Types of SEO Services: Benefits and How to Choose the Right Provider

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a key digital marketing strategy that helps businesses increase online visibility, attract more traffic, and drive long-term growth. SEO services cover a wide range of techniques designed to improve a website’s ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs), targeting different aspects of optimisation such as content, technical performance, local relevance, and more. 

This guide will walk you through the different types of SEO services, their benefits and actionable advice on choosing the right SEO service provider for your business.

What Are SEO Services?

SEO services encompass the work performed by SEO professionals or agencies to optimise a website for search engines like Google, Bing, and others. These services aim to improve your website’s ranking in organic search results, making it more visible to users searching for relevant information or products.

SEO services can range from optimising on-page elements such as content and keywords to improving technical aspects like site speed, mobile-friendliness, and structured data. Depending on your business needs, you may require local SEO, global SEO, or specialised services like eCommerce SEO.

When onboarding a new client, we conduct a thorough audit based on three core pillars: Status and Strategy, Create and Convey, and Position and Promote. These pillars form the foundation for achieving high rankings on search engines. Status and Strategy involve assessing the website’s technical framework to ensure it is properly structured for search engines to crawl and index. Create and Convey focuses on evaluating and optimising the website’s content to align with what users are searching for. Lastly, Position and Promote examines the site’s online prominence and authority, ensuring search engines recognise it as the leading choice in its niche.

Importance of SEO Services for Businesses

Investing in SEO services can have a profound impact on your business. Improving your search engine rankings can attract more organic traffic, generate leads, and increase your revenue.

Increased Online Visibility

One of the primary benefits of SEO is enhanced visibility in search results. The higher your website ranks for relevant keywords, the more likely it is to be seen by potential customers. Organic search is often the primary source of website traffic, and SEO ensures that you rank higher on SERPs, making your site easier to find for users actively searching for products or services like yours.

Targeted Traffic and Better ROI

SEO helps you attract highly targeted traffic—users specifically searching for what you offer. This focus on intent-based searches means you’re not just driving random visitors to your site but attracting potential customers who are more likely to convert. Compared to paid advertising, which can be expensive and short-lived, SEO offers better long-term ROI by consistently driving organic traffic without ongoing ad spend.

Building Credibility and Trust

Users tend to trust websites that rank on the first page of search results. Appearing high in search rankings signals authority and credibility in your industry. Moreover, SEO efforts, such as obtaining high-quality backlinks from trusted sites, further enhance your reputation in the eyes of both users and search engines.

Cost-Effective Marketing

Unlike paid search campaigns, SEO is a cost-effective digital marketing strategy in the long run. While initial investment and effort are required, the results are sustainable. Once you’ve achieved higher rankings, maintaining them requires far less ongoing investment than pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, where costs accumulate with each click.

Competitive Advantage

In competitive industries, having a well-optimised website can give you a significant edge over your competitors. Ranking higher in search results can help you capture more market share and position your brand as an industry leader. If your competitors are investing in SEO and you aren’t, they’re likely attracting your potential customers.

Types of SEO Services

Several types of SEO services cater to different aspects of your website’s performance and visibility. Here’s a breakdown of the main categories:

On-Page SEO

On-page SEO optimises individual web pages’ content and HTML source code to improve their relevance and visibility in search results.

Key Elements of On-Page SEO Include:

• Title Tags and Meta Descriptions: Title tags define the title of a web page and are displayed as the clickable headline in search engine results. In contrast, meta descriptions are short snippets that briefly summarise the page’s content. These elements also help search engines gauge the relevance of your page content with search queries. 
• Header Tags (H1, H2, H3): Header tags (H1, H2, H3, etc.) are used to structure the content of a web page, breaking it into easily digestible sections. Properly structured header tags improve user readability and help search engines identify the hierarchy and key topics within the content. 
• Keyword Optimisation:  Keyword optimisation involves strategically using target keywords in specific locations on a page, such as in the title, headers, content, and image alt text.  Effective keyword optimisation improves a page’s chances of ranking for the right queries, increasing organic visibility.
• Internal Linking: Internal linking refers to linking one website page to another. It helps users and search engines navigate your website. Internal links establish a site architecture that aids in distributing link equity across important pages. These links also help search engines understand the relationships between different pages and the overall structure of your website.

Off-Page SEO

Off-page SEO involves external efforts to improve your website’s authority and reputation through backlinks and other techniques outside your website.

