Choosing an SEO Agency in Los Angeles

In business, perhaps nothing is more important than advertising and marketing. No matter how high the quality of your goods or services is, and no matter how competitive your prices are, you won't do any business if nobody knows about them.

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It's been a long journey to today when you will now see an SEO agency in Los Angeles. Advertising has been around as long as there have been businesses. Signs, people standing in front of establishments wearing sandwich boards and ringing bells, and good old-fashioned word of mouth were the mainstays.

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As technology evolved, business owners were able to print flyers and place ads in newspapers and magazines. Eventually, the radio came along, and then television. It was possible to reach huge numbers of potential customers with entertaining advertisements that showed off a company's goods and services to their greatest advantage.

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PCs and the internet were revolutionary in the way they changed how people work, play, and communicate. Now, with tablets, smartphones, smartwatches, and social media, marketing has gone digital. People use the internet to search for pretty much everything. Need a plumber? Do a Google search. Have to buy flowers and a cake for Mom's birthday? Google it.

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It makes sense that the best place to market your business is online. That's where people look so that's where you need to be. A website and a social media presence are good things to have but you need to drive people to it. That's where search engine optimization comes into play. It's the key to digital marketing and if you don't utilize it well, your competition will.

Can I Find an SEO Agency in Los Angeles?

Large cities are packed with businesses of all kinds. New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Philadelphia have plenty of businesses and it is easy to find an SEO company. If you are in Southern California, you will have no trouble finding an SEO agency in Los Angeles.

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How can you locate one? That's easy. Do a Google search. Naturally, companies whose business is SEO are going to pop up in searches. You won't have trouble finding them as they will likely be on the first results page. That is the goal of SEO marketing. Get on page one as close to the top as possible. People will only scroll through so many results pages, so you want them to see you right away.

What Is Search Engine Optimization?

Search Engine Optimization is a set of methods used to promote a website. The idea is that when users search for a product or service that your company provides, the link to your website will be prominent, preferably on the first page, ideally at the top of the list.

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When it's done well, SEO maximizes the relevance of a web page's content as well as its link popularity. It does this through the use of keywords. These are groups of one or more words that most users will type into a search box. If these keywords appear in your content, the search engine will locate it and present it as a search result. You may wonder how they do this.

How Do Search Engines Work?

Search engines run complex algorithms that seek out the words people search for among the enormous network of websites on the internet. These are impressive programs that, in a sense, understand what users seek and provide links to sites that contain that information.

Why Is Google the Focus of SEO?

Search engine optimization companies focus on Google and for good reason. It is by far the most popular and dominant search engine and has about 92% of the market. It's easy to see the dominance by the fact that the word, "Google", has become a verb, synonymous with "search". SEO marketing naturally focuses on Google as that is where the vast majority of users are looking for what they need.

How Does Google Make Money?

Google's reputation makes it profitable. People trust that they will be able to locate what they need through searches and business trust that potential customers will find them using Google. Businesses can also place ads at the top of Google search pages. These look similar to search results and they pay Google on a pay-per-click (PPC) basis. Each time someone clicks on an ad, Google makes some money. This is essential as in 2020, 80% of Google's total profit came from advertising.

How Did SEO Marketing Develop?

The first internet search engine, Archie, was launched in September 1990. Others soon followed as the internet became accessible to more and more people.

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The term SEO marketing was first used in 1997. Legend has it that the manager of the rock band, Jefferson Starship was the first to utilize SEO techniques to move the band's website up from page 4. At that time, you certainly couldn't find an SEO agency in Los Angeles, so people had to create the process on their own.

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The Starship story may or may not be true. Multimedia Marketing Group's John Audette began using the term in February 1997 and by 1998, companies were beginning to develop tactics to improve their position in search results. As the 21st Century drew near, more and more search engines were launched, each vying for the most popular.

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By about 2000, Google's search engine began to rise to dominance. The company developed the algorithm, PageRank, which determines the relevance of a website based on how many pages it has and how important the relevance of the page that links back to the site is. This set the stage for SEO to develop into the effective form of marketing it is today.

Why Is SEO Marketing Important?

SEO has now become the most viable and cost-effective way to reach customers. If you aren't using it, you are putting your company at a great disadvantage. Over the last several years, and especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, commerce has shifted heavily to online sales.

