SEO Agency

What is an SEO Agency?

An SEO agency is far more than an online advertising agency and also not a classic web designer, even if services from these areas are partly offered.

When it comes to setting up a website for a company for the first time and bringing it online, companies often turn to a web designer. However, once a website is available on the Internet, this does not mean that sales or new enquiries will be generated. In order to ensure that visitors who actually have an acute need for the offers on the site also end up on the site, the SEO consultancy of a specialised SEO agency is used. This agency has the necessary know-how to bring a website into the focus of its target group. Namely, exactly where they are looking for offers: In the search engines.

The important service of search engine optimizers

Thus the SEO agency takes over tasks which revolve around the area of search engine optimization. The goal is to bring the customer’s website as far forward as possible on Google with relevant search terms that the target group is looking for. Because demonstrably most clicks take place in the first ranks on the first side of the search machine. Anyone who succeeds in attracting the attention of search engine users here has a clear advantage. If a good position can be achieved in the search engine results, this can sometimes lead to sales and customers over many years.

In order to achieve this goal, the SEO agency also takes over online marketing tasks, but also provides services in the area of website structuring and web design. After all, good SEO is always a successful mix of OnPage and OffPage measures.

Thanks to the complete support, the customer has a contact person and is spared the need to talk to a different company for each service. Thanks to the good overview of all online activities of the client, the SEO agency is also able to develop and implement a holistic strategy for the client. The intensity with which the SEO agency is used can vary depending on the requirements. Often the SEO experts are only consulted in an advisory capacity. This is especially the case when, for example, it comes to accompanying relaunches in order not to lose rankings that have already been achieved by revising the website.

Which SEO agency to choose?

For website operators who would like to improve their rankings, the question naturally arises as to what makes a good SEO agency and which provider should be chosen as a partner. After all, SEO optimization is always a long-term cooperation.

Fortunately, there are already evaluation portals that give orientation on how the existing SEO agencies work. An important point of orientation in Germany is the ranking of iBusiness. Netgrade ranks among the top 100 iBusiness companies in the SEO sector. This speaks for the high competence and quality as an SEO service provider. In addition, it provides a good overview of the respective strengths and focal points. netgrade GmbH is also a BVDW member. The Federal Association for the Digital Economy collects the competencies of leading companies in the industry and offers opportunities for exchange and joint further development.  References from well-known companies and successful case studies from various industries also indicate that the SEO agency also masters its craft in a cross-departmental manner.

Important criteria for the question, which SEO agency should be chosen, are of course also the respective orientation, the accessibility as well as the achievements, which are covered. With its location in Würzburg, Netgrade is easily accessible from all regions of Germany. Thanks to its many years of experience, the agency is also in a position to professionally handle projects for companies from various sectors. From merchants and specialized online shops in the consumer sector, the SEO specialists also look after customers from industry, where technical understanding is also in demand. In addition, the agency has a large team of experts in various areas from conception to strategy planning, web development, link building and SEO analysis. This is why companies with Netgrade gain a strong partner for long-term support in the optimization of search engines.

What does an SEO agency cost?

It is clear that an SEO agency entails costs. After all, experienced experts work on every customer project, analyze the current status of a website, work out strategies for search engine optimization and the achievement of the desired goals and also implement derived measures for the customer.

Ideally, the costs for SEO support should pay for themselves sooner or later. This means that the optimized visibility of the website results in more clicks and generates more revenue than before, so that the additional revenues generated in this way cover the expenses again. However, it usually takes some time until the desired successes of the SEO measures are achieved and are also reflected in sales increases. The minimum budget for professional SEO support is €1,500 p.m. With such a budget, various levers can already be set in motion to improve the rankings for a company and thus the searchability of offers in search engines in the long term.

Is success-based SEO possible?

There are providers who promise to get their customers’ rankings to number 1 on Google in a short period of time and only demand payment in the event of success. However, it should be clear that of course nobody can guarantee this success. In addition, it should be questioned whether this payment model is really sustainable. In the search engine world, it is above all a question of long-term and sustainable success.

Some important ranking factors already suggest that Google and other search engines also have a long-term perspective in mind. For example, the ranking factors of the length of stay, the number of visitors and also the interactions with a website are always based on empirical data about a page over a longer period of time. However, if good ranking positions can be achieved, this effect is often maintained over the long term. A page that was once classified as particularly relevant by the Google Crawler usually does not lose this status overnight. On the contrary, the increased number of visitors due to SEO measures even leads to the fact that the website is considered to be even more significant for the users.

A success-based SEO is possible in individual cases, for example in the form of sales commissions or other success-based models. As a rule, however, cooperation takes place on the basis of monthly lump sums, which has turned out to be the optimal model for long-term cooperation.