Key Off-Page SEO Strategies Include:

• Backlink Building: Backlinks play a significant role in determining a site’s domain authority. A website with many reputable backlinks is perceived as more trustworthy and relevant by search engines, which can lead to higher rankings. However, not all backlinks are created equal—low-quality or spammy links can negatively impact a site’s reputation and rankings, making backlink quality critical.
• Guest Blogging: Guest blogging involves writing articles for other websites in your industry, increasing your website’s exposure to new audiences while earning valuable backlinks. By placing content on reputable industry blogs, you build your authority and improve your site’s link profile, which search engines consider when ranking pages.
• Social Media Signals: Social media signals refer to interactions on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn—such as likes, shares, and comments—that indicate the popularity of your content. While not a direct ranking factor, social media signals can boost visibility by driving traffic to your site. Increased traffic and engagement can lead to more backlinks and brand exposure, indirectly influencing search rankings.

Technical SEO

Technical SEO focuses on optimising the behind-the-scenes elements of your website, ensuring that search engines can crawl, index, and rank your pages effectively. A strong technical SEO foundation is crucial for overall site performance.

Key Technical SEO Factors Include:

• Site Speed: Site speed refers to how quickly a web page loads after a user clicks. Search engines, especially Google, prioritise faster websites in rankings because they provide a better user experience. Fast sites are more likely to rank well and retain users, positively impacting conversions.
• Mobile Optimisation: Mobile optimisation ensures your website functions well on mobile devices by adjusting to different screen sizes and touch navigation. Mobile optimisation has become essential for ensuring high search visibility and user retention, especially since mobile traffic surpasses desktop traffic in many industries.
• Crawlability and Indexing: Crawlability refers to the ease with which search engines can access and scan the content on your website, while indexing is the process by which search engines store and categorise your content for retrieval during searches. Good indexing practices ensure your content is accessible and accurately represented in search engines, leading to higher rankings and better search visibility.
• Secure Connection (HTTPS): HTTPS is a security protocol that encrypts the data between a user’s browser and your website. Websites with HTTPS are given preference over non-secure HTTP sites because they provide a safer user experience. HTTPS also helps build trust with users, as it signals that their data is protected, which can positively influence click-through rates and conversions.

Local SEO

Local SEO is crucial for businesses that serve a specific geographic area, such as brick-and-mortar stores or service-based businesses. The goal is to increase visibility for location-based searches.

Key Local SEO Tactics Include:

• Google My Business (GMB): GMB is a free tool that allows businesses to manage their presence on Google, including local search results and Google Maps. A well-optimised GMB profile is critical for ranking in local pack results—the listings that appear above organic results when users search for local services. It influences local search rankings and provides key information to users, such as your location, hours, and reviews, making it easier for potential customers to find and engage with your business.
• Local Keywords: Local keywords are search terms that include geographic modifiers, such as “plumber in Jurong East” or “best coffee shop near Gardens by the Bay”. When search engines detect location-based intent in a query, they prioritise results that match the user’s geographic area. Businesses that optimise for relevant local keywords increase their visibility to nearby users who are more likely to convert into customers.
• Customer Reviews: Customer reviews are testimonials and client feedback on platforms like Google, Yelp, or Facebook. Positive reviews improve a business’s local search rankings and build trust with potential customers. Google factors in the quality, quantity, and recency of reviews when determining local search rankings.

Enterprise SEO

Enterprise SEO is the practice of optimising large-scale websites with thousands or even millions of pages for search engine visibility. It goes beyond traditional SEO by focusing on scalability, automation, and collaboration across teams.

Key Differences Between Traditional and Enterprise SEO:

1. Scale: Enterprise SEO handles significantly larger websites and more diverse keyword portfolios.
2. Collaboration: Requires cross-functional teams (marketing, IT, legal, and leadership) to work in sync.
3. Automation: Relies on advanced tools to manage large datasets, streamline workflows, and identify opportunities.

