The importance of a trustworthy SEO agency in Malta is well established, especially since statistics show that:
- 53.3% of web traffic comes from organic traffic.
- 68% of online experiences started with a search engine.
- And more than 60% of internet traffic is distributed between the first 3 results.
All these points prove that it is essential to be present in the first 3 results of the SERPs if you want to have good visibility on the web. To get it, your online presence must be accompanied by a search engine optimisation process.
However, the question that arises is: how to implement an optimisation strategy and who should take care of it?
The answer to this question is not always obvious, but it must be the result of sensible reflection.
Anyway, you either do it by yourself or entrust it to another person. It can be a consultant working freelance or an SEO agency in Malta.
Assuming that you opt for an SEO agency, I propose to show you in this article the different tips and practices to take into account to make a good choice.
Maybe you prefer video?
Chapter 1: SEO Agency – Definition and Importance
Here you will find what is meant by an SEO agency and the importance it has for businesses.
What is an SEO agency?
In general, agencies designate structures, establishments or organizations that offer services in a specific area. Services can appear as help, counsel or suggestions can take the form of support, advice or recommendations. From there, the SEO agency can be defined as a structure specialized in the field of natural referencing.
It offers services that cover the field of SEO and responds to the various concerns of companies or individuals regarding the optimization of their websites for search engines.
More in-depth, the SEO agency helps websites improve their position in search results through the implementation of an SEO strategy.
How important is an SEO agency in Malta for businesses?
Their importance is reflected in the various advantages that their solicitation offers to companies. Following this reasoning, here are various benefits that justify the importance of soliciting them:
Expertise in the field of SEO
When you entrust the referencing of your site to an SEO agency, you are certain to benefit from the experience and know-how of a team of professionals in web referencing.
They will be able to analyze your site and put in place professional strategies to optimize it.
Plus, they’ll help you understand what problems the site is having and what actions you need to take to fix them.
They will also know how to use and interpret the results of the various analysis tools to guarantee the realization of quality work.
An opportunity to save time
Creating and setting up an SEO campaign takes a lot of time. You can therefore entrust it to an agency in Malta and take advantage of this time to take care of other aspects of your business.
Moreover, by recruiting an SEO expert, you are protected from errors that would take time to correct.
Save money and make your site profitable
If you are a young company, you do not necessarily have the means to manage an SEO team internally. Because the creation of this team would incur new costs that you are not necessarily able to bear.
The recommended solution would then be to turn to an SEO agency. This will save you money. Similarly, it may happen that the actions carried out by your SEO agency bring enough traffic to your site. You will thus be able to achieve a turnover that covers the expenses incurred in SEO.
Have an up-to-date site with respect to search engine rules
Since the SEO expert is aware of the evolution of search engines, he knows the best practices to favour when optimizing a website. He will therefore ensure that your site is in harmony with these different practices.
In addition, he will be able to identify the elements that block the potential of your site in order to improve them.
Benefit from regular SEO maintenance
As you already know, web referencing is not a fixed process. You must indeed follow your strategy and adjust it as the results are obtained.
Monitoring is not always obvious and serious when it is done by yourself, your SEO agency in Malta will be the best suited to perform this task correctly.
When to call on an SEO agency in Malta?
Some of the different reasons you might contact an SEO agency include:
The launch of your website
Instead of waiting to have difficulties before contacting the SEO agency, it would be wise to call on them before the launch of your website.
This saves you from making decisions that can negatively influence the SEO of your website. Plus, it will allow you to start driving organic traffic to your site sooner rather than later.
Moreover, by consulting an SEO expert before launching your site, you can be sure that the site is submitted to Google and that your host is both secure and efficient.
Redesigning your website
When you plan to redesign your website, you should also consider consulting an SEO consultant. This is for the simple reason that redesigning your site can heavily affect your SEO.
Indeed, since you are touching on important elements such as the structure of your site, it is possible that the redesign of your site will influence elements such as the volume of traffic and the ranking.
Hiring an SEO agency will help ensure that this overhaul is beneficial for you.
The fact that you are penalized by Google
Google’s primary ambition is to lead Internet users to relevant results. To accomplish this, it sends various calculations that select and rank outcomes in view of distinct standards.
According to this principle, sites that do not meet Google criteria are abandoned in favour of those that meet them.
Likewise, using practices aimed at tricking the search engine into its ranking sometimes even prevents you from appearing in their search results.
Under these conditions, it would be appropriate to quickly call on your SEO agency in Malta. They will be able to quickly find a solution to remove the penalty.
When you have difficulty achieving the goals set
When you are having difficulty achieving your goals, you need to ask yourself questions and seek outside advice to better understand what is going on. From this perspective, using an SEO agency seems like a very good idea.
