There’s a lot of talk about SEO and how it can help grow a business.
After all, who doesn’t want to show up #1 when someone types a search query in Google?
But SEO isn’t necessarily the best strategy for every business. So let’s take a look at if SEO is the right marketing strategy for your firm.
How much time do you have?
When I say time, I don’t mean your actual hours.
After all, you should be billing hours to clients, not executing a marketing strategy. That’s why you hire an agency (*ahem* like us * ahem*).
What I do mean, is how much time do you have to wait until you see results from your SEO strategy?
Depending on the competitiveness of the keyword you’re going after, actually seeing your website show up on page 1 and in the top-3 results can some times take months. This can take even longer if you have a brand new website.
There’s a lot of variables, but you shouldn’t expect immediate results from SEO the minute you start optimizing your website and executing off-site SEO.
If you can’t invest dollars and wait a few months for results, then SEO may not be the right strategy for you.
There are other things you can do, like paid advertising, sponsorships, outbound sales, etc, that can show a faster return on investment.
You think SEO is free
Although a good SEO strategy can have lower customer acquisition costs, if you think it’s “free” then you’ll be very disappointed.
A good SEO strategy takes a lot of manpower to execute, in writing valuable content, gaining powerful backlinks, and maintaining your rankings.
If you do it in-house, then there’s an opportunity cost to doing the work that you should factor in. If you outsource the work, then obviously there’s a hard cost.
You don’t want to change your website
Although SEO does involve a lot of activity that takes place off your website, like building links, much of the work takes place on your page.
If you’re too in love with your website and aren’t willing to make some changes, then chances are all the other work won’t matter much and you won’t get the full bang for your buck.
On-page optimization includes things like having a good navigation structure, titles of your pages, how you use the meta descriptions of your posts, the tags in your images, etc.
Then there’s the writing on your website.
SEO and content marketing goes hand-in-hand. Google’s algorithm is getting stronger and stronger in recognizing the semantic value of content, not just keywords.
That means if you have high quality content that visitors will find useful, then Google will reward your page with a higher search engine result.
Depending on your website, this could take extra setup and work you may not have planned for, or want to do.
Don’t worry it’s worth it
Although this may seem like a lot of work and a long wait to see results, it’s well worth it if you’re able to execute.
Why? Because people trust Google is going to give them a good suggestion if they type in a query.
Organic traffic is much more likely to convert than paid traffic. That’s why inbound leads are always valued much higher than outbound leads like those generated by cold calls.
The top-3 organic results in a Google search account for over 70% of clicks. If you’re on page two, then you may as well not be in witness protection.
If you’d like a free consultation on how SEO can fit in your overall marketing strategy, then just contact us with the form below.
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