Rank on the 1st page of Google's Search Results
Consult The Top SEO Agency in Singapore
Every business’ goal is to have an extensive reach toward its customers and potential clients. Consumer targeting has always been the highest priority of every business’s marketing and advertising strategy. In this era where most consumers are using the Internet to make purchases, big or small businesses have to build their online presence.
From search engine optimisation (SEO) in Singapore to social media advertising, digital marketing is at its peak of existence. It is no secret that many businesses are looking for the best SEO services to stay relevant. In Singapore, search marketing has played a vital role in targeting customers and boosting their brand’s advertising.
Part 1: SEO in Singapore 2023
What Is SEO?
SEO or search engine optimisation is the process of getting traffic or exposure from search engine results pages (SERPs) in a free and organic way. . It is what your online contents need to be visible on all search engine websites such as Google, Yahoo!, or Bing through various strategies, including keyword research and content creation such as blog articles, infographics, videos, dedicated web pages, and others.
Every search engine displays results and listings in their SERPs based on what they consider relevant. The goal of every business is to rank their websites to be on the first page of SERPs.
What Are The Types Of SEO?
There are two types of SEO practices that many marketers are familiar with: White Hat SEO and Black Hat SEO. By its names, it is easier to identify which are the good and bad sides. Let us take a closer look at each of them.
1. White Hat SEO
It covers strategies and techniques that abide by the rules and regulations of search engines, which is why it is easy to identify White Hat strategies. If your SEO company provides you with services like content creation, web design development, and keyword research, then you are on the right path.
ALSO READ: White Hat SEO: Increasing Your Rankings By Following The Rules
Know that White Hat SEO is the best way to penetrate SERPs without getting banned or penalised by search engine sites.
2. Black Hat SEO
These are the types of techniques that go beyond what is allowed by search engine websites. Black hat SEO is a tactic that deceits search engine sites to have more visibility online without following its terms and conditions.
A great example of Black Hat SEO is purchasing links or creating websites with duplicate content. Yes, these can boost your page’s traffic, but it is not allowed. Black hat is a risky strategy that can negatively impact your website and business.
READ MORE: 4 Black Hat SEO Techniques That Will Harm Your Website
Digital Marketing In Singapore
In Singapore, SEO is one of the most powerful means of digital marketing. In the previous blog, we looked into how Singapore fairs in the digital marketing arena. With a population of more than 5.9 million, Singapore has known to be one of the top online users in the world. 91.81% of its population access the Internet to search for information online. With this number, there is no doubt that businesses, small and big, need to dive into the digital marketing trend.
More than 91.81%
of Singapore's population has access to the internet in 2023
It is expected to reach
94.2% by 2026
Source: Statista
Aside from the basics of SEO services in Singapore, small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are also embracing the rise of social media marketing. This strategy opens the doors for digital marketing agencies in the country to expand their services beyond search engine optimisation and search engine marketing.
ALSO READ: What’s Next: The Rise Of Social Media Marketing In Singapore
In totality, digital marketing in Singapore is still in its toddler phase—learning and discovering new things along the way. But this is a tremendous opportunity for both businesses and SEO companies in Singapore to explore, experiment, and launch new marketing initiatives. It is timely to hop on the ride as brands and businesses are still in the middle of recognising the importance of having a digital presence.
What Are The Different SEO Services In Singapore?
Generally, there are two parts to search engine optimisation: On-Page and Off-Page. Aside from these two, SEO comes with compelling keyword analysis and in-depth reporting of the campaign’s progress and metrics.
Let us take a look at these factors more closely.
1. The Most Important Aspect: Keywords
Every SEO campaign begins with effective keyword selection. All SEO services, not just in Singapore, start with careful keyword research and analysis. Effective keywords mean effective SEO campaigns. The ability of an SEO company to provide relevant and effective keywords says a lot about its strength as an SEO consultant.
2. On-Page Optimisation
On-page initiatives are SEO strategies executed and implemented on your business’ website. Apart from the keyword, it usually starts with a technical audit to identify which part of your site needs improvement in terms of search engine optimisation. Part of the on-page optimisation is reviewing your website’s content and guaranteeing the keywords are used effectively.
3. Off-Page Optimisation
Off-page optimisation is essential for reaching a wide range of potential customers. It refers to any activity initiated outside a business’s website to boost its rankings and build its web authority.
Although link building is one, there is more to do for off-page SEO. Competitor backlink analysis, for instance, is a method where the competition in a business’s industry is assessed to build a digital strategy of its own.