Key Aspects of Enterprise SEO Include:

1. Scalable Keyword Research and Content Optimisation: Enterprise-level websites often target thousands of keywords across multiple languages and regions. Effective strategies include:
   • Automated Keyword Clustering: Use tools to group keywords into themes for efficiency.
   • Content Mapping: Assign keywords to existing pages while identifying content gaps.
   • Localisation: Adapt content for local markets, ensuring cultural and linguistic relevance.
2. Technical SEO at Scale: Large websites come with unique technical challenges:
   • Site Architecture: Ensure a logical, scalable structure to help search engines crawl and index content effectively.
   • Speed Optimisation: Use CDNs, caching, and minified resources to maintain fast load times.
   • Duplicate Content: Implement canonical tags and robots.txt to avoid penalties.
   • Core Web Vitals: Optimise for Google’s performance benchmarks, including load speed, interactivity, and visual stability.
3. Enterprise-Level Content Strategies: Content remains king, but for enterprises, the strategy must scale:
   • Evergreen Content Hubs: Create cornerstone content that serves as authoritative resources.
   • Real-Time Content Updates: Leverage tools to dynamically refresh content based on trends and data.
   • Regional Content Teams: Enable decentralised teams to tailor content for local relevance.
4. Automated Reporting and Analytics: With immense data, manual reporting becomes impractical:
   • Custom Dashboards: Tools like Google Looker Studio or other enterprise platforms like BrightEdge or Conductor to simplify reporting.
   • Predictive Analytics: Use machine learning to forecast SEO outcomes and ROI.
   • Enterprise KPIs: Align performance metrics across regions for consistency.
5. Cross-Team Collaboration: Enterprise SEO relies on smooth communication between marketing, development, and executive teams:
   • Training Sessions: Educate teams on SEO fundamentals to ensure alignment.
   • Integrated Platforms: Use project management tools like Jira, Asana or Notion for seamless workflows.

Global SEO

Global SEO is aimed at optimising your website for international audiences, focusing on multiple languages and regions to broaden your business’s global reach.

Key Global SEO Strategies Include:

• Hreflang Tags: Hreflang tags are HTML tags that tell search engines which language and region-specific version of your content to show to users based on their location. This avoids the confusion of showing users the wrong content, such as displaying a French version of a site to a user in Singapore. Proper use of hreflang tags also prevents duplicate content issues, ensuring that the right version of your content ranks for the right audience.
• Content Localisation: Content localisation involves adapting your content for different regions, considering factors such as local languages, currencies, and cultural nuances. Localisation improves user engagement by making content more relatable and relevant to international audiences, increasing the likelihood of conversions. Search engines also reward content tailored to the user’s location, improving your chances of ranking well in international markets.
• International Keyword Research: International keyword research identifies users’ search terms and queries in different countries and regions. Search behaviour varies across regions, and using region-specific keywords ensures that your site ranks for relevant queries in international markets. Targeting the right international keywords enhances your site’s global visibility, attracting a broader audience.

E-commerce SEO

E-commerce SEO revolves around optimising online stores to ensure that products rank highly in search results. These SEO efforts are specifically geared towards improving product visibility, attracting more organic traffic, and increasing sales on various platforms. 

Each platform comes with unique SEO challenges and opportunities, and eCommerce SEO requires understanding how different elements—product pages, category structures, and technical aspects—impact performance.

SEO for Shopify

Being a user-friendly platform, Shopify offers built-in features that allow businesses to manage their online store efficiently. However, the effectiveness of an eCommerce store in terms of search engine rankings depends on optimising certain key elements that affect both user experience and search engine algorithms.

1. Product Pages

Product pages directly influence how a store’s products are indexed and ranked by search engines. When search engines crawl these pages, they extract signals like the relevance of the product to a user’s query and the completeness of the information provided. Well-structured product pages can increase organic visibility, drive qualified traffic, and improve conversion rates.

2. Category Structure

In Shopify, categories (or collections) create a hierarchy of products that helps users find what they’re looking for while helping search engines understand the relationships between pages. A clear and logical category structure improves user experience by enabling seamless navigation, reducing bounce rates and improving engagement metrics. 

Search engines also benefit from a well-structured category system because it makes the crawling and indexing of related products more efficient. The relationships between product categories can influence how search engines interpret a site’s relevance for broader, thematic keywords, potentially increasing rankings for those terms.

3. Image Optimisation

Images showcase products in various views and conditions. Large, high-quality images improve customer engagement by providing a visual representation of products, but if improperly optimised, they can slow down page load times—an important ranking factor in SEO. Additionally, well-labelled images (with alt text) enhance accessibility and provide search engines with extra context, aiding in better indexing and potential rankings in image search results. 

4. Structured Data

For Shopify stores, structured data (specifically in JSON-LD format) is used to mark product pages with information like pricing, availability, and reviews.

Structured data impacts how a store’s product information is displayed in search results. By providing structured data, eCommerce websites increase their chances of appearing in rich snippets. These rich snippets boost visibility and improve click-through rates (CTR) by directly providing users with key information in the search results.