What do SEO agencies actually do?

The fields of work of an SEO agency are very diverse and widely spread. The activities clearly revolve around the optimization of a website to achieve good Google rankings. The work takes place directly on the website, but can also include many other measures apart from the website. The following points offer a small overview of some activity emphasis of search machine optimizers.

Status quo analysis

If a customer uses the services of the SEO agency for the first time, the current status should first be clarified. Therefore, the agency first analyses which search terms the website is already well found for and which keywords require further optimisation. In many cases, the customer’s website is already found for some keywords, but the domain does not yet appear far enough up front in the search results to generate enough clicks. Here there is often great potential to work with this content, to optimize it and to make places good.

A further step is to look at the website from a technical perspective:

• Are the loading times short enough?
• Is there a proper html structure and menu structure?
• Are there faulty pages or dead links?
• Is there a sitemap, is a favicon already in use or does the site have too many large images?
• Are there talking urls?
• Are meta tags used?
• Are there alt attributes?

Even with this technical optimization, you can usually achieve some success, because each of these factors is a plus point from Google’s point of view.

The status quo analysis usually also provides the basis for the further development of a strategy. After all, it is important to see where a page is already performing well and where there are still levers to achieve better results.

SEO strategy development

In order to achieve sustainable good results in the search engine rankings, it is important to pursue a long-term strategy. The current status analysis provides the basis. From this, goals for the customer’s online marketing can be derived. Depending on the industry, orientation and also whether an online shop is available or only contact enquiries via the website are to be made, an SEO strategy is then developed. In this strategy, the steps to be taken one after the other in order to make the customer website more and more visible are already defined as in a campaign timetable.

Depending on what the customer wants to focus on and how he wants to present his brand, the strategy can include blog marketing measures, guest articles in other blogs and online magazines, technical improvements, link building, youtube measures as well as landing page optimizations and social media activities. An important step at the very beginning of the development of a strategy for search engine optimization is the research of relevant keywords. Finally, it has to be determined for which keywords the site should be easy to find later.

Keyword research

Search engines work in conjunction with the so-called keywords. The keywords that users enter into search engines to find the content, offers and information they are looking for. It is therefore very obvious that search engine optimization also strongly revolves around working with keywords. Keyword research, which forms the basis of many subsequent SEO measures, deals with questions such as the following:

• What terms are people looking for when they want to buy my products?
• How often are these terms searched for?
• Which terms are already heavily used by the competition?
• What alternative spellings and keywords are there?

Which niche keywords exist?

The SEO agency compiles a list of relevant keywords. This can be used to check whether the customer website is already well found or not yet and where the greatest potential exists for the company to get more visitors to its website through search engine optimization.

Here it is important to filter out the keywords with the greatest potential and place them on them. If you use too many terms or too general terms, you often waste too many resources. Often it is enough to end up in the top 10 on Google to significantly increase the number of visitors. A keyword offers great potential if

1. The competition competition to this keyword is low
2. The monthly searches for this keyword are high
3. The term is used to describe the company’s offer very precisely.

Competitor analysis

What the competition does is important for companies in any case. Because nobody wants to lose customers to the competition. In the case of SEO, it’s all about what the competition might do well and which of these strengths are sometimes worth imitating. Above all, content analysis provides information about what content the target group is interested in. These findings can then be incorporated into the design of a content strategy.

An important parameter is the search terms for which the competitor sites are already well found and also receive access. Because these terms are usually also the ones that are important for the customer website. It is often difficult to compete with these terms and to dispute the good rankings with the competitors. Frequently, however, there are variations and similar terms which the competitors have not yet thought of and which should be used.

Improving the User Experience

The user experience plays an increasingly important role in determining which websites have a good performance and which do not. The SEO agency has sufficient experience and knows the different methods that can be used to optimize usability and the user experience. In many cases, a lot can be achieved with just a few tricks. To improve the user experience it is necessary to place the right content in the right place, but also to reduce hurdles and distractions that prevent users, for example, from buying the products in the shop. In this way, the conversion rate can also be increased. Pictures, videos, design and colours also play an important role in the user experience.

An essential measure to improve the user experience, for example, already exists in the creation of landing pages. These are pages that serve the sole purpose of triggering a certain conversion. This means, for example, that the user should fill out a contact form, subscribe to a newsletter or order a product. The landing pages are very simple and focused on the respective conversion. There is no room for any distractions here. SEO strategy development also includes planning measures in such a way that the customer finally lands on the landing page, where there is the highest chance that he will interact with the company or make a product purchase.

The user experience is gaining in importance, especially with regard to the increased use of mobile devices.

