SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It’s the process of getting your business to the top of Google - and then keeping it there. SEO is the most cost-effective, proven method to generate online leads for Rockford businesses.

When you rank at the top of Google for certain keywords, you get a ton of traffic headed directly to your website. And when someone clicks on your Google listing, they are much more likely to convert into leads or sales because they already know what they want before coming to your website. They've "raised their hand" as a customer just by searching for the keywords they came to your website on.

It varies depending on your competition and your budget. In general, the more you invest, the faster you go.

Search engine optimization is more of a long-term investment that will take time to yield results. It's not an overnight success, nor will it churn massive lead volume like Google Ads or Facebook Ads can. However, the reason why it's so important to invest in, even though it takes awhile to work, is because it's like developing real estate. Instead of renting a house, it's buying a house and renovating it. It's your asset and you own it. And once you get to the top, it's a lot easier to maintain than it is to get there.

Competition plays a significant role in how fast you'll rank. Some keywords in some geographical locations are easy and quick to rank for, while others have tremendous competition and can take a good deal of time to yield results. In general, hyper-localized SEO can rank quite a bit faster than national-based SEO. However, again, it simply just comes down to the competition you're going up against.

A word to the wise: Don't trust a company that says it can rank you in 3 months or less. They are just trying to get you excited so they can take your money. Any company worth their salt will tell you SEO is a long-game play and should be treated as such. This is not like advertising, this is like investing in a 401(k). It takes time. So run for the hills if a company makes outlandish claims of ranking speed.

Of course, you want to rank sooner than later. Many projects we work on start to see tangible results after 6-8 months. Some of them have even seen results in as little as 3-4 months. But we'd never make claims that we can get you organic leads from SEO within a short time frame. Those types of leads only come from doing ads, which is why we supplement those in the meantime while we grow your SEO.

The best way to explain search engine optimization is to understand that Google and other search engines work as a matchmaking service.

When you type in a search query, a search engine's role is to show you the most relevant information for the specified search. For example, when you type in something like "SEO companies in Rockford," you're going to see the results that Google feels is the most relevant. So the question becomes, how does it determine what is relevant?

The basis of SEO is grounded in (1) content development, (2) authority, and (3) user experience.

• Content Development
  •  The bulk of how search engines work is through the content that exists on your website. As it works to "matchmake," the search engine is going to look at the keywords that were searched and match it up with the keywords that exist on your website. If somebody is searching for "Rockford SEO agencies," Google is going to show websites that have that exact term or something synonymous existing within the content of their website. That may be precisely how you ended up on this page.
  • So the goal when launching your SEO strategy is to develop a strong list of keywords and phrases that your customers would be searching to find a company like yours. From there, we will write the content for the various pages of your website to include those keywords. There is a bit of art to writing for search engines, but leave it up to us for how this needs to be written.
• Authority
  • As we discussed in the 1st section, engines look to see if the search queries match up with the content on the website. However, just because the keywords are there doesn't mean you're going to show up #1. So how does Google determine who shows up first and who shows up last? This is where the art of SEO really starts to come in because Google as a large set of criteria they use within their algorithm to determine the top-ranked websites.
  • The gist of it is that Google will rank the top websites according to the most authoritative to the least authoritative. Once your content foundation is laid, we then focus our efforts on growing the authority of your website. These are through methods consisting of additional content development, backlinking, optimizing your Google Business Profile (map listing), getting you map citations, and optimizing your on-site SEO. These are technical items that in our professional opinion, necessitate the use of an SEO agency in Rockford. While this stuff is not necessarily rocket science, there is simply too much for one person or even a couple of people to do on their own. It requires a robust team of copywriters, SEO backlinkers, guest bloggers, web developers, web designers, and even graphic designers at times.
• User Experience
  • The final pillar for SEO is based up the user experience and how your customers associate with your website on the internet. For many small businesses, they struggle to engage their users, which in turn, hurts their SEO. Google has a ranking factor called "time spent on page," which alludes to whether a user comes and "bounces" off the page immediately or if they click around, read, and engage with the content on your website. If users bounce quickly, it's bad for SEO. But if they engage and they click around on your website, it sends a signal to Google that you have good user experience.
  • This is why we spend a great deal of time in the design process and making sure the workflow and sales funnel is built out appropriately for your website. If your website sucks and your customers have a hard time navigating it, they'll bounce off quickly and hurt your SEO score. So we will work directly with you and our design team to make sure we maximize the user experience.

Here are the three steps to dominating Google search in your industry:

• Schedule a call with an SEO expert, who will analyze your site and make expert-backed recommendations to ranking #1 on Google.

• Create a custom strategy by following our guide on how to create a content marketing plan, including keyword research and link-building strategies that are proven to increase traffic and generate leads for local businesses like yours!

• After implementation, we'll open up the hood and use our advanced performance tracking tools to show you exactly what's going on and how well the SEO is performing over time.