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The importance of search engine optimization services will just continue to grow. It has several advantages:

SEO enables you to understand your customers

The data that can be collected using SEO helps to pinpoint exactly what customers want and need when they are searching. Search data can be analyzed using AI to provide vital information.

SEO builds up confidence and trust in your customers

Good SEO practices help build clean, easy searches for customers that turn up the information they seek. This creates confidence in your brand and they will continue to seek you out because of their trust.

SEO provides a good user experience

Users want a positive experience when conducting a search. Google has developed the ability to differentiate between a good and bad experience for the user. Companies can use that to their advantage.

The primary source of website traffic is most often search

Internet searches are by far what brings the most people to your website. In encouraging engagement it is essential to use best SEO practices and that means Google, as it is the most popular search engine by a wide margin.

SEO impacts sales

Sales are the lifeblood of most businesses. An SEO agency in Los Angeles can help make your customers aware of exciting new products, incredible deals, and special offers. It increases the visibility of your brand and can have a positive impact on the buying cycle.

Best SEO practices are always improving and being updated

Google's algorithms are constantly changing and to keep up, SEO practices must change too. The best methods are continually adapted to help companies stay ahead of the competition. This is why an agency is such a valuable asset.

SEO marketing is the best way to lead potential customers to your website and thus to your business. The fact is that 59% of shoppers use Google to research products they intend to buy, whether they plan to make that purchase online or at a brick-and-mortar store. Further, 49% use searches to find new products. This clearly illustrates the importance of SEO marketing.

What Are the Types of SEO Marketing?

SEO marketing can be complex and there is more than one type. There are three basic categories of SEO:

On-page SEO

On-page SEO is the largest and most commonly employed type of SEO marketing. It works by optimizing the content on your website. This includes text, photos, and video. The idea is to present it in such a way as to make sure that visitors to your site, as well as search engines like Google, completely understand what your company is all about. Content should be high-quality and use keywords effectively.

Off-page SEO

Your company's website, as important as it is, is not the only place you can utilize SEO. Working off-page, you can create backlinks. These are links to your site that are placed on other websites. Backlinks that are relevant and high-quality drive more traffic to your site as well as give you more domain authority. This means search engines will interpret your site to be more relevant and reputable, thus placing higher in search results.

Technical SEO

The third type is technical SEO and it is every bit as important as the other two. Technical SEO has to do with the design and inner workings of your site. You want the site itself and all media to load quickly and play smoothly. Optimizing the content for search engine crawlers and mobile devices is an essential part of technical SEO.

In addition to there being more than one type of SEO tactic, there are also multiple SEO tactics.

What Are the 4 SEO Marketing Tactics?

A good SEO agency in Los Angeles will employ the four SEO marketing tactics that can boost your website in search results:

1. Keyword research

Before you can begin using keywords, you have to know which ones to use. If you are not using the correct keywords, you could have the greatest products on the face of the Earth, but searchers won't be finding you. This is where keyword research comes into play.

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Tools such as Google Keyword Planner, Moz, and Ahrefs help seek out the right keywords to utilize to increase traffic to your site. Good keywords will put you ahead of your competition but keep you away from corporate giants such as Amazon. These tools are useful to narrow down your keyword list to the best suited for the task.

2. Image Optimization

Although the written content on your website is what Google and other search engines are most concerned with, images matter as well. Search crawlers will analyze photos as well and in fact, Google has an image search. Optimizing images creates another way for visitors to access your site.

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The first thing to do is to incorporate your keywords into the file names of your photos. You will also want to place them in the alt attributes section for the images on your website. This provides another way for search engines to rate the relevance and value of your website.

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The file format and size of your images are very important. Excessively large images take longer to load and degrade user experience. They also may negatively impact your search ranking on Google.

3. Competitive Analysis

One of the most important SEO tactics is analyzing your competition. Just as NFL teams study game film of their opponents, you need to know what competing companies are up to. The idea is to find out how they are using the keywords you plan to target. By taking the strategies of your competition into account, you can develop better ones that will carry your company past them in search rankings.

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Competitive analysis begins by finding which of your competitors' pages are performing the best. Next, determine where the organic traffic is coming from. For example, significant traffic may be coming from a blog post or generated by a post on a social media platform such as Instagram or Facebook. You can use these ideas to increase traffic to your site. This kind of analysis can be done using the same tools that work for keyword research.