You can also use an agency near you in Malta when you notice that your results are starting to drop. When you find yourself in these situations, it is often difficult to easily return to a better position.
You will then need an agency to help you understand what is wrong and implement a good optimization strategy.
Now that you know what an SEO agency is and its importance, discover in the next chapter the different services they are likely to offer.
Chapter 2: SEO Agency Malta – Services Offered and Costs
In this chapter, I invite you to discover the different services that an SEO agency can offer you. I will not fail to give you an overview of the cost of his services.
What are the different services that an SEO agency can offer you?
To identify the different services that an agency can offer you as part of your SEO campaign, I suggest you revisit the different compartments of SEO:
On-Page SEO
On-page SEO refers to practices aimed at improving site elements for search engines and users. The different services that an SEO agency can offer as part of on-page SEO include:
- Verification of crawling and indexing of the site by Google robots: Before appearing in search results, your site must be accessible to Google crawlers. The SEO agency, therefore, checks whether the site is indeed submitted to the search engine.
- Creating a site structure: This involves creating your sitemap. This plan makes it understandable for search engine crawlers. They will be able to browse it in a user-friendly way. In addition, the establishment of a site structure will facilitate navigation for Internet users.
- Optimization of keywords, meta description tags and titles: The SEO agency must identify and rank your content according to the most relevant keywords. Apart from the keywords, the agency must optimize the pages of your site so that the search engines know what they contain.
- Improving URLs: At this level, the agency makes sure that your page URLs display correctly in search results and help to better understand what you offer. For example, they must favour explicit and short URLs over long and non-explicit URLs.
- Make a blog on your website: If your webpage doesn’t have a blog, SEO organizations can offer it to you. To be sure, the presence of a blog on your webpage advances the sharing of your substance in interpersonal organizations. Likewise, it allows Internet users to be informed and to learn new things. What can make your site interesting?
- Optimizing the loading speed of your site elements: Nowadays speed is a very important factor when it comes to the SEO of a website. The SEO agency must therefore check the different loading times of your pages and propose solutions for the optimized ones.
- Optimization of the structure of inbound and outbound links: The SEO agency that you are going to hire in Malta must also verify or implement a backlinks strategy. In this unique circumstance, it can arrange the connections inside to work with the route on the site.
- Optimization of images and graphics: Since the visual elements of a site attract Internet users and make it easier for them to read/understand articles, the agency must not only ensure that it is present on the site but also ensure that they are well placed and do not disturb the loading of the page.
- Configuring your site for better display on mobile: Knowing that the traffic generated by mobile media is 50%, SEO experts must verify that the sites submitted to their assessments are displayed correctly on mobile.
- Improving the site for the user experience: Even if it is part of the improvement of the content, the SEO agency must have a particular look at the notion of the user experience. For example, the agency will have to check whether all the elements of the site are easy to find, such as contact information or location in Malta.
- …
Off-page SEOLocal SEO implies enhancing your site for neighbourhood list items
Off-page SEO refers to actions you take that are not directly implemented on your site. These activities permit you to have some impact on the aftereffects of your site. At this level, the SEO agency may offer you to:
- Create or optimize your social media accounts: With several million users, social media can help you in your quest for visibility and traffic. For this reason, it is not uncommon for SEO companies in Malta to offer this service in order to put in place a strategy to increase your notoriety on social networks.
- The creation of backlinks: When it comes to the SEO of your site, backlinks are among the most important ranking factors. It would therefore be impossible for the SEO agency you are requesting not to offer you to optimize them. Concretely, his role will be to ensure that the links you get to your site are of quality. The agency can also use its expertise to help you create other links to your content.
- …
The local SEO
Local SEO means optimizing your website for local search results.
Concretely, it is a question of ensuring that Internet users can find your physical establishment in search results with a local setting in Malta.
The different services that an SEO agency can offer you in this context can be:
- Make and design your Google My Business profile: Google My business is a free device from Google. It allows companies in Malta and around the world to configure their profile in order to manage their online presence locally and to appear in Google Maps.
- The creation of NAP citations: At this level, the SEO agency will take care of checking whether the mentions concerning your company information (name, address, telephone) are present and consistent. Otherwise, the agency will take care of creating and optimizing them.
- Link building for local SEO: Whether SEO is local or not, backlinks are important. The agency will therefore put in place a link creation strategy to optimize your site at the local level.
The vocal SEO
Voice SEO can be defined as the set of techniques that guarantee the optimization of your site for conversational searches. Voice search is on the rise and it is expected that by the end of 2022, 50% of all searches will be using voice.
Therefore, a complete SEO strategy should include voice search in your site optimization.
Thus, the SEO agency will be able to offer you to:
- Find keywords for voice search;
- Develop the subtitles of your articles;
- Create content for voice search;
- Organize and optimize the content of your web page.
