Affordable Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Services
SEO Brings MORE Leads & Sales!
Cleveland & Akron SEO Services and Solutions from Marketing Experts
Pete Kever, the founder of K6 Digital Marketing, hails from Cuyahoga Falls, a neighboring city of Akron that’s just a hop, skip, and a jump from Cleveland.
With a remarkable 25-year commitment to search engine optimization and digital marketing, Pete stands out as one of the most experienced SEO experts in the field.
Along with other staff members from Northeast Ohio, Pete and the K6 team enjoy the constant change and challenges of SEO that come with the territory. Many of our team members have decades of experience in SEO and in content development, marketing consulting, and sales growth.
Our roots in the local community and dedication to providing top-notch local SEO services make our team ideal for businesses in the area.
We take immense satisfaction in seeing our clients succeed, whether in the Cleveland area, or beyond.
Pete Kever, Founder
K6 Serves High-Growth Businesses – SEO for Manufacturers, Tech, B2B and B2C Needs
K6 Digital Marketing is a digital marketing agency based in the Cleveland/Akron Ohio area, with clients and partnerships nationwide. Our team has performed more than 3,000 search engine optimization projects for clients over the last 22 years.
Potential customers are searching for your solutions today. If they aren’t finding you at the top of the search results – they are finding someone else!
Our methodology blends best practices and structure with an agile approach to digital marketing that helps our SEO projects remain flexible and fluid, capitalizing on trends.
We don’t believe in contracts or “SEO packages” that limit us to certain tasks. We understand that needs change over time, business is always moving quickly, and you don’t need to waste time negotiating new contracts. Our flexible and affordable pricing reflects this philosophy.
What you want is a closely aligned partner that understands your business, works well with your team, and takes the SEO burden off your back!
Expect Honest, Fair And Responsive SEO Services from K6
When you work with K6 Digital, the first thing we hope you see is our frank honesty about what to expect with your SEO program. We have worked with hundreds of companies in Cleveland, Akron, and across the country – from established public companies to small private startups. We have listened to frustration and exuberance from owners of single-person companies and we have heard tales of SEO failures from entire sales teams.
We have even turned down SEO business because we refused to tell the client what they wanted to hear, or because we didn’t make elaborate promises that we knew were impossible.
We have worked with some clients for more than 15 years – adding value as their needs change, as Google changes its algorithms, and as new opportunities come along to drive leads and sales.
K6 SEO content consultants enjoy their work
K6 Specializes in Working Well with Others
We aren’t perfect, but one reason people love working with K6 is that we are easy to work with. Here is why:
We are flexible. We don’t insist on doing everything “Our Way” or even within our comfort zones. While we will gently push you to work with us on what we feel is best for your goals, at the same time we make every effort to be available, responsive and creative. This flexibility extends to things like reporting, meeting cadence, tracking KPIs, and priorities.
We aren’t afraid to be wrong. We want to help you win, and we aren’t afraid to be wrong, to take a back seat, or to end a working relationship if that’s the best thing (we always hope we stay friends forever!)
We don’t feel threatened by competing voices. We have worked alongside in-house SEO talent that rivals (or even exceeds) our own. Even competing SEO firms or marketing agencies don’t rifle our feathers. In fact, some of our most valuable partners are competing SEO companies.
That All Sounds Fantastic. But What Have You Done? Can You Help My Business?
We absolutely guarantee that we can help. We won’t guarantee results. But we will treat you the same as every client: responsive, open and truthful.
We don’t always win, but some of our most recent successes include:
E-commerce Client: K6 grew SEO monthly revenue 491.87%, from $146,900 in October 2017 to $869,600 in February 2021. We also helped the company add more than 22,000 new email newsletter subscribers in 3 years, at a total estimated value of $6.4 million in new sales from their email marketing efforts.
Lead Generation Client: K6 grew leads from the website by 176% during the peak seasons, and 219% during off-season months, between 2020 and 2022, resulting in approximately $800,000 in revenue.
Lead Generation High-Tech Client: K6 grew lead volume from 60 per month to more than 170 per month over 3 years, from 2016-2019.