4. Reporting Methods
Putting together a great SEO report often is one way for SEO agencies to build trust and keep their clients happy. However, just showing them the work that has been done is insufficient. The primary information and useful insight should be presented in a summarised report, which will help the clients read and comprehend it quickly.
SEO Trends In 2023
SEO Trends In 2023
-
Core Web Vitals
- Visual Search
- Voice Marketing
- Video Search
- Google EEAT
Search engine algorithms evolve all the time. That is why you need to improve your SEO strategies based on the latest changes and trends.
Watch out for these SEO trends that will dominate the digital marketing industry in 2023.
1. Core Web Vitals
Optimising your website’s user experience (UX) is crucial to success. When improving your search engine rankings, there are ranking signals you should consider, such as mobile friendliness, HTTPS security, and the absence of intrusive interstitials.
In that case, use Google’s Core Web Vitals as a guide for your SEO strategy. Google introduced Core Web Vitals in 2020. Since then, Core Web Vitals remains to be an essential aspect of SEO services.
If you have no idea what Core Web Vitals are, they are a set of metrics that directly affect the page experience of your customers. It consists of three categories: loading, interactivity, and visual stability.
- Loading – covers a ranking signal called “largest contentful paint” (LCP). It is the amount of time it takes for a web page’s content to load. The ideal loading time should be 2.5 seconds or less.
- Interactivity – refers to the “first input delay” (FID), a ranking factor that indicates the time it takes for a page to become fully interactive. Your web page should take less than 100 ms for it to become interactive for users.
- Visual Stability – includes “cumulative layout shift” (CLS), the unexpected layout shift of visual content. Achieve a CLS score below 0.1 as much as possible.
ALSO READ: A Guide To Google Core Web Vitals In 2021
How will these three categories affect a website?
Each category comes with a scoring dimension based on what the Core Web Vital is measuring. For your website to ace Google’s Core Web Vital, it should have scored “Good” in all categories. If not, your website does not pass. It would have a lower chance of appearing on Google SERP.
That is why you should focus on improving your Core Web Vitals—so your website is ready for 2023. To know if your website is working well with Google’s Core Web Vitals categories, use the following tools to help you evaluate the performance of your website.
Another thing that you need to know about Google’s Core Web Vitals is it does not use Safe Browsing as a ranking signal. Last August 2021, Google confirmed that Safe Browsing would only continue a crucial role in keeping Google users safe from any virus or malware on a website.
Google also mentioned that they began using Google’s Core Web Vitals as a desktop ranking system in February 2022.
2. Visual Search
2022 has been the year that made visual search an SEO trend. You should know that more people are using visual search to find the things they have in mind that words cannot describe. Thus, expect visual search to grow even further in 2023.
But what exactly is visual search, anyway?
It started when Google used visual search technology with the Google Lens app. It lets users take a photo to scan and search for other similar pictures online. The app can identify more than 1 billion objects, which is an impressive feat for Google as a search engine.
Consider optimising your website for visual search. Visual search will also help your website to be mobile-friendly. It can even help consumers when it comes to shopping, looking for landmarks, reading reviews, translating languages, and many more.
In September 2022, Google announced some changes to its visual search. They added a new feature that helps combat misinformation by adding more content to the result of the user’s inquiries.
Here is how this new feature works. You pull up a photo of an item you like and tap on the Google Lens icon to help you find the same thing. And to the most relevant result to your search inquiries, you could ask Google by typing on the details.
For example, like this GIF below, the user wants to find a pair of socks with the same pattern as the shirt they have found online. By directing Google what they want to do, they will most likely find where to buy the socks they are looking for.
As a business owner, you can better optimise your images for visual search. Here are just a few things you need to do to make that happen.
- Upload several images for every product or service.
- Choose high-quality images.
- Include title tags and descriptions with appropriate keywords.
- Compress the image file size.
- Add a caption underneath each image.
Doing all of these would help search engines to identify your images. By then, they could add the pictures to the user’s relevant search result when they search for something similar or related to them.
Google revealed in February 2023 that AI is now assisting online consumers with their visual searches. More than 10 billion times a month, users use Google Lens to search what they see using their cameras or pictures.
Google Lens Reaches 10 Billion Monthly Searches
3. Voice Marketing
Before visual search came into the picture, voice search had been around since 2011. Back then, it was considered a novelty rather than a feature that users often use all the time.
As time passed and speech recognition technology improved, voice search has been at the forefront of digital marketing. It became more common with the introduction of Alexa, Siri or Google Assistant to find things they want to know, learn, and buy online.