4. Active Link Building

Active link building takes more time and effort to do effectively, but it is worth putting in the work. It can boost your search rankings by allowing other websites to pull your site up the list along with them. An SEO agency in Los Angeles can be very helpful.

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You must establish a strong presence on business platforms and social media sites before you begin active link-building. These kinds of sites have great influence and the links that you generate on them build a foundation that can push you up higher on search results lists.

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The next step to take is to pitch your business, products, and services to news outlets and websites that are used by your target audience and relevant to what you do. You can pay to launch a PR campaign or better, still, if you have expertise on a subject relevant to that site, you can pitch a blog post with links that point back to your site.

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Each of these tactics on its own can boost your site's search engine visibility significantly. Used together, they can push to page one of the search results and perhaps to the top.

Types of Digital Marketing Agencies

Utilizing SEO practices and tactics is vital to compete in today's internet-driven market. These strategies, however, can be time-consuming and are best put in place by people with expertise. Rather than trying to learn them on your own or hiring someone with those skills, it is often more cost-effective to use a digital marketing agency.

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There is more than one type of digital marketing agency. Some specialize in one area while others can offer more than one type of marketing strategy. Choosing the right agency for your company requires knowing the types that are out there and what they do:

Digital Marketing Agency

The first type, the digital marketing agency pulls in customers online by using single-channel, multichannel, or omnichannel marketing. Agencies use single and multichannel marketing to reach customers through channels such as social media, email, blogs, and websites. Omnichannel marketing uses many devices and channels and integrates them seamlessly throughout their lifecycles. Digital marketing agencies use digital methods and generally don't offer traditional ways of advertising.

Full-Service Digital Marketing Agency

Generally the largest of digital marketing agencies, the full-service variety offers many different methods and services of marketing. Given their experience and expertise in the aspects of digital marketing, such as website design and lead nurturing campaigns, many businesses like to partner with full-service agencies. This type of agency can provide needed marketing services at a lower cost for a company than hiring a team of their own.

Inbound Marketing Agency

Inbound marketing tactics and strategies differ from the outbound type in that they seek to optimize a company's online visibility, making it easy for customers to find it. This enables trust to be built with the customers over time and can increase sales. It generally takes a long time for these tactics to work; about six months to a year but the results are often dramatic.

SEO Agency

This type of marketer, such as an SEO agency in Los Angeles, specializes in the types of SEO strategies and tactics that drive a company's website up higher and higher on search results lists. They employ specialists in each aspect of SEO optimization tactics and strategies.

Social Media Agency

Social media is a huge part of online marketing and these agencies specialize in that type. They help companies establish and maintain a presence on major social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. These agencies are experts in creating ads and content for social media. They also provide services for maintaining interaction with customers, which is a vital part of marketing on social media.

Online Ad/PPC Agency

These agencies are specialists in creating and maintaining online advertising. This involves creating campaigns that the client pays for. Payment is often of the PPC type. This is a pay-per-click method and means just that. The client pays a given amount of money each time a user clicks on their ad. It can be a more costly method of marketing but is often very effective.

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There are many different ways to market and advertise online and various agencies to handle them. SEO is often the most popular and the most effective.

How Much Does It Cost to Hire Los Angeles SEO Services?

The cost of an SEO agency varies based on several factors. These include:

Your company's existing visibility.
Your company's existing brand awareness and exposure.
The technical aptitude of your website and its content.
Your goals and objectives.
The keywords you need to target based on your competition.
How urgently you need results.
Your target audience and demographic.

Is a Los Angeles SEO Company Worth It?

Whether it is worth the cost of hiring an SEO agency depends upon your unique situation. Certainly, having your company website show up higher on search results is going to increase sales and profits. Research shows that click-through rates increase by 36.5% when a site lands on the first page of a Google search.

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It's important to factor in the higher click-through rate as well as what percentage of those clicks convert into sales. Use those numbers to determine if hiring an SEO company is profitable. Very small companies may not be able to afford one, but for a medium-sized business, an SEO company can be a game changer.

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Doing business today means websites, social media, and a strong online presence. None of these things will be very helpful unless you can drive significant numbers of users to your site. SEO marketing is the most effective way to do this. It can be challenging and complex to properly optimize SEO.

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‍Contact Us at elk marketing for expert help in utilizing SEO to move your website to the top of search results and increase your sales and profits.