SEO for WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a highly flexible WordPress plugin that powers many online stores. Its customizability means WooCommerce SEO requires understanding how various site elements—like product page structure and internal linking—affect rankings and user experience.

1. Keyword Optimisation for Product Pages

In WooCommerce, product pages can be customised to target specific keywords in titles, descriptions, meta tags, and even product categories.

When search engines see keyword-rich content that matches user queries, they’re more likely to rank the product page higher. Effective keyword optimisation helps ensure that a product appears for the right search queries, which increases organic traffic and improves conversion opportunities.

2. Product Categories and Tags

Categories are used for broader groupings of products (e.g., “Men’s Clothing”), while tags serve as more specific attributes (e.g., “leather jackets”).

Proper use of categories and tags enhances a store’s SEO by improving internal site organisation and providing search engines with a clearer understanding of the site’s structure. This can lead to better rankings for broader category-level searches and more niche product searches. 

3. Site Speed Optimisation

Site speed refers to how quickly the pages of a WooCommerce store load when a user visits them. Site speed is determined by factors like image size, server response time, and how efficiently code is rendered.

Site speed is a critical ranking factor, as search engines (especially Google) prioritise websites that load quickly, particularly on mobile devices. Fast-loading pages improve user experience, engagement, and conversions, positively influencing SEO performance.

4. Technical SEO

Technical SEO encompasses the behind-the-scenes elements of a WooCommerce site, such as sitemaps, robots.txt files, structured data, and how search engine bots crawl the site. Properly configured technical SEO ensures that search engines can efficiently crawl and index all site pages. 

SEO for Magento

Magento is a powerful e-commerce platform used by larger businesses, known for its flexibility and scalability. Its robust structure means that technical SEO elements play a larger role in its SEO performance compared to more straightforward platforms like Shopify.

1. URL Structure and Product Page Optimisation

Magento allows for complete control over URL structures, meaning that product and category URLs can be customised for clarity and keyword relevance. Clean, keyword-rich URLs contribute to higher rankings because they signal the topic of the page. 

Product page optimisation includes elements such as unique product descriptions, titles, and meta tags. Optimised product pages help products rank higher for specific, high-intent keywords, improving both organic visibility and conversion rates.

2. Layered Navigation and Duplicate Content

Layered navigation in Magento allows users to filter products by attributes such as size, colour, or price. While this improves user experience, it can inadvertently create multiple URLs for the same product page, leading to duplicate content issues.

Managing duplicate content through canonical tags or proper indexing instructions helps ensure that the most important version of a page is ranked. Efficient layered navigation boosts user experience, improving dwell time and engagement rates—factors that indirectly influence SEO.

3. Page Speed and Performance

Site speed is a direct ranking factor and is especially critical for Magento sites with large product inventories. Due to Magento’s robust nature, it can be resource-heavy, leading to slower load times.

Slow-loading pages can result in a poor user experience, high bounce rates, and reduced conversions. Search engines like Google penalise slow websites, so maintaining optimal site speed ensures rankings remain high while improving overall customer satisfaction.

4. Structured Data for Product Listings

In Magento, structured data can be used to markup product information, including price, reviews, and availability, making this information more visible in search engine results.

Structured data doesn’t directly affect rankings but can significantly improve how a store’s content is displayed in search results. By providing detailed information about products, structured data increases the likelihood of showing rich snippets, enhances search results that improve CTR and drive more qualified traffic to the store.

Addressing the core issues of an e-commerce website’s structure and optimization can lead to transformative results.

For instance, one of our e-commerce clients previously worked with another SEO agency for 18 months. During that time, the agency focused solely on link-building, yet their efforts failed to deliver any notable improvements in organic rankings or traffic. Upon conducting a comprehensive analysis of the client’s website, we identified significant issues with its structure. The site’s categories, subcategories, and product pages were poorly organised, and the keywords targeting these areas were far from optimal. 

By restructuring the website, refining the navigation, and ensuring the categories and subcategories were logically arranged and properly optimised, we achieved remarkable results. Within six months, the client experienced a 500% increase in organic traffic – all without building a single backlink.

This method improves user experience and ensures every part of your site works together to drive significant organic growth.

Mobile SEO

With most searches now happening on mobile devices, optimising your site for mobile users is critical.