Technical optimization, OnPage optimization

Before even beginning with measures for better visibility in the search engines, it is important to ensure the technical basis for success. This includes a neat html page structure, a clear menu navigation, no erroneous pages or even talking urls. If these technical factors are not given, the basis for good rankings with search engines is laid. Without these technical factors, however, performance difficulties can arise. Even the users are certainly not happy if they come across faulty pages or dead links.

The mobile technical accessibility of a page is gaining in importance. Since Google has set up its Mobile first strategy, it is understandable that pages that are not displayed correctly on the move are clearly at a disadvantage. From the point of view of the target group, it is of course also annoying if they want to open a page via their smartphone, but it is not mobile. The SEO agency implements the mobile capability for customer websites.

Offpage optimization

Offpage optimization is an accompanying counterpart to OnPage optimization. Here, the SEO agency takes care of all factors for search engine optimization that take place outside the website. These activities go far beyond link building. So-called social signals are becoming increasingly important. These are mentions and interactions via social media. If a brand also regularly publishes content on its social media site, then Google does not hide this either.

If content is shared on Googe Plus, it sometimes even appears in search results before the actual content on the website. This shows how much the search engine giant relies on its own social media platform, but also on other platforms. If many interactions with a brand take place via Youtube, Facebook or Twitter, the search engine algorithm assumes that the page is in demand and incorporates these values into the ranking calculation.

Planning, creation and optimization of content

Content marketing and all associated tasks represent an essential task, especially in ongoing SEO support. Content creation is preceded by content planning. The agency for search engine optimization creates suitable topics on the basis of the desired ranking objectives, which are reported on in the company’s blog throughout the year, for example.

The agency also takes over the creation of content in accordance with the framework conditions applicable to content marketing. Besides also large Potenzial slumbers frequently still in the optimization of already existing contents. By the adjustment, extension or also improvement of texts, which were already published on the web page, a large Potenzial can be often still raised.

On many web pages there is already a range for news, however this menu option is not understood frequently at all as Blog. A blog, however, offers an excellent opportunity to build trust with customers, to inform the target group about products and news from the industry, but above all also to bring new content to the website again and again, which in turn can be found by search engines. The blog support can be taken over by the SEO agency, so that regularly suitable contributions for the enterprise are provided and published in the blog.

Amazon and YouTube SEO

The tasks of a digital agency do not stop at the website. For companies that offer products online, other platforms are also very important. Especially YouTube, but also Amazon have become indispensable as distribution channels. But even these platforms are not only an online shop and a video portal, but in reality they can be equated with Google.

Amazon and YouTube are also equipped with an intelligent search algorithm that helps their users find the products and topics they are looking for quickly. Similar to Google, these platforms always try to provide users with the most relevant results for their search queries. The SEO agency can also do a lot to ensure that a company’s content and offers appear in the right place. Because here too there are a few rules to be observed that can bring products on Amazon and videos on YouTube further forward in the rankings. Here, too, the following applies: the further ahead and thus in the user’s field of vision the content is, the more frequently it is clicked.

As a result, better placements on platforms such as Amazon or YouTube naturally also have a positive effect on the brand’s placement in search engines. On the one hand the direct links to YouTube videos and Amazon products of the company appear in the results, on the other hand the ranking is strengthened by these social signals.

Analysis and continuous improvement

Once SEO measures have been taken, the next step is to check their impact and analyse their successes. This can be done in several ways. An important indicator is, of course, access to a website or a specific target page. Could these be increased in the following month due to the measures taken? Was it possible to increase the number of orders or customer interactions via the site as a result? How has the length of stay or the number of clicked pages per visitor changed? Was it possible to reduce the bounce rate? Concrete conversion targets can also be determined and closely monitored. The analysis makes it possible to identify the potentials, weak points and levers of a site, in order to start there and further optimize the criteria.

As an SEO analysis agency, netgrade naturally also takes care of the regular evaluation of changes in the most important SEO KPIs. Depending on their development, further measures can be derived.

SEO Marketing Agency

The SEO agency is not only able to take over classic tasks of search engine optimization, but also offers services as an SEO marketing agency. This often involves the linking and use of synergy effects of SEO measures and paid advertising measures, e.g. via programs such as Google AdWords. Because in the ideal case the offers of an enterprise appear not only as natural results, but also additionally within the range of the paid announcements. In this way they catch the target group’s eye in every case and it is also guaranteed that the company usually appears on the first page, even if the organic results do not always make it to the first page for every keyword.

