Website positioning and promotion can make the difference between a successful online project and a successful one. This in turn may translate into financial benefits. It is worth bearing in mind that search engine positioning is a complex and time-consuming process. Can you take care of SEO on your own? Or is it better to rely on professionals? Let's find out!
Website positioning - what does it consist of?
One can often come across the statement that one can put an equal sign between the words SEO and Google. This is not entirely true. Positioning often also includes SEM (Search Engine Marketing) activities and focuses on several key activities:
- technical optimisation of the service,
- content activities,
- building a profile of links leading to the page you want to position.
It is worth emphasising at the outset that SEO for a website is a long-term process that basically never ends. Why? This is because SEO is a "zero-sum game". In order for our website to be on the first page in Google search results, someone from the TOP 10 has to fall out.
This is why professional positioning is planned for as long as possible. We must take into account the fact that if we are competing for difficult phrases, e.g. "gaming computer", we will have to deal not only with manufacturers of such devices, but also with shops that sell electronics.
If the selected shop invests more money, e.g. in content marketing and link building activities, it will probably soon rank in the Google search results. Provided that such optimisation is done sensibly and by specialists. 
What effects does SEO have?
By definition, web positioning should result in an increase in the visibility of our website online. Why is this so important? Here we can once again refer to a shop that sells gaming computers.
There are hundreds of websites on the Internet that have a particular device on offer. What is the decisive factor that an internet user will buy it from us? Visibility in the global data network, and more specifically in Google search results.
Why is this particular search engine so important in our home market? This is due to its popularity. It is estimated that it is used by around 97% of Polish users. This is the reason why it is crucial to optimise for the guidelines provided by the Mountain View company, rather than, for example, Bing or DuckDuckGo, which together occupy no more than 3% of the Polish search engine market.
There is much more to SEO than picking out phrases, keywords or checking compliance with the Mobile First by Google rule. It can be argued that SEO activities focus on two key areas:
- off-page,
- on-page.
The off-page scope includes:
- implementation of external linking,
- analise fraz,
- competitive analysis.
On-page activities, i.e. those that are performed on the website, are for example:
- optimisation of sub-pages within the website,
- creation of blog posts and articles that will include the selected key phrases,
- formatting the graphics on the page (as well as adding proper alternative descriptions, known as ALTs),
- Hx header optimisation,
- adjusting page load time,
- addition and proper implementation of the sitemap (sitemap.xml),
- creating internal linking within the site.
As you can see, all these activities require knowledge and experience. This is why it is sometimes worth considering whether to enlist the help of professionals - companies that will take care of the entire positioning process for us - build a strategy, carry out an audit and develop cyclical campaigns that are tailored to a particular industry.
For example, a company operating locally, in one city, has to look at SEO issues in a completely different way than a large corporation that has a network of sales outlets and intends to develop the site, e.g. by adding an online e-shop. 
Is it possible to position a website yourself?
It is very difficult to give a definite answer to this question. There is no doubt that successfully planning a campaign and implementing correct internal linking within a site requires considerable practical knowledge.
SEO is an extremely precise industry, where every detail, even seemingly trivial ones, counts. The guidelines Google provides are also not a given once and for all. Just because we were able to create a well-read, highly visible technology blog a year ago, doesn't mean that exactly the same SEO tactics will work after a certain period of time and in, for example, the fashion industry or a gardening shop. Why? Google is constantly updating its search algorithm. Therefore, it is important to stay on top of the news and monitor your visibility in the search engine.
In practice, this means that the positioning of a website on Google never ends. It is a process that should include a periodic check for compliance with the latest changes that the Mountain View-based company has made to its search engine. Anyone dreaming of SEO on their own must also take into account that it is not only the algorithm that is changing, but also the software that allows you to accurately analyse the health of your site.
Google Analytics, for example, can be pointed to here. In 2023, the version of this tool that has been known for several years (Universal Analytics) will be discontinued. It will be replaced by GA4, and many revolutionary changes will cause us to look at website optimisation in a new way. Slightly different variables will be analysed, which may force a change in SEO strategy for many different companies trying to position their site online.
That is why, when good website positioning is crucial to us, it is worth seriously considering the help of professionals. The times when it was enough to place a few or a dozen links to your site on large discussion forums or in free online directories are long gone. Nowadays, optimising your website's visibility is an extremely specialised segment of the online market that is undergoing constant, dynamic change.
A brief financial analysis also argues in favour of choosing professionals. In the vast majority of cases, when we want to deal with SEO seriously, we have to use paid external tools. They make it much easier, for example, to plan a campaign or analyse a domain's reputation. Free tools such as Google Analytics, Google Trends or Answer The Publics are not enough. Usually we need to invest in web-based solutions such as:
- Senuto,
- SurferSEO,
- Ahrefs,
- ScreamingFrog.
