MSP Marketing's Frequently Asked Questions About SEO

SEO is important because it is the primary method to drive organic traffic to your MSP website. The more traffic you have to your site, the more opportunities to engage and convert visitors into customers. Moreover, the more traffic you have to your site that stays, signals to Google that your site is relevant to the questions searchers are looking for.

Organic traffic is important because it is focused and the result of a user’s specific search intent. This makes it more likely they will click on your link in search of the information they are looking for and convert if they go to your website.

Okay, this question isn’t super common, but we wanted to make sure we answered it here. SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimization. Related terms include PPC (Pay Per Click) and SEM (Search Engine Marketing).

SEO is a digital marketing tactic designed to optimize a website’s search result position. The goal of SEO is to raise your page position (rank) so that you are above and seen before your competitor’s listings by making it more visible on a search result page.

Basically, the goal of SEO is to help Google better understand your website and therefore what services you’re offering. This is achieved in a variety of methods but two main metrics are authority and relevance. The more authority (testimonials, reviews, backlinks) and relevancy (content) you have, the higher your website positioning will be.

Page position is the location your website is at as the result of a search. For example, a featured snippet is position 0, because it is located at the top of the search results page before the first search result (position 1) begins. On average, position 11 will put you on page 2 of a Google search result.

A search result page (SERP) is the page generated by a search engine (usually Google) in response to a query (question) by a user.

Technical SEO is also known as On-page SEO. A feature of technical SEO is that it is more focused on how search engines ‘read’ the page than human users. However, if you follow best practices, your human users will have a good experience as well. Some technical steps to take include:

• Having descriptive and focused keywords and metas.
• Making sure your website loads quickly
• Using easy to read URLs
• Incorporating internal links
• Using a mobile-friendly design

SEO is a long term marketing strategy, and like most marketing, SEO will take time to break through to an audience. On average you will see results within 4-6 months. Visit our blog, “Why Does SEO Take So Long,” for a more detailed explanation.

As noted, SEO is a long term marketing tactic. Unfortunately, many MSPs quit their SEO plan before giving it enough time to see results. Worse, they don’t invest the resources to fully support their SEO efforts, such as developing content people want to read.

Successful SEO demands a multi-tiered approach, consisting of social media, link-building, and content to support your SEO strategy. In other words, if your SEO plan consists solely of using keywords, you’re not going to see the results you could. Maybe now is the time to reconsider how you use your keywords.

Many people still view SEO through the lens of a decade ago when keywords were the main way to gain page position. That is no longer the case. Modern SEO focuses on user intent: providing a search result based on what the user intended to search for. Effective content provides the answer to the question the user asked for.

No—it means that how you used keywords in the past is no longer a viable SEO tactic. Instead of trying to find the magic single keyword that will open the dam to your organic traffic, modern SEO focuses on long-tailed keywords or keyword phrases. Long-tailed keywords are more effective because they allow you to better target the intent of your searcher, by providing content that is more relevant to the question the searcher is looking for.

More often than not, websites that appear to be of poor quality are doing the right things behind the scenes, specifically in regards to local marketing. Some of these things include:

• Having an active social media presence
• Developing connections with other local businesses/Chamber of Commerce
• Encouraging testimonials and reviews
• Creating localized content
• Generating press coverage/releases/guest blogs
• The age of the website and business itself

Since search is local, websites that utilize the above steps will develop the type of local authority needed to rank high, despite the look and feel of their website.

Your Google Analytics and Google Search Console are two basic methods to gauge how your SEO is doing. Is your analytics showing an increase in traffic or bounce rate? Does your search console show an increase in clicks, impressions, and which of your pages are popular? Finally, are your phones ringing or are you receiving form completions?

Yes, you can. However, as you have seen there are a lot of hats you will need to wear to do so successfully. As an MSP, one of the messages you tell potential customers regarding the value of your services is that you will let them focus on their business, while you worry about their IT. When it comes to managing your own SEO the same theory applies, and your time is better spent following up on leads than generating them.