Websites are becoming more and more powerful when it comes to influencing consumer
choices and decisions when they are considering making a purchase which is why more and more businesses realise the importance of having a well designed website which consumers find easy and insightful to use.
The other important part to online businesses welfare on the internet concerns SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) which effectively done will give you a leading edge over the competition when it comes to ranking high in search engine results.
The reason why SEO is so important and vital to online business is due to the fact that search engines are the most popular way for consumers to find relevant websites that match their needs when it comes to shopping, finding places to go out and eat, finding cinemas etc.
The aim for every online company is to come top of these search results as when a search engine returns its results after having searched for a users query, only the most relevant and important sites are listed at the top of the SERP's (Search Engine Result's Page). Being in the top of these search results is a very long and hard process and cannot be done overnight.
Depending on the nature and size of the company concerned, it may be more profitable to carry out SEO in-house if the company website isn't that complex and filled with too much content. This is also only possible to undertake in-house as long as there is someone in-house who has the knowledge to perform SEO and won't take any risk's by plunging into the darker side of SEO which concerns link buying which could potentially see your site pulled from the search results altogether.
If your company is of medium to large size then it would be recommended to let a specialist online marketing agency take care of your SEO and any other areas within internet marketing that your company might need. There are a lot of agencies out there so it is essential that you do your research beforehand. One good method to use is to actually type the service you're interested in using whether it be SEO, PPC, Conversion analytics and see which results are near the top of the SERP's. After all SEO agencies specialise in precisely this area so it would make sense for the best agencies to be on at least the first few pages of the SERP's.
The next step once you've chosen a few agencies that take your interest would be to send them each an email asking them for a breakdown of costs and what work they actually recommend carrying out on your site. Some agencies will even offer you a pricing system that is relative to performance so make sure you find the best deal within your budget that will actually get results.
Finally analyse the replies you get back and see which agency will offer you the best deal. If it is not proposed also ask for a monthly report that will give you feedback on what work has actually been undertaken and will show you information on how many visitors are coming to your site and related statistics.