In addition, it should be noted that apart from all these elements, SEO agencies also and very often offer their services in:
Web writing and SEO training
Web writing consists of creating editorial content adapted to the internet.
It assumes compliance with certain rules and seems linked to SEO.
Indeed, content is created to be seen, so it must be designed according to the requirements of search engines.
Knowledge of SEO will therefore be useful to create good content. That is to say, content adapted to both search engines and the user experience.
Likewise, since it is proficient in SEO, SEO agencies can help you improve your SEO skills. In this context, they introduce you to SEO practices through training.
How much does an SEO agency cost you?
According to webfx the costs of an SEO project range from $750 to $30,000 per month and the hourly rate is between $80 and $200.
Either way, it helps for you to keep in mind that there is no set pricing when it comes to SEO services.
Indeed, the cost of the work carried out by SEO agencies depends mainly on the services they provide.
In other words, the state of your site and the work it took to improve it.
Regarding how agencies are paid, also note that it depends on what the agency offers you. For example, you can pay for your listing fees:
- At an hourly rate;
- At a daily rate;
- Or flat rate.
Since you have thought of the various services you can profit from by counselling an SEO organization, I propose you find how to track down a decent SEO agency in Malta.
Chapter 3: 15 tips for finding a good SEO agency in Malta
When it comes to entrusting your site to a company, it is completely legitimate for you to wonder if they are serious and efficient.
To assist you with an improved response to this inquiry, you will track down in this section:
- The different actions you must take before looking for an SEO agency;
- The information you need to collect at the agency level;
- Behaviours to avoid when looking for a good agency in Malta.
What should be done before looking for an SEO agency?
From the moment you consider consulting an SEO agency, you should:
Set goals for your site
Generally speaking, you want your site to appear in the top search results and generate high organic traffic. But you will agree with me that these are vague objectives. You need to set clear and specific goals.
For example, if you would like to appear in the first search results, you must identify the keyword for which you are aiming for this position.
If you want high traffic, you must identify the number of visits from which you will be satisfied.
So many elements to take into account to properly define objectives.
Set a budget for your SEO strategy
One of your obligations, when you hire an SEO agency, is to pay them for the services they will perform on your site. For this, it is important that you plan a budget.
The budget should contain all the services you want to provide and their costs.
You must therefore find out about the rates and payment methods offered by the agency in Malta.
Make a list of potential SEO agencies
Even if it does not occupy the first position, the website of an SEO agency must be displayed in the search results.
If you are in Malta, then do a search like ‘SEO agency Malta’ to see the SEO agencies that will be offered to you.
Visit the different sites and draw up a list of those that have convinced you the most.
Then, use the defined objectives and determine the SEO agency that will be able to help you meet them.
For this, it will be a question of determining the different services offered by each agency.
Watch reviews and more reviews
The best way to know if an SEO agency is effective is to find out about its reputation.
For example, contact former clients to find out about the quality of service offered by the agency.
Take a look at online reviews whether on the agency’s website or in Google reviews.
Go to the sites optimized by the agency to check their level of performance.
Also, take an interest in the agency’s portfolio by consulting the projects delivered and the way they are delivered.
The information you need to collect from SEO agencies
Here is some information to collect at the level of SEO agencies to make the right choice:
The fees and contracts offered by each agency
Since the pricing of SEO services varies from one SEO agency to another, it is important that you find out what the agency offers before hiring it. So start by asking for a quote to see the different prices and deliverables that an agency offers to reference your site.
The tools used
SEO tools help web agencies to:
- Determine the needs of your site;
- Analyze your competitors;
- Find the best strategies to improve your site (content, keywords, images, etc.).
As you can see SEO is all about tools and as you can imagine there are good tools and bad ones.
To find out the different tools that the agency will use for your SEO campaign in order to be sure of the performance of the actions that will be offered at the level of your site.
The agency’s SEO practices
As you will see in my previous article on the SEO consultant, there are various SEO practices.
These practices can harm your SEO tactics (black hat SEO) or improve it (white hat SEO).
Based on this information, you should therefore inform yourself about the SEO practices that the agency will implement on your site before hiring it.
The metrics the agency uses to measure your site’s performance
Once your goals are set, you need to make sure you achieve them. To do this, you need to follow their evolution through appropriate key performance indicators.
Failing to define these indicators (KPI) yourself, the SEO agency should be able to offer you those that are best suited to follow your objectives.
Likewise, it must be able to collect and make available to you the data relating to these indicators so that you can understand them.
How often the agency sends reports about your site
Because analytics reports tell you how your site is doing, it’s important that you get them on time.
This will allow you to keep an eye on the progress of the work that the agency is doing at the site level.
It will also serve as an effective means of communication between you and the SEO agency.