According to Google, 27% of the global online population uses voice search on mobile devices alone. Hence, it is safe to say that voice search will continue to be relevant and rise in popularity as more and more people use it for their daily convenience.
Another research shows that voice search will emerge even more because more people own smart speakers. It is a device that captures and determines human voices to help them search for something online without directly using their mobile devices.
Consider optimising your digital marketing campaign for voice search as early as now. Doing so will help your potential customers stumble upon your content when they search for something related to your products or services using voice search.
Here are the things you need to do to optimise your content for voice search.
- Improve your website speed.
- Increase your local SEO presence
- Create FAQs
- Use a specific type of language (e.g., British English)
4. Video Search
According to DemandSage, online videos will cover 82.5% of all web traffic in 2023. More people want quality video content, so consider including a video marketing strategy as early as now to reach more consumers before the year ends.
KNOW MORE: 4 Benefits of Video Marketing
In 2023,
82.5% OF WEBSITE TRAFFIC COMES FROM ONLINE VIDEOS
Source: DemandSage
Improve the quality of your videos to attract more customers, gain leads and conversion. In 2022, you can further make that happen as Google announced the launch of two new changes on Google search that enhance video reach: clip markup and seek makeup.
Here are the differences between the new structured data types that create “Suggested Clips” from various parts of your videos.
- Clip markup – To manually let Google know where the timestamps and labels are of the video.
- Seek markup – To let Google know how the URL structure date of your video works. By then, Google automatically identifies the segment of your video content.
The timestamps and labels are parts of your video. Either choose clip markup or seek markup—your videos will get dissected into different sections. You can name each based on their main subject matters or subtopics or let Google do it on your behalf. As such, it is more convenient to point people to the specific part of the video where the answers to their search queries are, optimising the user experience.
Remember that whenever optimising your video content for SEO, always insert relevant keywords into your title tags and descriptions to make your videos more searchable on Google.
Besides that, here are other things you need to do to optimise your video content.
- Create a video transcript
- Make an engaging thumbnail
- Use hashtags and add categories.
5. Google EEAT
Towards the end of 2022, Google released an update to its search algorithm that included an addition to the existing E-A-T guidelines. The new update introduced the letter “E” to the acronym, making it “EEAT” or “Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.” They are factors Google often considers to determine the overall quality of a webpage.
ALSO READ: Your Ultimate Guide to Google E-E-A-T
That means if one of your web pages is deemed to have these qualities, the higher its search engine rankings would become. Here is how Google constitutes EEAT of a webpage.
- Experience – It concerns how well a website fulfils the user’s search goal and how well the user experiences it. It indicates that Google pays more attention to how well a website offers a favourable user experience.
- Expertise – Potential customers likely deem you more knowledgeable in a specific area, and you can help solve their problem.
- Authoritativeness – This one has something to do with your credibility. You could improve that by having quality written content and aesthetically pleasing web design to help gain authority from Google.
- Trustworthiness – It has something you need to gain from Google, so they would consider putting your website in their search engine rankings. To earn this, you need to get your customers’ trust first.
To increase the Goggle E-EAT signals on your website, here are the things you need to do.
- Audit your brand
- Review existing articles
- Take out any redundant, outdated, and trivial content your website has.
- Include links to some keywords related to your niche.
- Build backlinks to showcase your EEAT.
If you reach this point, you already know that these are the five SEO trends you should adopt and become ready for this year. Know that being nimble and well-prepared will help your business grow further. Therefore, make sure to take note of these SEO trends.
SEO Pricing In Singapore: What To Expect?
Similar to any other digital marketing initiative, SEO is an investment that can take a significant chunk of a business budget. Weigh the pros and cons of each SEO service and each SEO package, and leverage the SEO price in Singapore between agencies or freelancers, if you must.
Treat SEO as a crucial part of launching a business. You should know that SEO can help you make your roots locally and internationally. As a part of it, SEO Singapore’s price can vary between local SEO agencies and international ones, even more so with freelancers.
Allocate a sufficient budget right from the beginning to boost website traffic, reach more potential customers, and increase conversions. But how much should you pay for SEO?
A great tip to remember is that some local SEO agencies charge per service, and some might impose the SEO cost per package. Decide on what factors you should focus on first and start from there.
ALSO READ: Local SEO in Singapore
Never hesitate to ask for basic SEO pricing quotes from different Singapore-based or international SEO agencies to find out what services you will pay for.
