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Finding the right SEO Agency and choosing a team to trust with your business can be challenging and arduous. At Whitehat Agency we are known for our ethical practices and industry leading results in SEO, and there's a reason for that. We deeply care about the quality of SEO results we achieve for each and every one of our clients. We treat your business as if it were our own, and we see your business not for what it is, but for what it could be with the right SEO strategy.

Our SEO strategies are always personalised to the business, the industry, the competition, the search landscape and the constantly updating algorithm. Our global team stays up to date with current algorithm updates and are addicted to the rush of seeing a new client increasing their rankings for their top keyword. We get to know your business well and obsess over details. We work alongside our clients to not only select the most effective strategy but to educate them and explain why we recommend a specific strategy, backing everything up with data.

As a full service digital marketing agency our SEO team interact and work with specialists in all other areas of digital marketing. This is important when choosing a SEO Agency because having a team that understands how SEO can blend seamlessly into and support other channels of digital marketing, not only strengthens your strategy but solidifies results.

At Whitehat we help businesses of all sizes with their SEO however, our agile nature and versatility is what keeps us sharp and what helps us provide the best results for our clients. The final and most important difference between us and our competitors is that we don’t look at SEO as a source of rankings or traffic, we look at it as a source of revenue. The rankings can be fantastic but if the revenue isn’t there, then the strategy isn’t effective.

If you need more confirmation on why we are the perfect fit for you and your business, take a look at our long list of client partnerships, with big names such as Microsoft trusting us with their business and SEO goals. Furthermore our results speak for themselves, and is the reason we can confidently claim to be the best SEO Agency in Australia. All you need to do is take a look at one of our case studies, and you’ll see we are the only real choice.

You’ve probably heard the term SEO thrown around but what does that mean? SEO stands for search engine optimisation, and basically, it is taking steps to effectively make sure your business is recognised on Google or other search engines alike. Why is this important for your business? You need to be seen to make an impact. Do you think if Mcdonalds was hidden behind a building, and didn't have those beaming golden arches on the side of the road, you'd stop to get a big mac? No, you'd probably drive past not knowing it was even there. Being seen is just as important on the web. Simply put if you aren't seen on search engines your business will not scale.

The goal then should be to rank #1 on a search engine so your business is getting as much organic and paid traffic as possible, leading to more eyes and ultimately sales, maximising potential and growth. We know that from page 1 alone on Google, the first 5 sites listed make up for a massive 67% of all clicks and that 75% of users never make it past page 1. It stands to show that if you don't rank on page one, there is a strong chance you're missing a large customer base. This is where SEO comes in. While there are a bunch of complexities when it comes to SEO, the general concept is fairly easy to grasp.

Search engines like Google have algorithms in place to make sure they are providing the best possible service to their users. These algorithms determine the usability, quality, and relevance of a website and its content, in direct correlation to what the user is searching for. The algorithm is used to collate data, helping understand exactly what your website is about. From that understanding, it then ranks the site accordingly based on the factors previously mentioned. SEO is a process Digital Marketing Agencies like Whitehat, use to make businesses stand out to search engines. If you are selling lawnmowers you need engaging, informative content that reflects this in any way possible, this way anyone that searches for 'lawnmowers' is pushed to your site and it's in front of the audience it needs to be. SEO puts this practice into action.

So what’s the big deal about SEO? The premise of SEO is that it builds and continuously draws in organic website traffic in the long run, by having your website sit on the first page of Google search results. Have you ever Googled a term, seen the first result pop up as an ‘Ad’, and then proceeded to click the first organic result underneath? This isn’t uncommon behaviour. Many users will often ignore these paid for and labelled “Ad”s, favouring the listings that have naturally ranked the highest. This comes from a number of different reasons, including a general sense of distrust in online advertising, a fear of having their online activity tracked or the ad being irrelevant to their initial search. When a search result is labelled as an “Ad”, it alerts the user that someone has paid for the listing to appear there, rather than the website having been awarded the authority to be ranked first. Customers understand that Google awards search ranks for relevance and quality, or that the higher the search rank is, the more popular, and thus valid the website is to their needs. This creates a sense of authentic and more long standing credibility for your company amongst the hundreds and thousands of search results available.

Once you have used SEO to climb the search ranks or make it to the first results page, the organic traffic and thus value that SEO continues to deliver has the opportunity to snowball and grow exponentially. This is because as more users are seeing, clicking through to your website and navigating it, it continues to boost your websites rank. So, good SEO will enable a company to increasingly occupy greater customer mindshare, association and trust, while continuing to bring in more and more organic traffic. The more traffic you have, the more natural relationships you could be establishing, not to mention driving more leads and conversions.

One of the most important things to understand about SEO is that it is an organic marketing technique. This means that in order to use SEO to naturally build brand awareness, website traffic and customer loyalty, it takes time. SEO that garners ‘immediate’ results is often bad SEO: a mixture of shady blackhat practices that aim to manipulate loopholes in the algorithm to quickly climb the search ranks. While it assures some short term gratification, these practices are deemed unethical by search engine guidelines, and if picked up on, can result in some severe penalties that could knock you back further than what you started with. They also ignore user experience, and don’t do much to ensure that your human audiences are engaging effectively with your site or are being served the most quality content to keep them coming back.

Between website auditing, data collection, keyword research, implementation of SEO strategies and building quality content and links, SEO results can start to be seen from anywhere between 4 months to a year. SEO is also a continuous process and investment, and there are many factors that can influence the rate at which you begin to see meaningful results. For example, competition can play a large part in the length of time required. More work may have to be invested to catch up to already popular and long-standing competitors, or to gain ground on frequently searched keywords that already have highly saturated search results. Using a backlinking strategy (planting certified links in other domains that will bring traffic back to your website) also tends to take time in order to be indexed and eventually trigger an increase in ranks. Not to mention, technology and search engine platforms are also constantly changing their rules and relevant penalties. Having a website grow too fast can sometimes flag and create distrust with Google, who may be wary of manipulation or unfairly doctored results.

