There's no doubt that a soundly thought out SEO strategy can deliver outstanding results to both your marketing success and your business growth.
SEO is one of those marketing methods that can make an incredible difference for any business, as your products or service can get found by those looking and ready to buy what you offer.
However, SEO can be a topic that can be confusing, so you may not know where to start. In this piece, we will guide you along the path to take to get the best of your investment in SEO.
Every modern business needs an online presence in the form of a website. But for your website to work effectively, it needs some SEO to help prospects find you.
The good thing about SEO is that it's also a very cost-effective method to reach customers. Setting up your website optimised for the search engines will enable you to get the traffic you need to build your business.
You gain more traffic and visitors interested in what you're offering, greater engagement, and more sales.
The internet is the primary tool for research by customers. With mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets taking centre stage, you must have a strong presence online.
SEO works in alignment with your other marketing efforts, with amplified results. For example, you may send out postcard mailers if you're a new baker in the area and you want to let your local population know that you've arrived in their location.
One prospect is interested in getting a quote for a birthday cake, but she threw out your mailer. Although she cannot recall your business name, she can enter on the search engine that you're a baker in the town you're in, and your website is then displayed.
The outcome is that your flyer and SEO have worked together, and you've got a new customer – which is the result you want.
When you're on the first page of Google, people sense that you've got credibility and are more likely to pick your company than a company featured on page 3 of search results.
Another tool is Google business. Your Google business entry will also establish you as a credible business, and when you have reviews on display, that will help to build your authority and trustworthiness.
No successful business will run itself with its balance sheet in the red. It would be best to decide on a marketing budget before you get started. Your SEO provider can give you an idea of the level of effectiveness for each level of investment.
SEO isn't free unless you decide to do it yourself. Most business owners don't have the time for such a steep and long learning curve.
Here are the primary reasons why SEO is worth the investment. Results are demonstrated in the following:
Search – your search ranks well in search engines such as Google, Bing or others.
Traffic – you get a good share of visitors
Improved metrics – better clickthrough rate, backlinks and impressions.
You can expect increased business profitability – sales, opportunities, and leads.
How Much Should You Invest In SEO?
By now, you have most likely gained clarity and concluded that your business needs SEO.
You want to earmark part of your marketing budget to it, but you don't know how much. There's no straightforward answer to this either.
As with anything, you get what you pay for. It depends on where you are now and where you want to go regarding how much you spend.
Don't worry if you don't have a humungous SEO budget. By focusing on the following factors, you can get good results.
Site architecture - following google webmaster guidelines and making your site easy to crawl without broken links and good user experience.
Good content – add fresh content regularly with keywords that match search queries and give the answers that users want in alignment with their intention will work wonders
Quality backlinks – natural backlinks from high authority sites that are trusted can really help your rankings.
This work could run into anything from £700 a month for much improved results in monthly payments. Alternatively, go all out with a campaign run globally for up to ten times as much as that.
SEO generally has a better return on investment than PPC, the latter being a fast solution but does not retain its ability to pull in traffic. Here's what you get with SEO and what you get with PPC
Advantages Of SEO
Website traffic: improve your visitor number and get more clicks.
ROI: a better ROI than that for PPC
Branding and awareness: organic search results mean you get found by your customers and have more exposure to prospects.
Credibility: getting a good SERPs ranking can build trust.
Longer-lasting results: although SEO takes longer to establish, the results are faster than PPC. Once you deactivate your PPC campaign, you're not getting visibility.
Advantages Of PPC
Faster results: as soon as you launch your campaign, you'll get traffic, clicks, and potential conversions.
Algorithm changes don't affect positioning: with PPC, you bid for the top spots on the rankings, so you won't need to be concerned about strategies for content.
More control - complete control over expenditure, which is better for easier budgeting.
More accurate targeting: target who you want to see your business, choose location, demographics, etc.
You can use visual ads: people are attracted to images more than words, but you can't use pictures with SEO.
Your budget is spent on architecture and content.
Points such as structural issues, crawl-ability, user experience and speed of loading are all part of this.
Your website needs to have the content that your target market searches for. By adding helpful, practical and relevant content, you can drive the traffic for better ROI.
Summary
SEO can be a significant undertaking, but the results you get make it worthwhile, and it isn't something you should not do. You've already contributed to the success of your site by reading this post.
Although there are many factors, you can get good results using a clear strategy.
Call us for a quote on how we can help you.
I'm Paul Gordon an SEO freelancer who has spent the last 16 years helping businesses expand and grow through effective SEO strategies.