These are considerable expenses, which mean that seemingly cheap SEO can cost us much more than outsourcing these activities to an agency with whom we will be billed in a subscription model.
Where to get knowledge about SEO?
The main source of knowledge is the official blog run by Google and the articles created by the company, which can be found in the FAQ section. However, it is worth bearing in mind that effective SEO also makes use of an analysis of competitors' activities.
This is why it is worth following blogs run by the best agencies on the market. They often feature so-called case studies, i.e. descriptions of specific processes implemented by a given company to increase the visibility of a particular website.
It also doesn't hurt to join various topic groups on social media. It is also worth looking at specialist portals, such as Search Engine Journal or Search Engine Land. Once in a while, you can turn on YouTube and browse through recordings of channels that report news and explain changes. 
What factors affect position in search results?
The number of variables that are taken into account can make one's head spin. The fact is, however, that SEO involves taking care:
- internal linking,
- external linking,
- page loading speed,
- site security (SSL implementation),
- compliance with the Mobile First by Google rule,
- appropriate saturation of phrases and keywords in the content,
- the correct structure of Hx headings,
- no copy of the site by IP address in search results,
- sitemap (sitemap.xml).
These are just the basic parameters you need to think about at the very beginning of your SEO work. Algorithms take into account hundreds, perhaps thousands, of different data.
Unfortunately, PageRank, which directly answered the question of how Google ranked a page, is no longer publicly available. The search engine giant has also given up on providing accurate information about all the factors that are relevant to determining a site's position in search results. These are further reasons influencing you to trust specialists who have years of experience in SEO.
Advantages of SEO agencies over independent positioning
As already mentioned, the agency's key strengths are experience and a fine-grained knowledge of the Google system. However, it is worth noting that an SEO service should always start with a full SEO audit. It will give the owner an answer to the question of what technical condition the website is in. It may turn out that it will be crucial to focus on developing the external link profile and on-page activities will be kept to a minimum.
Another advantage of the agency is that - usually - their SEO offer is tailored to the specific needs of the client. In many ways, the activities undertaken by specialists can be likened to a visit to the doctor. The first step is to find out "what ails the patient". - This is done by a comprehensive SEO audit, which quickly pinpoints the most important areas for improvement.
Once this has been completed, it is time to discuss the exact situation of the site and propose a strategy to increase the visibility of the sub-page or specific products in the search results. This is another area that works in your clients' favour: they will know exactly what the action being taken is based on and what the overarching objective is.
Website positioning is also inextricably linked to the preparation of reports so that the client knows how the portal's visibility in the search results changes from month to month. With the help of professionals, we can really save a lot of time, and therefore also money. Agency Google positioning (if we choose a trustworthy company) is a move that is definitely worth considering.
How much does SEO cost - what does the price depend on?
There is no one-size-fits-all answer to the question of how to effectively position a website online. Much depends on the difficulty of the phrases that are to increase the visibility of our portal, as well as the industry. A local pizzeria will take a completely different approach to SEO than a chain shop or a truck manufacturer.
However, it is worth discussing the aforementioned 'phrase difficulty' in a little more detail. What is it and how is it measured? Let us assume that our company trades in gaming desks. Such a phrase is typed into a search engine by approximately 60,000 people per month. These are the potential customers we want to convince of our offer, so they have to see our website, enter it and then make a purchase decision. Unfortunately, there is no shortage of companies that also sell such desks.
In this particular case, the price of SEO can be high, as there is no doubt that the phrase 'gaming desks' is a tasty morsel for many companies that are willing to invest a lot of money just to be on the first page of the search results. In such a situation, we have little room for manoeuvre: we can either spend more or opt for a different SEO strategy, which may (or may not) prove to be more effective.
On the other hand, there is also no shortage of companies interested in simpler, less popular phrases. If you are trading in firefighting hoses, for example, you are targeting a niche and will therefore face much less competition. In turn, this means spending less on content marketing and link building.
The price is also affected by the overall technical condition of the website. If we have a dozen or so products on offer and for each of them we need to prepare a dedicated description containing key phrases and words, we will certainly pay less than if we had to describe a thousand accessories. The scale of our business and the goals we set for ourselves are therefore very important.
As you can see, the price of SEO is never fixed and depends on really many different parameters. The easiest way to estimate it will be to decide to cooperate with a professional SEO agency. Specialists will help us if it turns out that the budget will allow only for positioning of a few most important products for us. Professionals will select these elements of the offer and plan an appropriate strategy.
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