A Guide To Understand SEO: FAQs About SEO, Answered

Paul PetersenJanuary 5, 2023January 5, 2023No tags

Introduction

Search engine optimisation, commonly referred to as SEO, is nothing new. It has been around for years as most businesses use and implement effective SEO strategies to attract new customers, gain leads, and earn conversions.

When the COVID-19 pandemic came, it highlighted the importance of SEO, especially during the lockdown period, when most people had to stay home to prevent exposure to virus transmissions. Many businesses, especially brick-and-mortar stores and startups, had no choice back then but to transition their operations online to survive.

Given that the internet is the only way to reach out to target audiences, it is not surprising that businesses rely on it more. The CEO of Twilio, Jeff Lawson, spoke with CNBC and mentioned the COVID-19 pandemic sped up the digital transition by six (6) years.

As you have seen in the illustration below, the number of global internet users dramatically increased from 2019 to 2022. Currently, 69% of the world’s population has internet access, which gives businesses more opportunities to expand their customer base and earn more profits.

Retrieved the data of global internet users from the InternetWorldStats.

Since the growth of internet users continues to increase yearly, businesses would benefit more from SEO if they began implementing effective SEO strategies sooner rather than later. Doing so should give them an advantage over their competitors.

It is natural to have questions about SEO if you own a brick-and-mortar store that has gone digital or if you have recently established your online business. Read on to find out the answers to the frequently asked questions (FAQs) concerning SEO.

19 Frequently Asked Questions About SEO, Answered

FAQ #1: How Do Digital Marketing Agencies That Offer SEO Services In Singapore Typically Operate?

Digital marketing agencies first understand their client’s nature of business, the industry they belong in, their goals and objectives, and the current status of their digitalisation. Does the client have a website? How does the website perform? Upon learning these things, the digital marketing company can offer services that can fulfil the needs of the client.

Digital marketing agencies that offer SEO services in Singapore operate by understanding their client’s primary SEO goal. They will explain the SEO strategies to implement, including SEO terms if the clients are unfamiliar with some words they encountered during the discussion.

FAQ #2: How Much Do SEO Services Cost in Singapore?

The SEO services cost in Singapore highly depends on who will execute the SEO strategies. Between an SEO freelancer and an SEO agency, the former is suitable for a short-term or one-time project due to limited workforce. If you opt for an SEO freelancer, the average cost would be around $200 to $400 per month, and only basic SEO services are performed.

An SEO company in Singapore, on the other hand, is great for long-term or complex projects since they have a team of professionals that specialises in various fields, not just SEO. The cost of an SEO agency’s SEO services heavily relies on the type of SEO package that you will choose to engage with them, and the starting cost is around $400 per month. A basic SEO package is relatively cheaper than an advanced SEO package because the latter often addresses the technical issues of a website to improve its online presence more efficiently.

LEARN MORE: SEO Pricing In Singapore: Expectations And Reality

FAQ #3: How Do I Select The Best SEO Company In Singapore?

The best SEO company in Singapore highly depends if the SEO services they provide are relevant to your SEO objectives and budget. Below are some of the factors you should consider when choosing the best SEO company for your business:

Review the portfolio or case study
Read client reviews
Check how much the SEO pricing
Grasp how an SEO agency track and measures campaign performance
Set up a meeting in person

FAQ #4: Does My Business Need SEO?

Yes. Every business from various industries needs SEO to rank on search engine results pages (SERPs) to reach its target audience organically as 69% of the world has internet access. Businesses today should take advantage of this fact and start implementing SEO so they can reap more traffic, leads, and conversions in the future.

FAQ #5: How Can I Find The Keywords Related To My Business That People Are Searching For?

There are many ways to find keywords related to your business that people are searching for online. The easiest and fastest way to do so is to use keyword research tools such as Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, SEMrush, and Keyword Tool (KWFinder). Below are the differences between these keyword research tools:

Google Keyword Planner
- Google Keyword Planner is a free keyword research tool offered by Google to help businesses find keywords related to their products or services. They can also uncover estimated monthly searches received for particular words and phrases and determine the cost when they create SEM campaigns.
Ahrefs
- Another popular tool that many businesses use is Ahrefs. Even though it is not a specialised tool for keyword research, it has a specific feature called Keywords Explorer that provides hundreds to thousands of keyword suggestions.
SEMrush
- SEMrush is also a one-stop SEO solution like Ahrefs since it can be used for various things besides keyword research. One particular thing that stands out in SEMrush is that businesses can track and collect data for any website, making competitor research easier.
Keyword Tool (KWFinder)
- This one is a specialised tool for keyword research, which can also help find and analyse competitors’ keywords, including the keyword search volume.