Mobile SEO Tactics Include:

• Responsive Design: A website adjusts its layout and elements to fit different screen sizes. Responsive design impacts mobile rankings because Google uses mobile-first indexing, which prioritises the mobile version of a site for ranking purposes. Mobile-friendly sites enhance user experience and improve retention, both of which are critical for SEO success.
• Mobile Page Speed: Page speed is a significant factor in mobile rankings. Slow-loading mobile pages frustrate users, leading to higher bounce rates and lower rankings. Optimising mobile page speed ensures users can access content quickly, improving user satisfaction and conversion rates.
• Mobile User Experience: Mobile user experience (UX) refers to how easy and intuitive it is for users to navigate your website on a mobile device. This includes touch-friendly buttons, easy-to-read text, and simplified menus. Search engines prioritise sites that offer a seamless mobile experience, making UX a critical ranking factor for mobile SEO.

Content SEO

Content SEO focuses on optimising the content of your website to make it more relevant to search queries and increase rankings.

Best Practices for Content SEO Include:

• Keyword Research: Keyword research forms the foundation of content SEO. By understanding which terms your target audience is using, you can tailor your content to align with user intent. When search engines recognise that your content is relevant to high-demand queries, they are more likely to rank your pages higher. 
• High-Quality Content: Google favours in-depth, well-researched content that provides users value. Content considered authoritative, trustworthy, and relevant increases dwell time (the amount of time a user spends on a page), reduces bounce rates, and encourages user engagement — all signals that search engines use to rank pages.
• Internal Linking: Internal linking plays a crucial role in content SEO by helping search engines understand the relationship between various pages. Well-structured internal links can help spread link equity across your site, making it easier for search engines to discover and rank important pages. Additionally, these links improve user experience by guiding visitors to relevant content, potentially increasing page views and engagement.

Voice Search SEO

Voice Search SEO is becoming increasingly important with the rise of virtual assistants like Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri. This type of SEO focuses on optimising content to appear in voice search results, which tend to be more conversational and long-tail.

Voice Search Optimisation Tips Include:

• Natural Language Queries: Voice searches tend to be more direct and specific, often prioritising long-tail keywords and questions. These queries often take the form of full questions, such as “How do I fix a leaky faucet?”. Optimising for natural language queries increases the chances of being featured in voice search results and position zero (the featured snippet at the top of Google’s results), commonly read aloud by voice assistants. 
• Structured Data: Structured data plays a pivotal role in voice search because it helps search engines provide direct, concise answers to voice queries. Search engines rely on structured data to pull relevant information for users and feature it prominently in response to voice searches. With structured data, a website may be able to appear in these featured positions, reducing visibility in voice search results.

How to Choose the Right SEO Service Provider

Choosing the right SEO service provider is critical to your business’s success, and it requires careful consideration of these several key factors:

1. Defining Your Goals

Before selecting an SEO service provider, it’s essential to clearly define your goals. A clear understanding of what you want to achieve will guide your decision and help you choose a provider with the right expertise. Here are some common goals businesses should consider:

• Increase Organic Traffic
• Generate More Leads or Sales
• Improve Website Performance.
• Enhance Local Visibility 
• Expand to International Markets

By defining specific goals upfront, you’ll be better positioned to assess which SEO provider has the right skill set and proven results in the areas most important to your business. This will also help set clear expectations with the provider on what success looks like for your SEO efforts.

2. Assess Their Experience and Expertise

Look for SEO providers with a proven track record of success. Review case studies and client testimonials to understand their experience. Ensure they’ve worked with businesses similar to yours and have experience in your industry.

3. Understand Their SEO Approach

Ask the provider to explain their SEO approach. Ensure they use ethical techniques and focus on long-term success rather than short-term gains. Avoid providers that promise overnight results or use tactics like buying backlinks, which can harm your site.

4. Transparency and Reporting

A good SEO provider will be transparent about their methods and regularly update you on progress. Ensure they provide detailed reports that show how your site is performing, including traffic, rankings, and other key metrics.

5. Communication and Support

Regular communication is key to a successful SEO strategy. Choose a provider that is responsive and offers ongoing support. They should be available to answer questions and update your project’s progress.

6. Pricing and ROI

Understand the provider’s pricing structure and ensure it aligns with your budget. While SEO is an investment, it should offer a strong ROI over time as organic traffic and conversions increase.

Which SEO service is suitable for you?

SEO services are critical for driving traffic, improving visibility, and growing your business online. Whether focusing on local SEO, global SEO, or technical SEO, implementing the right strategies can deliver long-term benefits. By understanding the types of SEO services available and choosing the right SEO provider, you can ensure your website is optimised for success in search engine rankings, user experience, and conversions.