Manufacturing Client: K6 began working with a Cleveland Ohio area manufacturer in 2008. Their ROI goal was 10-times as much revenue as their SEO spend (we actually think this is a great target). We reached that goal by 2010. Thanks to our SEO for manufacturers, they are still a client today.
E-Commerce Client: Since 2023, K6 has helped an e-commerce site improve their keyword rankings significantly, with several of their target keywords climbing more than 50 positions. This increased visibility in search results led to a substantial increase in organic search traffic, with a 58% rise in sessions from organic search and a 62% increase in new users. Overall traffic grew by 315%, reaching a total of 1,783 sessions.
B2C Client: With the help of the experts at K6, a Cleveland wellness counseling and services website experienced impressive web traffic growth, with site sessions increasing by 56.83% from 1,800 in January 2023 to 2,823 by July 2023. This surge in traffic was accompanied by higher rankings, achieving 17 Google Top Ten positions and securing the #1 ranking for the term “wellness practitioners.”
E-Commerce Client: K6 recently helped a leading innovator in radar technology attract 7,130 users through organic search, resulting in 11,705 sessions on their website. An impressive 66.2% engagement rate reflects high user interest and the relevance of their content to potential customers and stakeholders. These metrics demonstrate the success of the SEO and content strategies in driving targeted traffic and engaging the right audience.
Our Approach to Long-Term SEO Success
Google says that, after a user enters a keyword on Google.com, their engine will “return the results we believe are the highest quality and most relevant to the user’s query”. Talk about a loaded sentence! After more than 2 decades of working with Google, we are convinced that not even Google engineers really understand how it works.
SEO is a blend of art and science. It is a combination of creative writing, thoughtful design and technical adjustments.
SEO is NOT a rigid set of rules that are applied to every situation the same way. It is not a magic trick or the result of secrets and tricks. It is planning, strategy, creative thinking…and hard work.
There Are Lots of SEO Experts. How Is K6 Different?
Frankly, in some ways we execute the same tactics, and use some of the same strategies, as other SEO firms. In fact, some of our staff members have trained other Cleveland and Akron SEO experts!
We believe our value lies in the following differences:
Our process is heavily focused on building high-quality content that helps your visitors first. Not useless blogs that are only written to achieve a first page ranking, or keywords repeated endlessly.
Our in-house staff of SEO consultants are focused on creativity and honesty, not tricks or schemes. Did we mention we have an in-house staff? We never offshore anything.
Our founder has a 25 year commitment to search engine optimization and digital marketing. There aren’t many SEO experts in the world that have been doing this stuff as long as Pete. Not bragging, just the truth!
Our SEO campaigns focus on more than just “ranking” – we are in the business of helping you grow your business, so we track leads, sales and revenue as well.
We extend beyond SEO and work hard to improve conversion rates, overall user experience, reputation management and content marketing to get your brand in front of more potential customers.
The K6 SEO Process: Here’s What to Expect
Our process has been time-tested since Pete Kever first optimized a website for Yahoo in 1997. But we are never stuck in our ways, because the search landscape changes constantly.
We take all of the messaging, your unique value propositions, all of the content both that has been built into web pages as well as the potential web content that currently resides in various other places…. We take all of this content and expose it to the people who are searching for answers to their questions and problems.
1
First, we learn about you. We meet with all of your stakeholders to understand as much as possible about your business. We discuss your goals, your target markets, the keywords used for your industry, products or services, and your unique value. If you let us, we will even speak with your internal sales and customer service departments to get more insights into your customers.
2
Then we learn about your customers. What are the keywords that potential customers are using to find you? How often do they search, and what do they really want? What is the competition, and how are they positioned to gain customers you should be getting?
3
Then we roll up our sleeves and get busy. SEO is not luck, and it’s not a magic trick. It is hard work, like going to the gym. Patient effort, continuously applied in the right manner, leads to results – always. K6 Digital Marketing can be the team for your company that’s focused on gaining ground in Google for new leads and sales.
Expectations and SEO Results: How Long Will This Take?