LEARN MORE: Keyword Research Guide: Identify The Right Keywords To Optimise Your Digital Marketing Campaigns

FAQ #6: What Are Google’s Most Important Ranking Factors?

It is no secret that a search engine’s algorithm affects the rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs). For Google Algorithm, the following factors have a significant influence on the ranking of Google’s SERPs.

Page Speed
Mobile-Friendliness
HTTPS
On-Page (E-A-T/Content Relevancy)
Off-Page / Backlinks
Technical SEO (CWV)
User Engagement

FAQ #7: How Many Keywords Does My Website Need To Rank On Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs)?

Even though it seems like adding more keywords will help your website rank higher on SERPs, that is not how it works. In reality, it would only result in keyword stuffing, which violates Google’s webmaster guidelines.

LEARN MORE: Keyword Stuffing: How Can It Kill Your SEO?

The ideal number of keywords that a website should focus on per web page is around two to three keywords that are a variation of one another. Keywords with variations refer to something that focuses on one thing. For example, a medical clinic, medical centre, and medical facility all mean the same. Including these keywords can help drive searchers who type these keywords to the web page where these are.

FAQ #8: What Digital Channel Should I Use for Marketing?

Besides having a website for your business, you should also consider marketing your products or services on social media platforms. That will allow you to interact, connect, and communicate with your target audience more intimately.

Given the difficulty of remaining active on all existing social media platforms, you should select the best platform to market your business and implement your SEO strategies. Take note of the six steps below to help you determine which social media platforms can help you raise brand awareness and strengthen your online presence.

Step 1: Understand the different platforms and their uses
Step 2: Go to where your target customers are
Step 3: Consider the nature of your business
Step 4: Define the objective of your business
Step 5: Build and be consistent with your digital marketing strategy across all platforms
Step 6: Sneak a peek at your competitors

LEARN MORE: Choose The Right Social Media Marketing Platform In 6 Steps

FAQ #9: Why Collaborate With An SEO Agency?

Collaborating with an SEO agencyis better than learning and implementing SEO strategies yourself. With the years of experience and expertise of staff from an SEO agency, you can rest assured that they will do the job right. Below are the other benefits of outsourcing your SEO services:

Better organic discovery
Access to SEO tools
Cost-effective
Boost credibility and gain trust
Faster results
Gains the latest update from google
Focus on your core business

How you collaborate with them is key to making things work and meeting your SEO goals. For example, if you have a niche business and want your SEO agency to create an engaging campaign, they will need more in-depth information about what you offer. Ensure to rely on every detail they need so they can easily create engaging content and campaigns for your business.

FAQ #10: Is It Worth Paying For SEO Services?

You can also do SEO in-house on your own rather than outsourcing your SEO needs to an SEO agency, but remember that it would not be an easy journey. You must first understand the fundamentals of SEO, stay up-to-date with the latest SEO trends, and put your SEO knowledge into practice to successfully implement effective SEO strategies for your business.

It will cost a lot of money, time, and effort to complete all of these (buying books about SEO and subscribing to SEO tools). A more cost-effective and less time-consuming option is to hire an SEO freelancer, or better yet, an SEO company, as they have more in-depth SEO knowledge and experience. You will become rest assured that they can meet your SEO goals faster and better because of their years of SEO expertise. With their help, you can focus more on your business and meet your customers’ growing demands.

It is worth paying for SEO services if they are offered by a trusted SEO agency. With their years of experience and expertise in SEO, you can rest assured that they can help you reach out and connect with your target audience.

To guarantee what you are paying for SEO services will be worthwhile, consider having consistent communication with your chosen SEO company. Your collaboration with them will provide an excellent return on investment (ROI).

FAQ #11: What Do SEO Agencies Do?

All SEO agencies only have one purpose—to help their clients achieve their SEO goals. For instance, an SEO company will carry out keyword research, content creation, link building, and other strategies to increase a business’s online visibility.

A reliable SEO company will do everything as long as it does not violate the search engine’s webmaster guidelines. Doing so should prevent their clients from receiving penalties, such as a much lower rank or being completely removed from SERPs, which is often the case for websites that implement black hat SEO tactics.

A black hat SEO is a practice that uses unethical techniques such as keyword stuffing, cloaking, and more, so the website in question will rank higher on SERPs within a shorter timespan.

FAQ #12: Are SEO Results Guaranteed?

There are no guaranteed SEO results since search engines’ algorithms often change, which influences rankings on SERPs. A trustworthy SEO agency should not promise guaranteed SEO results but mention that they will try their best to meet their client’s SEO goal.

FAQ #13: Which Agency Offers The Best SEO Services?