As SEO functions within a dynamic environment where numerous companies are also fighting for the #1 rank, SEO requires constant surveillance and upkeep. Full service Digital Marketing Agencies such as Whitehat Agency ensure that you’re choosing the best SEO strategy for your business and making the right changes to set your company up for long term success. Remember, slow and steady wins the race.

The world of SEO can seem complex and daunting, and is hard to tap into without the right expertise. That’s where a SEO agency like Whitehat comes in. We start by analysing your current website and digital marketing activities, and crunching the relevant numbers to see how you are performing on the search results pages. From here we will work together with you to establish shared objectives and select an appropriate SEO strategy that will align with your company's business activities and goals. Once this groundwork has been established, we carry out keyword research on your behalf to ensure that the words and phrases being targeted provide realistic and meaningful opportunities for growth. This also includes tracking what your competitors are doing in terms of SEO, to make sure that we can always stay one step ahead in reaching your relevant audiences.

We provide professional copywriting services, to build quality, unique and engaging content that will satisfy your customers needs while being search engine friendly. This will happen alongside enhancing internal and onsite optimisations, including improving internal linking, load speed and content placement to draw visitors in and keep them on your website for longer. This is all to ensure that your website looks and is working at its best, and doing the absolute most for your customers and search engine ranking. We’ll also work on analysing, strengthening and building website links, which will support and bolster your SEO and give your website authority on search engines.

An SEO agency will work hand-in-hand with you to boost your search engine ranking and in turn, your digital presence. They will produce effective SEO strategies, content and website design while regularly surveying the market for changes and updates to ensure you’re continually heading in the right direction. With the right know-how, an SEO agency will take you up the ranks in search results, while delivering on increased brand awareness and website traffic.

While the collective goal of SEO and Google Ads are the same in generating leads and driving website traffic, they vary vastly in execution. Google Ads are a form of Pay-Per-Click advertisement, run exclusively through Google and targeted to reach specific and interested leads. This means that every time a user clicks on your ad, you pay for it. The price that you pay is determined by Google’s bidding system, which involves you bidding for particular search keywords or phrases. Popular keywords will have a higher bidding cost due to its demand amongst advertisers, and your final positioning will be determined by your bid and quality score. The bid that you submit includes the amount that you would be willing to pay per click, which will shape how visible your ad is and also how frequently it shows up. As SEO is focused completely on the organic listing of your website as a search result, there is no cost when someone clicks on your link. However, this also means that the placement is limited to the search results list. Google Ads on the other hand, can take the form of search result listing ads, local services ads, carousel shopping ads and can also appear on other Google-owned or partner websites such as YouTube and Blogger.

Pricing and placement system aside, the biggest difference between SEO and Google Ads is the time required for the process and the results they each aim to produce. Google Ads can drive instant, directed traffic and conversions from when the campaign is launched, while SEO is more about driving a gradual but steady stream of organic traffic. Google Ads will produce faster and measurable results, while SEO requires more time in order to track analytics and returns on investment. But in considering this, Google Ads will only generate such results during the time you are funding your campaign, while SEO aims to create long term momentum that will continuously and organically generate online traffic.

So when it comes to choosing between the two or arguing whether one is better than the other, it is important to consider what is best suited to fulfilling your company's strategies and business objectives. Generally speaking, both are incredibly important, and it is advised by experts that using a combination of the two is the most effective method of maximising your website’s online presence and potential. This is because they’ll both support your business in covering the short and long term timeframe of increasing your business’s digital visibility and boosting website traffic and conversions. They are also complementary, as Google Ads can serve as a testing ground to form the basis of your SEO strategy. This is because the data from Google Ads can point out which keywords your consumers are most engaged with, which can then in turn be used to target and refine your SEO campaign.

While Google has always reigned as king of the search engines, it is important to remember that they’re not the only player on the field. At Whitehat Agency, our aim is to effectively reach as many prospective audiences as possible, and allow your company to thrive on multiple digital platforms that are best suited to your strategy. This is why aside from Google we also specialise in optimising for Bing, which is owned by Microsoft and is the second largest search engine in the world. Bing has steadily seen an increase in frequent users, and now captures approximately 11% of Australia’s search market share. Optimising for Bing is also a valuable business opportunity as it poses the potential to reach new demographics. According to Microsoft, 81% of people who use Bing are over 35 years old, highly educated and also tend to have high levels of household income. So, optimising for Bing could be a vital source of clientele and prospective customers to businesses with similar target markets.

While there is no exact time to hire a SEO agency, the sooner you do, the better. Digital platforms are constantly evolving and becoming an increasingly important space for modern business and e-commerce. With a clear slowing in retail and traditional marketing channels, many more users and potential customers are turning to digital search engines as their first port of call in seeking information, expertise, products and services. That’s why SEO is an incredibly relevant and important tool in harnessing organic traffic and making sure that you’re maximising your business’s visibility amongst search engine results. Acquiring the assistance of an SEO agency is also vital if you are finding that your website is slumping in regards to traffic and conversions, as they will quickly begin working on improving your rankings as soon as possible.

As highlighted before, SEO is a long haul strategy, and an extremely valuable long term investment for any business looking to stand out in their field. Time is an important asset for SEO marketing, so the earlier you can begin, the sooner you will see results and the more value it will generate for you in the long run. If you find that your website isn’t performing as you would like or is gaining visibility on search result pages, hiring a SEO agency would help you to begin building the foundations of a strong and sustainable online presence for you and your business.