The “typical” SEO plan takes around 3 – 6 months of concentrated effort before results begin to trickle in. The caveat though is that different companies can respond faster depending on the amount of competition they face and IF those competitors are also conducting SEO work on their website. After about 12 months, some of your top keywords can begin to drive real traffic. This means that you should be looking to get a return on investment after the first year of work. Please note: the SEO company you hire is irrelevant to this typical timeframe. Whether it’s SEO for manufacturers, for Tech, for an education institute, for an online B2C site, whomever …It’s simply how things work. However, having fewer competitors does make things move faster.
By Month 1, you should have a complete plan in place, including the overall SEO strategy, the keywords you want to optimize your content for, a good idea of where you need to build more content, and how your SEO team is going to work with your internal teams.
In Months 2-6 we are typically putting in a lot of hard work and time, executing on tasks, holding status and exploratory meetings with you and conducting research. We focus less on the SEO results at this point and more on the actual search engine optimization work we are doing.
By Month 6, we are usually seeing some of your keywords ranking higher in Google, with some of the less-competitive keywords hitting Page 1 in the search engine results page (SERP).
By Month 12, the first year of our engagement (and we don’t require contracts!) you should be gaining some new customers and revenue to start realizing a return on your investment. After Month 12, we continue to help you build on this success.
We say it often: SEO is like going to the gym. With continuous applied effort, over the long-term, you will get results. Period. There is no way your body won’t respond to a good workout – and there is no way your web presence won’t respond to consistent strategic SEO. It just takes time.
How Much Work Will My Company Need to Do?
Up front, we will need your help – considerably. Count on setting aside at least 1 hour per week for the first month to give us information, access, and approvals on our strategies, ideas, and tactics. After we begin diving into the tasks, we ask for a dedicated person at your company who will be our main resource for around 2 hours minimum per month. This person should understand digital marketing and web design – or at least understand your messaging and mission and customers, have an appreciation for the work we are submitting for approval, and be responsive to our needs so that we can quickly implement our work.
As far as tactical execution: as much or as little as you wish! Our digital marketing team is fully capable of copywriting, research, web page development, web design, conversion optimization, e-commerce consulting, and even backend programming and implementation.
How SEO Fits Into an Overall Digital Marketing Plan
As experts in SEO for manufacturers, Tech start-ups, B2B and B2C businesses, and even eCommerce sites, we have always steered our clients away from depending entirely on Google or any third party that you don’t control. SEO should ideally be part of your overall marketing strategy that drives awareness and revenue.
At the core of successful SEO – and Internet marketing in general – is helpful content; always has been, and always will be. Content drives decisions. Every click or tap your web visitors make comes from the content they experience on your site – both verbiage and visual content like images, graphs, and videos. An effective business website provides information, answers questions, and engages the attention of its visitors.
Since helpful content drives online success, a wise goal is to be focused on putting that content in front of as many potential customers as possible via content marketing and content distribution.
People use social media to get advice from their network, because they trust their network more than they trust an unknown entity they found in Google. Therefore, you need a sufficient content presence on relevant social media platforms.
Without sufficient brand awareness, people may see your website and company name in a Google results page – but never click it because they don’t trust it. Therefore, you need to invest in online advertising to place your brand in front of people before they search. We’ve found this to be true especially for new businesses and for companies just starting with digital marketing – since Paid online ads can bring instant results while SEO takes time to build-up with the search engines.
Once someone has interacted with your brand in some way, you need to gently and routinely remind them about your value. Therefore, you should invest in email marketing, retargeting and marketing automation to put yourself in front of people who already know you.
A Google search is often the first method that people use to find and visit your website. Therefore, an engaging website design is critically important to success. Overall engagement is a factor in Google’s algorithm as well.
SEO and PPC (Pay-Per-Click, Paid Search, Google Adwords)
Does Google favor companies who buy Ads, and give them higher rankings organically if they spend money? Nope. Nope and nope! We have tested this and proven it to be true time and time again.
However, adding a paid ad to the top of Google’s SERP is another piece of real estate for your brand, and many times people are clicking an Ad when they are closer to making a purchase decision. Remember, people follow a complex, multiple touch-point path to purchase.