Find out how often the reports will be sent and, if possible, agree on the information they should contain.
You can then request some customization.
What distinguishes the SEO agency from others
While collecting information to recruit a good SEO agency in Malta, take an interest in what distinguishes such an agency from another.
This will allow you to see for the agencies you consult what they have better than the others.
For example, you can find out:
- The extent of their experience in the field of SEO;
- The different clients with whom they have already had to work;
- The tasks performed and the results obtained for these clients;
- …
Their referral process
The referencing of a site only occurs after analysis and is done on the basis of different elements, namely:
- The nature of the site;
- The area of the activity ;
- The level of competition;
- The objectives pursued;
- …
The methodology used to upgrade an online business webpage is clearly not the same as that used to streamline a blog
You should therefore keep in mind that there is no predefined SEO strategy.
Likewise, it may happen that the SEO agency you contact only specializes in a specific area of SEO.
So take these factors into consideration when requesting the focus areas of the agency you are contacting to make sure they are qualified to handle your site optimization.
The guarantees that the agency offers you
Insofar as the SEO agency performs actions on your site, it is quite normal that it guarantees you a certain number of things.
First, the modifications that must be made to your site must only concern the elements taken into account in the specifications.
Then, the SEO agency will have to guarantee you a certain result.
Be careful, this is not about expecting the SEO Expert to guarantee you the first position in the SERPs for multiplying your traffic by an X number.
Since these factors are not under anyone’s control, extreme care should be taken when dealing with such promises.
Still, you can expect decent approximations based on your website audit results.
Even if we admit that you should be wary of them, these guarantees are important insofar as they allow to situate the responsibilities of the SEO agency.
The access that the agency has to your site for the duration of the referencing
Before recruiting an SEO agency, it is important to define with it the scope of its work.
For instance,
- Do you need to have access to your site’s management software ?
- Will they integrate the recommendations on the site?
As you will see, defining such a framework will allow you to identify the extent of the role the agency will play on your site.
While implementing this strategy you should avoid certain mistakes.
Mistakes to avoid when choosing an SEO agency
When you are looking for the best SEO agency, you should for example:
Avoid wanting to rely solely on Google or ‘top’ listings
Certainly, Google displays the most relevant results for a given query. Nevertheless, you must guard against having absolute confidence in these results.
Since the results are displayed according to the keywords you type in the search bar, it is therefore certain that the sites which appear in the first position are those which have very much advanced their substance for these catchphrases.
Therefore, it’s entirely possible that the first site appearing for ‘best SEO agency’ might not be the most effective one.
This same remark can be observed at the level of sites offering ‘top’ lists.
You must therefore be careful and take into account more elaborate criteria, than relying solely on the results offered by search engines.
Avoid highlighting some of your prejudices about SEO
For example, it is quite normal to want at all costs to entrust the referencing of your site to a large-scale SEO agency. However, you should keep in mind that size does not always guarantee effective work.
Likewise, avoid being seduced by the consistently stellar presentations of an agency that feels it has never had a problem.
Also, avoid looking at all costs for an agency that offers cheap SEO services or quick fixes to get your site listed.
You risk coming across companies with bad faith. They will not only do a sloppy job but risk getting you penalized by search engines.
For example, it is quite normal to want at all costs to entrust the referencing of your site to a large-scale SEO agency. However, you should keep in mind that size does not always guarantee effective work.
Likewise, avoid being seduced by the consistently stellar presentations of an agency that feels it has never had a problem.
Also, avoid looking at all costs for an agency that offers cheap SEO services or quick fixes to get your site listed.
You risk coming across companies with bad faith. They will not only do a sloppy job, but risk getting you penalized by search engines.
What does Malta SEO Agency offer you?
Malta SEO Agency puts its skills in natural referencing at your disposal to support you throughout your optimization process.
My strategy relies solely on SEO and has allowed me to currently have thousands of people on my website. Without resorting to advertising.
Apart from natural referencing and website auditing, the other services offered are:
- Web writing.
- And the creation of illustrations and infographics for your site.
Also note that I regularly post on the Malta SEO Agency blog different resources and information on topics like:
- SEO.
- Web marketing.
- Business creation.
- Website creation.
With Malta SEO Agency, you also have the opportunity to train yourself to learn how to make yourself:
- The audit of your site;
- Optimizing the elements of your site;
- SEO content creation;
- Promote your site.
Do not hesitate to contact us for information or assistance.
Summary
SEO agencies have the necessary know-how to improve the performance of a site in terms of search engines.
It is therefore natural to turn to them for the referencing of your website.
But before consulting them, it is important that you do some analysis in order to understand how they work and avoid making mistakes that can be fatal for your site.
I have covered several things through which you can easily identify a good SEO agency in Malta and I hope you have found it!
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