While the purpose of SEO is clear, the cost of implementing an SEO strategy can vary greatly depending on the goals you want to achieve and the type of strategies you want to implement. The SEO price in Singapore boils down to several other factors, such as:
- How big your website is
- How fierce the competition is
- How fast do you want to make progress
- How many pages require optimisation
- How many technical issues need fixing
- How many backlinks are needed to build a strong link profile
You can scout for an SEO Consultant in Singapore consultant in Singapore that can assess the needs of your website, draft a strategy, and help you achieve your goals with SEO.
Making a few fresh relationships with SEO freelancers or SEO agencies would not hurt. Even if you might not need their services right away, it is a good idea to keep in touch with the local SEO industry so you have someone to ask about SEO packages and their prices.
Part 2: Facing Reality: SEO Services Pricing In Singapore
SEO Cost In A Nutshell
In addition, the cost of SEO services in Singapore depends on the company you are hiring. Because each SEO agency offers several packages at different SEO price points, it is up to you to determine which one is most likely to meet your goals within your budget.
Preferably, however, you should start with basic SEO services such as:
- keyword research
- website audit
- content optimisation
- link building
If your marketing budget allows, you can invest in more SEO services to boost your campaign. However, you should know that several SEO services come with different pricing in Singapore.
Get the most out of your newfound investment. Create more content that is relevant to your business. Keep your SEO localised ( and centralised to the industry you are penetrating. SEO agencies know just about everything, in and out, about local and international industries.
ALSO READ: What is SEO Copywriting and why is it important?
What to Expect: Campaign Budget And SEO Pricing
Most SEO agencies these days follow a monthly charge for SEO packages. It is a preferred option among businesses when they need to outsource their SEO completely.
It is by far the most promising method for maximising the impact of your SEO efforts. It demands commitment on both sides—thus—it is also crucial to operate smoothly and efficiently with a digital marketing agency.
It is safe to say that the price of SEO packages in Singapore can be anywhere from S$300 to S$3000 per month or more based on the scope of work. For instance, if you’re looking to have more keywords, more content submissions, and more technical issues to fix, then you might need to sign up for a comprehensive package than a standard one.
In addition, depending on your current rankings and competition, an SEO agency may also recommend you to include more keywords and strategies in your package to optimise your website even better—and these come at a higher SEO cost in Singapore.
Furthermore, if you are on a rushed timeline and want to see results in a shorter time, you have to pay more. But, even with the top-up, you should keep in mind that SEO takes time to take results—three to five months, on average.
How Much Do SEO Services Cost?
The cost of SEO services can vary greatly depending on the type of SEO package that you will get for your business. Below are your options:
| Type | Starting Cost (Monthly) |
SEO Services |
|---|---|---|
| Freelance SEO Package | $200 to $400 | Basic SEO services |
| Basic SEO Package | $400 to $700 |
Basic SEO services, including
|
| Advanced SEO Package | More than $700 |
Advanced SEO services, including
|
1. Freelance SEO Package
For a freelance SEO package, the starting cost ranges from $200 to $400 monthly. You can find many freelancers online who offer SEO services at less competitive prices. If you have a limited budget, hiring a freelancer for SEO can be a viable option.
While hiring a freelancer for SEO services may seem like a cost-effective solution, it’s crucial to consider the potential limitations. One major hindrance is that a freelancer may not have a team of professionals, such as SEO copywriters, SEO strategists, link builders, or web developers, to help with the project. As a result, it may take longer for a freelancer to complete the work compared to an SEO agency with a team of experts.
In addition, freelancers may have limited access to the latest SEO tools and software. SEO agencies usually have a wide range of tools and software to help with keyword research, competitor analysis, and link building. However, freelancers may not have the budget to subscribe to all the necessary tools, potentially limiting their ability to deliver optimal results.
2. Basic SEO Package From An Agency
The starting cost of a basic SEO package from an agency is typically between S$400 to S$700 per month. This package is suitable for small businesses that face minimal competition.
During the first month, the SEO agency will perform a website audit to identify priority pages and address any issues. The following months will focus on content development and link-building strategies.
- Preliminary Assessment: website audit, competition analysis, backlink analysis
- Keyword Research: identifying a set number of keywords to be targeted using keyword research tools and/or Google Analytics
- Existing Content Optimisation & SEO Copywriting
- Content Development and Distribution
- On-Site Page Optimisation
- External Inbound Linking
- Internal Linking
- SEO Reporting
3. Advanced SEO Package
An advanced SEO package usually starts at $700 per month or higher. It’s recommended for small businesses with low to medium competition and less complex websites.
Compared to a standard package, it offers more optimised keywords. That depends from one SEO agency to another, but generally speaking, an advanced SEO package has a higher cost because of the set keywords optimised to rank for SERPs.