Our digital marketing services include unrivaled Paid Search / Google Ads consulting, from one of the best Google Ads minds in the business. But even if you don’t choose to use K6 for Google Ads management, we recommend you consider supplementing your organic SEO strategy with paid advertising as well. Here’s why:
People who click Ads tend to be more ready to make a purchase decision. This is because they know that the Advertiser is a source for their needs and not just an information source.
Your competitors are likely investing in paid Ads, and you ideally should be in the race with them.
Even if someone does not click your ad, they are still seeing your name and web address. If they don’t click, you don’t pay. But they are still connecting your brand with specific keywords.
Google’s Perpetual Algorithm Changes
We are a bit proud to say that K6 does not “chase algorithms.” Google changes their own rules for ranking web pages nearly every day. Since their founding, Google has relied on machine learning and deep data analysis to rank web pages, and it is constantly adapting and changing. Not even Google’s engineers truly understand how the system works.
We have found the best chance of ranking better is to follow these basic rules – and never worry about algorithm changes again:
- Really, truly, deeply (madly?) know your target audience.
- Write content, using targeted search terms, that answers their questions and demonstrates that your organization can solve their problems or make their life better.
- Never stop learning about your customer, and never stop building content to help them. In other words – REPEAT and then REPEAT again.
Local SEO, Google Maps and Google My Business
Many people don’t realize how critical it has become to be positioned at the top of Google’s Map listing. Even if you don’t think of yourself as a “local provider” of services, your business is still local to some of your market. Here’s why Google Maps matters:
- Google Maps takes up a large chunk of real estate on Page 1 of Google’s results. And it is often at the very top of the page.
- On mobile devices, which represent around 50% of all users, the user’s location and proximity to your business are often the top criteria that Google uses for Page 1 Rank. And on a mobile device, the Map consumes even more precious real estate and is often the first thing a searcher sees.
- Wrong information on the Map can hurt your business. That’s why it is critical to make sure all of your information is 100% complete and optimized around the rest of your content. Details such as hours of operation, suite number, holiday hours, photographs, or even COVID-19 pandemic information (remember the pandemic?) can easily be misplaced, mis-keyed or forgotten. Our SEO services include making sure that your Google Business Profile is optimized fully!
Learn More On How Our Cleveland & Akron SEO Services Can Boost Your Business
We are proud to call the Northeast Ohio area home – even if it means some longish, cold winters. And what’s a little rust here and there? WATER IS LIFE, people!
We look at Northeast Ohio as a region where one has to earn people’s trust. And we work hard to do that every day with our clients, our partners, our employees, and our vendors.
Read up on what we have learned about SEO especially in the Akron/Cleveland area.
Get in touch with us about your needs and expectations for an SEO campaign.
Please read this blog post specially aimed at SEO for manufacturers to learn what we think about this niche marketing sector.
SEO and Social Media
We are often asked if social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn can influence a position within Google’s search engine results. The short answer is: somewhat.
Many companies are so focused on gaining better search engine rankings to attract customers, they forget about making certain they have a presence on platforms where literally billions of people congregate.
We love doing SEO for companies, but it’s a mistake to assume that most of your customers will choose your service simply because they found you on Google. Social media management is critically important to online marketing success overall. Social media is where many of your customers are spending the majority of their online time and where quite often, they are learning about various service and product offerings in the marketplace. It’s just good marketing to expend energy in this area where much of the attention is focused!
Google has revealed that they use “social media signals” in part to determine the strength of your brand.
More presence on more platforms where your customers spend their time = a stronger brand presence, which lifts your click-through-rate on Google’s search results. This influences your rank.
According to industry data and data from Google itself, people rarely “Search-Click-Read-Buy.” Rather, they use multiple touch points to make a decision. And depending on the complexity of the sale, they might follow a lengthy and complex path to finally contact you. This decision path includes not just organic search, it also includes paid search ads, paid display, social media, email marketing, referrals from other websites, word-of-mouth referrals and traditional media. Of all of these channels, social media has the most “bang for the buck” when you repurpose your content.