The agency that offers the best SEO services are SEO vendors that have proven the excellence of their work by gaining recognition from well-known entities such as Google, Meta (Facebook), Clutch, Marketing Interactive, etc.

Consider checking the awards and accomplishments of your shortlisted SEO agencies to determine which one among them offers the best SEO services that suit your business the most.

FAQ #14: How Do I Create SEO-Friendly Content?

Creating SEO-friendly content takes skills. Readers should understand and find value in the content they are reading, which they found on SERPs. Below are four steps you have to go through to help you write and create SEO-friendly content.

Keyword Research
- Doing keyword research is the first step since it allows you to know which keywords to use and include in your content. Adding relevant keywords help increase the content relevance, but you should not stuff too many keywords. Otherwise, the content will seem unnatural and too promotional to the readers.
Content Writing
- Besides ensuring there is no grammatical error or wrong spelling, your content should be original and no less than 300 words. It could be longer than that, but the entire content should be easy to read, or else the readers would only skim through it.
Optimise
- The next step is optimise. Besides interlinking relevant sources, you should include relevant keywords in the Page Title, Permalink, Meta Description, Image Alt Text, and more to make it SEO-friendly content.
Promote
- While it is true that most online experiences begin on search engines, more potential customers will come across SEO-friendly content if you promote it online, like on social media platforms. Those who follow your business on Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms will get notified about your newly uploaded post and encourage your followers to check it out.

LEARN MORE: 4 Steps to Writing an SEO-Friendly Blog

FAQ #15: How Long Does It Take To Learn SEO?

It depends on the person since everyone learns differently. Some people learn SEO faster than others. On average, however, it takes at least one to three months for a person to have a solid foundation in basic SEO. Given that SEO is ever-evolving, it is only natural that learning SEO does not end there. Acquiring new SEO knowledge is a continuous process that beginners and experts need to do.

FAQ #16: Does SEO Require Coding?

No. Doing SEO does not require coding, but an SEO consultant may choose to learn the terms of website development so they can easily communicate with the website developers and website designers they would like to implement technical SEO in the backend.

FAQ #17: How Does SEO Work?

The SEO process begins with keyword research. It is a method that assists in determining the most searched keywords. These are the words, phrases, or sentences that people are searching for or typing online, most notably on search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

They will divide the keywords into categories and use each category to create content once they have determined the keywords. By strategically inserting keywords into content, you can increase its relevance and make it visible to people searching for the same or similar topic.

For example, this holiday season, the most searched keyword is Christmas. Incorporating this word and anything related to the holiday season will most likely appear more on SERPs and content that does not have these keywords.

An SEO agency considers trends when creating content for their clients to increase the relevance of the campaign they are about to publish and share online. Being relevant allows any content to appear more and high on SERPs.

FAQ #18: What Are The 4 Types Of SEO?

While SEO may help businesses become more visible online, it comes in different forms. The common types of SEO are on-page SEO, off-page SEO, technical SEO, and local SEO. Here are there differences below:

On-Page SEO
- It refers to any action taken and implemented within a website to help it rank higher on SERPs. The following elements should be optimised for successful on-page SEO: title tag, meta description, header tags, alt text, file size, URL, internal linking and more.

Off-Page SEO
- Because all activity occurs outside of the website, this type of SEO is opposed to on-page SEO. It works by sharing content and linking from reputable platforms and driving traffic back to the website, which helps improve the ranking, online presence, and authority by earning links, also known as backlinks.

Technical SEO
- Technical SEO handles the technical side to help a website become accessible to search engines, and their bots or crawlers can crawl through web pages and index them to appear to the respective SERPs.
Local SEO
- Local SEO, however, focuses on increasing the visibility of a website in local SERPs. Businesses implement this to draw the attention of local buyers and local brand recognition.

LEARN MORE: Local SEO: Why Is It Essential For Your Business?

FAQ #19: How Long Does SEO Take To Produce Results?

It highly depends on the SEO strategies you or your chosen SEO agency has implemented for your business and the search engine’s algorithms. Be mindful that your desired SEO results may take some time because of algorithm updates. Generally speaking, it would take at least three months or longer before SEO produces results due to the growing competition.

Do You Have More Questions About SEO?

If there is anything left unanswered, do not hesitate to reach out to an SEO agency and ask them directly what you would like to learn more about SEO. You can be confident that they will be able to respond to your inquiries because they are always informed about the most recent SEO trends and strategies. They will also be more than happy to explain everything related to SEO so you will have a better understanding before making any decisions.

Contact OOm, a leading and best SEO company in Singapore, at +65 6391 0930 or leave a message on their website to get the rest of your questions about SEO answered by SEO vendors themselves.