If you think this is the usual article where you want to sell something or you want to demonize someone, I will disappoint your expectations. Do you think perhaps I tell you that it is impossible to make your own site for free? Again, you would be wrong: creating your own site for free by taking advantage of modern CMS platforms with ready-made templates is possible and many have done so.
Such solutions, perhaps even with the possibility of hosting their own pages for free, have been one of the driving forces behind the Web ‘s boundless expansion in recent years, not only from a “physical” point of view but also and especially as a social phenomenon.
But what if, instead of typing in the address of your site, I look up information on a search engine? How do you
appear among the top positions
and increase your chances of being clicked?
If you have already happened to have asked this question to a marketing or communications consulting firm and come out after undergoing an hour-long monologue without being clear about the “WHAT” of the story, in the following lines I will try to explain what is a Web Agency and why it becomes so important when it comes to investing in the future of your company.
Does a Web Agency do the Web-Things? Guide to new professions
A Web Agency is an agency specializing in the Web sector within which a team of professionals from different fields (especially strategy, development, marketing, graphic design, and communication) provide their skills and experience to create and support a company’s identity on the Web.
But let’s take a step back.
- Probably friends, relatives, and perhaps some of your customers or readers to whom you have had your do-it-yourself site displayed will have expressed their appreciation; the question remains whether the praise you have received relates to absolute value or to your ability to succeed in putting up a site regardless of the quality of the result you have achieved. Let me explain: the fact that you were able to assemble a piece of furniture from Ikea following the instructions will not make you a wood craftsman. Just as simply calling themselves a Web Agency does not mean that they are all the same and all equally prepared.
- most people who use the Internet, start browsing from a search engine, and 90% of the time it is Google. Typing 2-3 words such as “weather Milan,” “train schedule for Florence,” and so on will bring up a series of results sorted into a list. From a statistical point of view, it has been shown that less than 9 percent of people find a result they find useful on the second page of what is technically called the SERP (Search Engine Research Page).
Building on these two premises, let’s try to explain what we do all day and why and how our business could help you by answering the question, “How did that page get the first result in a list of hundreds of thousands of average results?” The first (obvious) answer is to say, you have turned to professional
SEO professionals
with whom he planned a strategy. But what does it mean in practice? What does a Web Agency do that its geeky cousin probably doesn’t?
- strategic planning – before starting any operational phase in a web agency you will find a professional who will listen to your needs, study with you your needs and your objectives. The
e-commerce consultant
at this point he will proceed with a step-by-step study phase at the end of which he will recommend which actions are best for you and which are the best technologies to use compatible with a number of variables; - creation of an ecommerce or Website – a Web site, contrary to its apparent simplicity, hides a number of structural and architectural complexities without which it becomes an almost unusable tool (what do you do with a knife if the blade is not sharp?): it must be simple to use, intuitive, beautiful to look at, and respond to a number of technical rules that make it qualitatively better and appreciable from the point of view of search engines;
- optimization, indexing and ranking – Search Engine Optimization(SEO) is aimed at obtaining the best search engine rankings and includes a series of SEO optimization activities to be carried out both inside and outside the site itself;
- Web Design – if your site’s graphics leave something to be desired, or perhaps you have created your site yourself and realized that the “restaurants-super” template you downloaded for free was also used by one of your direct competitors, probably a professional solution that is eye-catching and effective could give your business an edge; do you know, for example, what colors attract the most attention and what messages they convey? and when a user looks at a Web page what is the maximum attention threshold and where does the eye go? Where do you expect to find some information? Answering these questions could radically change people’s approach to your site and increase your conversion rate!
- Web Writing – have you been told that you have to write texts in a certain way and use keywords? The Web Writer, working closely with the Seo will select together with you the most significant keywords with the highest potential to achieve your goals and draft ad hoc texts that are interesting, with high information value and easily “found” by search engines;
- Online reputation – what do they think of you on the Net? In the time of Social Networks collecting people’s feedback, what they say relative to your company, service or product is of crucial importance. In fact, we often rely on the opinion of other users or other people who have already tested a certain product before we make our purchases or prefer one brand over another. In a Web Agency, a professional conducts daily screening to carp any information/judgment/opinion about you in forums, blogs or Web pages to monitor your Web Reputation and study the strategy to maintain and improve it;
Social Media Marketing
– Each Social Media is created for a purpose and has a certain type of audience and users: which ones to choose and what is the best combination? What to publish and when? How to increase the sharing rate of your content? A Social Media Planner and Social Media Community Manager helps you to have the most effective presence on different platforms so that you do not run into the most common mistakes or so-called #epicfails.- Adwords and PPC – a great tool at your disposal is advertising on Adwords and more generally the
Pay Per Click campaigns
(PPC). If creating an ad, from a practical point of view, is rather simple to plan an advertising campaign that converts and get the maximum result with the budget at one’s disposal is a task for professionals that requires a lot of skills and several time. - Monitor results-how many visits have you received to your site? What are the times when most people browse your pages? What content is most read and shared? How to increase the Number of Likes or views? A Web Agency delivers you a periodic report with a detailed analysis of your Web presence and what the solutions are or could be to make a quantum leap.
Professional or bricoleur: to whom would you put your future?
There is no one-size-fits-all solution, nor is there the “secret to success,” which is nothing more than a combination of professionalism, expertise, hard work, timing, budget and a dose of luck.
Be wary of those who promise miracles and claim that they can get to the top position on search engines in no time: a serious Web Agency will reply that they will work hard to make sure you get the best result possible subject to a number of factors that you will evaluate together, such as potential of your business, target market and available budget.
If you have doubts, we’ll gladly listen to your concerns in the comments box or by meeting you in person, but trust us, no-cost solutions are often worth their weight in gold!