Adjustments to trends, Google updates and technical innovations

One of the challenges in search engine optimization is that the framework conditions are constantly changing. A criterion that still has a strong influence on ranking today can only be of marginal importance tomorrow. A factor that has no significance today can be one of the most important factors in six months’ time. These changes must, of course, be taken into account if the goal is to remain high up in Google search results. Because even if a page has once reached a good position, if it does not go with the time, the position gets lost with the time. Because the competition does not sleep.

Reasons for change

The reasons why there are changes in the framework conditions of SEO are manifold. However, there are two main factors.

• Google´s The aim is to provide the most relevant content: The Google search engine claims to suggest the content with the highest relevance for the user at the top of every search entry in the search field. Because with it the search machine can offer a good user experience and is used again. For this to succeed, it is important that the intelligent software behind the search engine understands exactly what the user is actually looking for with his search entry. This is exactly where the algorithm gets better every year and is increasingly enriched by artificial intelligence. Since the software changes again and again and the emphasis it places on the ranking calculation and the relevance assessment also changes the framework conditions for SEO. Google is repeatedly carrying out updates and announces that a new focus is now being set. The SEO scene then usually focuses on this in order not to lose any seats. A company that does not constantly deal with search engine optimization sometimes finds it difficult to stay on the ball. For the SEO agency it belongs to the daily work and therefore with innovations and new trends also adjustments for the customer websites are taken over. With the Caffeine Update, for example, Google has preferred sites that regularly publish new content on their website. As a result, website operators have increasingly relied on blogs to post news there again and again.
• Customer behavior is changing: not only the behavior of search engines is changing, but also the behavior of users. Search engine users are no longer searching the way they did five years ago. In recent years, for example, two major trends have had a major impact on search behavior. On the one hand, more and more inquiries are made via mobile devices. In Germany these are already over 50{b6148d6dfd1f4fd1242a30755592e20b31e0e2e27a4512927d2b11bdfce70f3d} of all inquiries. This means that most search queries today are already submitted via smartphones and tablets. With this knowledge is also understandable, why Google pursues its mobile First strategy and prefers sides, which are represented also mobile well. One of the tasks of SEO experts is therefore to make sure that all contents of a page are mobile. In addition, most smartphones today have speech recognition and this is also increasingly used for search. As a result, not only individual words are entered as search queries, but sometimes entire sentences. This change is also shaping content marketing in particular, as this trend offers a range of new longtail keywords to choose from.

The changes in the focus on certain factors on the part of the search engines, but also the changed user behavior, involve both risks and opportunities. Anyone who oversleeps a trend can soon fall behind – visitor numbers drop and with them sales. On the other hand, those who pay attention to the changes and take the appropriate measures can profit from them and even gain good ranking positions. In this case, access can be increased and even niches can be conquered, as is the case, for example, when a new longtail keyword can be well occupied even before the competition. It is therefore the task of the SEO agency, in addition to other tasks, to constantly pay attention to such niches and newly emerging potentials and to adapt the SEO strategy accordingly.

Of course, most companies are deeply involved in their day-to-day business and not every company can afford its own marketing department, which then also takes care of SEO consulting. Therefore the cooperation with an SEO agency is worthwhile. This agency is always at the pulse of time and always knows exactly which changes are to be expected in the moment or in the near future in the area of SEO.

The SEO Agency in Germany

For any SEO measures in the German market netgrade proves to be a reliable full-service provider for strategic planning, implementation as well as the technical realization of any SEO based projects. The range of services includes website optimization, offpage measures, link building, text creation as well as Amazon and YouTube SEO. With this know-how in the field of search engine optimization, the SEO agency successfully supports regional companies as well as companies operating throughout Germany who want to restructure, expand and optimize their sales in the online sector.

SEO Agency: Internationally successful

Ranking successes can of course not only be achieved in the German-speaking market. Many companies are internationally positioned and develop markets in neighbouring countries such as France or the Netherlands or even operate overseas. In order to be successful in these markets with foreign-language online shops and online offerings, it is essential to design and implement an SEO strategy for these markets. Netgrade also proves to be a competent partner for international roll-outs. The SEO agency acts as an international lead agency and develops strategies that are implemented by partner agencies in the respective countries. Successes have also been celebrated in Asia.

Easily accessible: The SEO agency from Würzburg for the whole of Germany

Whether an SEO agency in Berlin, Munich, Cologne, Hamburg or Düsseldorf is also sought, the accessibility is given. The SEO agency from Würzburg is centrally located. Any strategy discussions, meetings for updates and reorientations can thus also be handled easily and efficiently in person. From SEO’s point of view, it is not important whether the SEO specialists themselves are located directly at the customer’s premises. Because search engines function supra-regionally according to the same framework conditions. Coordination and information exchange can of course also take place via e-mail, telephone, Skype or Meet.