SEO requires consistent efforts in creating content, building high-quality links, strong focus on optimising usability, boosting performance, and driving conversion. It’s difficult to find this kind of service at a more affordable SEO price unless you’re working with an agency that has been in the industry for quite some time and has mastered the art of producing quality at scale.
Hiring an SEO company that offers cheap but low-quality service can affect your search engine rankings and hurt your reputation. So, it pays to remember that while you may save some cost by subscribing to cheap SEO packages, it is not always the best decision to go.
Going Beyond Search
SEO is a continuous process that should be at the core of your digital marketing campaign. The ability of your website to consistently rank in the search engine depends mainly on how you maintain your SEO activities.
As mentioned above, depending on the competition and industry, it might take more than 4 to 6 months to see the SEO result. Hence, you should budget for a minimum 6-month commitment to the SEO contract with the agency.
The Reality of SEO Pricing In Singapore
Is SEO Worth Spending?
We cannot stress further how SEO is a huge investment for your business. While it takes quite some time to see results, you can rest assured that every dollar you spend on SEO will deliver long-term improvements, allowing you to reap as long as your company lasts.
Now it has been established that SEO is indeed an investment—the question now is how much you should invest in SEO. Of course, it can still depend on your goals and how you are currently spending your digital marketing budget.
When Should You Start SEO?
If your marketing budget allows, SEO is an investment that should start sooner rather than later. Time is a valuable asset in SEO, and the longer you delay investing in a thriving SEO campaign, the longer it will take to garner free traffic.
Even if you are a one-person shop, SEO is still a very vital investment. It may make more sense to perform SEO by yourself than to hire an SEO agency to handle it for you.
Part 3: Starting Your SEO Campaign
Is SEO Important For Your Business?
Why do you want to rank at the top of search results? The answer is simple.
What's the Goal
The Higher the rank, the more people who'll visit your website
75%
of people check the 1st page results only
25%
of people look past the first page
71%
Click through rate (CTR) of organic search results on the 1st page
6%
Click through rate (CTR) of organic search results on the 2nd and 3rd pages (combined)
About 75% of people who search online never look past the first page of the first results. It means that if you want more customers to find and contact your business, you need to rank in the top search results for keywords and phrases related to your business.
Research shows that the first page of organic search results has a 71% click-through rate (CTR), and pages two and three have a combined CTR of only 6% — a drastic decline.
What is the moral of the story? The higher you rank in search engine results pages, the more people will find and visit your website. It means you can reach more customers and earn more revenue for your business.
Finding Your Best Match
Choosing an SEO company that truly understands what your business is about and the needs of your business is paramount to the success of your SEO campaign. It is crucial to make sure that your SEO company is asking the right questions about your business, such as your experiences with online marketing, your expectations, and your company’s priorities in terms of marketing.
Whether you are starting an e-commerce shop or a veteran in the industry, increasing your search engine ranking using SEO should be your priority. With the market trends going up and down, you should be on your toes whilst managing other priorities. Keep in mind that SEO companies, whether local or international, should help you reach out to more people, prospective customers and clients alike.
Remind yourself about your priorities; are you planning to expand your business internationally? Launch a new product for another demographic? Besides asking your SEO consultant in a Singapore agency about the best course of action for each plan, you should never hesitate to ask for a second opinion from another SEO agency.
SEO agencies should also help you look for areas of strengths and areas for improvement. They may offer search engine optimisation packages with social media management services if they find your social media presence lacking. Make sure that they tailor their packages and services to the things you need the most.
SEO Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
SEO is expensive for three good reasons. It takes time to deliver results, it requires resources to build and maintain, and an SEO specialist develops a tailored strategy for you. While it takes quite some investment to see results, you can rest assured that every dollar spent on SEO will deliver ROIs for your business.
Every business is different and will have various SEO requirements. Even though you can do SEO yourself, you should know that there will be a lot of work ahead, and sooner or later—you will have to hire an SEO agency.
Outsourcing your SEO to an agency will give you access to the latest technology, resources, and a dedicated team of SEO specialists overseeing your campaigns and strategies.
A good SEO strategy is essential to the success of your business, and there are some best practices that you should focus on more than others to stay competitive and maintain strong rankings:
Optimise for mobile, use secure HTTP, improve page speed, create quality and relevant content, establish links, etc.
Get in touch with our digital marketing agency to learn more about the SEO pricing for your business’s needs. Contact OOm at 6391-0930 to help you with your digital marketing campaigns.
