Got big ambitions for your MSP or IT company?
You’ll need to step up your website’s ranking on search results pages to attract targeted traffic. This means implementing some tried-and-tested MSP SEO tactics as a part of our overarching digital marketing strategy. When done right, SEO is very worth the effort.
However, many MSP owners aren’t convinced. They insist that their competitors go after similar keywords and try to rank for “their company name + ’MSPs near me'” on Google, rendering all their SEO tactics ineffective.
While that may be true, it is also a fact that leads coming in from search results have a higher conversion rate. Almost half of all searches are done by people looking for specific information, and most searchers are there to find a local business.
That business can be yours, if your website is present to them at the top of the search results.
Google is all about effective marketing, and considering that the search giant owns about 93% of the global SEO market, now would be a good time to stake your claim in local SEO and complete your Google My Business page.
The GMB page and other similar tactics result in higher rankings that let you rule the results for longer. Older and more dubious techniques like keyword stuffing and buying backlinks might be easy to implement, but Google won’t appreciate you using them. It is also not a good idea to pay for PPC ads and other paid tactics.
Don’t try to trick Google into letting your website rank, and Google will reward you generously with higher rankings, more traffic, better prestige, and a lot more.
On-site SEO for MSPs & IT: Delight Visitors with outstanding UX
When Google determines a site’s rankings, it considers how easy it is to use for the visitors. Sure, good content and quality backlinks factor in too, but you primarily need to build a site that’s easy to navigate. That’s the key to good on-site SEO for MSP & IT websites.
Google doesn’t just look at a click. It gauges nearly everything that happens after a user clicks through to your website to determine just how much value you provide to the people it’s sending your way.
It’s vital to make sure that your site is easy to use, which is also a great way to stay ahead of your MSP competitors and outperform them. It also gives you a brilliant opportunity to build a robust digital presence that helps the audience interact and connect with relevant information.
To enhance the visitor experience of your site:
- Make sure that your website loads incredibly fast
- Explain what you do and who you are
- Offer contact information on all pages so people from your niche MSP target market can quickly get in touch
- Make sure that you clearly define the meta titles, description, and menu structure
- Create an easy-to-use contact form
- Follow all other best practices for user experience.
Google aims to provide the easiest to understand and the highest quality content to its visitors. So if your site offers that, Google will catch that and will take notice. It’s easy to do and most of your MSP or IT competitors probably won’t do this.
The research found that search engine optimization provides companies with the best returns as organic traffic can help businesses capture over 40% of the total revenue. In other words, SEO is the highest quality lead source for MSPs.
Off-Site SEO: Use PR to rank higher for your MSP or IT company
Another significant component of SEO happens off-site. This essentially comes down to the quantity and quality of links to your site and references throughout it. However, that doesn’t mean that you start paying others to link back to your MSP or IT services site.
Google wants you to build good public relations and create meaningful content that compels people to link back to your blogs, articles, and other sections on your website.
Have you been interviewed for a local newspaper? If yes, terrific!
That dependable news company will provide a link to your site from theirs when publishing that piece. And this singular link will be way more potent than hundreds of others that you could’ve bought.
Did you submit a content piece or article to the local trade organization? That’s amazing!
Make sure you guest write for as many publications as possible and link back to your website. This can make a significant difference when it comes to SEO.
There are no shortcuts to link building, but the results can be rewarding, elevating your MSP website’s position in Google searches. Moreover, it also enables you to create an impactful first impression that can help your MSP leads decide if they want to work with you in the first place.
Additionally, it dramatically expands possible visitor touchpoints beyond your site, where people can potentially encounter your managed service provider (MSP).
SEO requires consistency and long-term commitment
You’ll need a solid SEO strategy that includes creating quality content and backlinks for several months at a stretch. SEO is a long-term commitment, and if you want viable results you need to need to get it right.
If you want to build your reputation as a thought leader in your domain, publish new articles that your customers can relate to on a weekly or monthly basis. But don’t just use keywords and write articles for the sake of it. Don’t go around publishing your websites that aren’t used by the businesses you are targeting. Be deliberate about every move you make.
Take the time to answer questions and solve problems your clients often experience. And then keep doing that until you see results. It could take a couple of months or a year – the duration depends on how saturated your industry is and how good you are at covering all aspects of SEO for your MSP website.
Like any marketing strategy, SEO also needs ample amounts of time, commitment, and effort.
Don’t have time for SEO?
Talk to the SEO experts for IT companies & MSPs
Wrapping up SEO marketing for MSPs & IT Companies
The bottom line is that SEO is a potent tool in the marketing arsenal for MSPs. Once you have taken care of your SEO strategy, it becomes easier to think of other ways to stay ahead of your MSP competitors.
But it’s undoubtedly a long-term investment that requires patience and experience to build a reliable momentum. The SEO specialists at LeftLeads MSP Marketing are here to help.
We make sure that you do everything to attract and convert potential leads with timely and relevant SEO tactics that Google will love. Let’s get in touch to figure out what that may mean for your business.
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Jen
“Google doesn’t just look at a click. It gauges nearly everything that happens after a user clicks through to your website to determine just how much value you provide to the people it’s sending your way.” YES to all of this! SEO is important, and so is strong content and a navigable, clear design. SEO goes beyond keywords and it’s shortsighted to say that it isn’t important. You’ve hit the nail on the head.
Neil
Ranking for “their company name + ’MSPs near me’” on Google is not nearly enough anymore. Just like you said, people are searching for all sorts of long tail keywords nowadays and companies must show up for those keywords (whether in first place or at least in the first 4-5) or risk losing serious business. People and companies know what they want and they search accordingly.
Noah B.
Unfortunately many businesses go for the cheapest option when it comes to SEO for MSPs and that will lead to bad results. What people don’t understand is that Google frowns upon black hat tactics and even some grey hat ones and these can easily land a site in the sandbox or attract other penalties and sink a company. The cheapest option is almost never the better one. And SEO is nothing to joke about. It’s actually getting harder to rank because of more and more companies competing for the same spots.
Kevin
“SEO requires consistency and long-term commitment” – yes indeed. Took me some time to understand this. It’s not something you do once and forget about it. SEO for MSPs and SEO in general is an ongoing process that constantly needs doing, updating, editing, etc. Since Google (and other search engines as well, let’s not forget them) are always changing, so should some SEO for MSPs practices. While some practices may always stay the same, there’s always something that needs changing.
Angela
Google is the king, there’s no question about it, but don’t forget other search engines as they can bring in a lot of traffic as well. I’m thinking about Bing, Baidu, Yandex and even Youtube which is the biggest video search engine there is. Most companies can and should optimize their content to rank better on all of them.