of the user throughout the visit. An improvement in organic sessions indicates growth in organic traffic. Moreover, the increase in click-through rate aligns with getting more genuine clients, denoting a successful SEO marketing campaign.

• Page Load Time: The loading time of a site can be a determining KPI. If a site takes a long time to load, the user is more prone to bounce back to the results page. This can also prevent the user from visiting in the future due to poor experiences. While redesigning the website, pay attention to improving the loading time by optimizing images and graphics of the site. 

• Bounce Rate: The bounce rate determines the rate of sessions where the user does not perform any action and leaves immediately after the site loads. The bounce rate increases when the pages or content seems irrelevant to the visitors. Generally, it is considered excellent if the bounce rate is under 40. However, the ideal lowest bounce rate depends on the niche or industry.

• Growth in Keyword Ranking: Monitor the website’s rankings for high-volume keywords. The site’s standing is excellent if the ranking is closer to number one. However, maintaining a close watch as an update in Google’s algorithm can create instability in the rankings. Focus on developing great content as well as link-building to boost ranking.

• Conversions: An obvious SEO key performance indicator is the conversion ratio. If the site does not generate leads or convert inquiries to sales, the core business objective of expanding the customer base remains futile. Focus on Conversion Rate Optimization while ensuring exceptional user experience.

Before jumping into recovery, it is crucial to understand how to detect whether Google has penalized the site. The SEO specialists constantly run diagnostics on the website to look for any potential problem in the SEO strategy implemented.

There are two significant ways SEO experts can detect obstacles. One of the ways is when a business notices a sudden drop in organic search traffic. The other is receiving a message within the Google Search Console.

Depending on whether the site receives Manual or Algorithmic Penalties, SEO marketing professionals can clean up the chaos accordingly. 

• Manual Penalties
  Manual penalties are allotted when an SEO analyst at Google investigates the site and deduces specific quandaries. A manual penalty is then displayed on the search console with a detailed description.
  Resolution: First and foremost, ascertain the cause of the penalty, whether it is a link or thin content penalty. Next, put in efforts to rectify the predicament. Once convinced that the cause of retribution is remedied, submit a Reconsideration Request to Google appealing the withdrawal of the penalty.

• Algorithmic Penalties
  With Google’s changing algorithms, it is likely that a specific activity is considered poor. This may result in a drastic decline in rankings and organic traffic. It may be challenging to identify the exact algorithm harming the website.
  Resolution: Take assistance from specialists with an extensive understanding of the algorithms to analyze the reason for the penalty. Eliminate link-related issues such as duplicate links, non-editorial links, paid links, etc. Also, focus on improving the quality of the content on web pages. Retaining a higher position on result pages may take time, but adopting SEO best practices will definitely pay off.

Whether a company is looking to hire top SEO firms or freelancers, specific attributes must be scrutinized before partnering.

• Location: The Internet revolution allows businesses to hire SEO service providers worldwide. However, a local option further simplifies reaching the SEO expert. 

• Budget: SEO companies can offer different services that fit the company's budget. For the first time, opt for a mid-range solution to scrutinize the campaign's success.

• Best Practices: Inquire regarding the practices followed by the SEO company. Few firms follow black hat techniques to deliver quick results. Avoid them as they will harm the brand more over a longer duration.

• Testimonials: An SEO agency that multiple previous clients vouch for represents client satisfaction as well as the credibility of the firm. It is advisable to analyze the feedback and references on reputed ranking platforms like GoodFirms.co to ensure the credibility and authenticity of the service provider.

• Services: Inquire about the services and tools offered by the SEO company. Verifying whether the agency can merge the newly implemented SEO tactics with the existing marketing strategies is essential. Finally, ask if they provide timely reports mapping the campaign results.

The price of SEO solutions varies considerably based on the different services offered. 

A survey by GoodFirms on SEO strategies, techniques, and trends indicates that the price for SEO services usually ranges between $500-$1000 (USD). This price is charged for the optimization of 10 keywords for 30 days.

Prospects must analyze the rates of various service providers and compare them to select the one that fits well within the budget.

Explore the above list to find the top SEO agencies worldwide. We likewise offer country-wise segregation of the leading SEO specialists for countries like the USA, India, the United Kingdom, etc. The dedicated researchers of GoodFirms have carefully curated this list of SEO companies after contemplating all factors and techniques.