SEO In Singapore.
We hear this a lot these days. From our experience with multiple clients and prospects, we realised that many are actually confused. What are they confused about? Well, most are generally confused about SEO with PPC Campaign.
Let us dig in a little. What is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is basically optimising your site to become visible when someone searches on a search engine like Google. There are hundreds of sites in your local area. Yet when you search for something, there are only about 10 organic search results shown on the first page together with about 6 Google Ads link and about another 6 on the Google Maps list.
The question is, how many pages do you normally screen through before typing in another set of keyword again to run another search?
The majority of users search only a maximum of 2 pages. Meaning a ranking of 1 to 20 only. The rest is rarely seen by the user.
So how to make your website seen when people do a search? The answer is SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
Why businesses who believe in SEO will spend time and money on getting their SEO right and why those who don’t understand the power of SEO won’t do anything about it. The truth is, people, perform search all the time! Even kids these days who need to find out about something will automatically go to Google. They continuously do searches to seek information, the best deals, and the hottest brands. According to Google data, people conduct more than 100 billion Google searches each month.
The most powerful part is that people search in the moment of need. When people realize they want or need something. From a product, a vacation, a family activity, a piece of information, they instinctively turn to search. People search throughout their day in “want-to-know,” want-to-go,” “want-to-do,” and “want-to-buy” moments. So you’d want to be there in their moment. Remember back in the day the plumbers or electrician used to give free fridge magnets with their company information on them? Today, that same magnet remains nothing more than just a magnet. When something happens, no one got to the fridge to get a phone number. They turn to Google.
Everyone use their devices on the go. They search from their computers at home and from their mobile phones and tablets while on-the-go. You want to make sure that you are seen when they are searching.
Now, how to make sure that you’re seen in searches that happens in Singapore?
Local SEO or SEO in Singapore is the answer. Singapore is a really small country. Everything is considered local. We’re not a big country like our neighbours whereby different states have very different culture and dialect. To be successful in Singapore search results, Local SEO is key.
Here’s some basics to be looked into to setup a roadmap towards a successful Local SEO effort?
- Have a Google My Business (GMB) account. Update it every week with the latest information, event or promotion.
- Get Google reviews. Take the extra effort to get your customers to leave a review. Those review stars mean a lot.
- Write about local stuff on your blog page. The more local it is, the higher the chances of Google picking it up.
- Ensure that your NAP (Name, Address, Place) information is the same and consistent everywhere online.
- Lastly, optimize optimize optimize. Doing SEO takes a lot of time. Generally, it takes between 3 months to 12 months for your SEO to take effect depending on keyword competitiveness. Anything less is possible but we do not want to “over-promise”. We give you the truth.
How much do marketing agencies charge for a SEO service?
Well, this of course differs between agencies but the average going rate would be somewhere between $400 – $1000 per month to target between 4 – 12 keywords. Of course, there are those that charge only $200 per month and there are those that charge $2,000 per month. What’s the difference? Quality. As mentioned before, SEO requires a pretty good amount of leg-work. This means high man-hours doing optimisation and analysis. The lesser you pay, the chance is you may not see any results because the number of man-hours would not be enough or the “analyst” would probably be an unskilled person. But SEO when you put in time and effort to do it right, the results will definitely pay off. Why is SEO a must for all businesses? Imagine this, instead of you trying to market your product on your customers’ screen, your customer is actually searching for your product or service online and you appear when they’re searching. They want something that you have and are looking for it. Chances are, they want to move forward so that you can make a sale.
SEO is a long-term game. But once you’re in, sales will come in naturally.
But for those who aren’t patient enough, there’s another way to appear on search results with almost instant results. It’s called, PPC. We’ll touch on this in our next article.
