You know that shampoo advert where they smile at the camera, flick their hair and say “Because we’re worth it!” Today we’re going to tell you that your business is worth SEO investment. Of course, as providers of SEO services we realise we have a vested interest in this message, but we also know that when it comes to marketing, SEO is one of the easiest areas to measure your return on investment. So, when you have to make every penny count and show its progress, SEO is very much your friend. Here’s our guide to how and why you’re SEO worth it…
Is SEO a dark art?
Not everyone is crazy about SEO and we can live with that. If you’re unsure about how it works or the impact of the latest updates you might be nervous about making an investment. Some of our clients come to us from other agencies or freelancers and sometimes they’ve been promised the moon on a stick in the past for what is often a surprisingly low sum. In turn, they feel let down when results don’t materialise and that’s when they seek our help, and we try to turn their experience of our industry into a positive one.
SEO is a longterm investment that isn’t cheap, we strive to be affordable and provide good return on investment for our clients and we are committed to doing so. If you’re not sure about hiring an agency, spend time talking to them, ask to see case studies of clients in similar fields as your own or with similar issues and set clear performance indicators. A good agency won’t mind talking you through their approach.
Conversion and click through are high with organic search results compared to PPC / Adwords and with more importance being placed on local SEO, there are genuine gains to be made for businesses large and small.
Can I do SEO on my own?
Many people can and do choose to do their own SEO and we provide a consultancy service to help with this. However, SEO is a complex subject with elements that regularly change. Here’s why we think it’s more effective to use an agency:
- While some aspects of SEO are more easily managed in-house, many clients feel reassured to have an expert on hand.
- We, like other reputable agencies, spend a lot of time researching and testing techniques on our own sites and this is a little riskier when the impact is felt on your own traffic and business.
- There have been a few changes in the industry of late that mean it’s good to get the insight of a professional, at the key stages at least.
For example, it’s important to target appropriate keywords that will generate sales by channelling the right kind of traffic to your website. It’s important to take a fuller and more informed approach to keyword planning. We use a wide range of tools and your analytics data to carry out full keyword research, which informs overall strategy from targeting to content creation. This primary step is just one example of how an extra perspective can help.
It is better to do no SEO rather than bad SEO?
This is a rather tricky question! Unless your brand is a household name with a service that’s equally well known and you have few competitors, SEO should be within your marketing mix. That said, bad SEO such as unnatural link acquisition may have a positive impact on your traffic for a while only to lead to you receiving a damaging penalty from Google in the future. In short, if you’re marketing on a shoestring there are elements of SEO you can still implement and support with other techniques rather than wasting money on more comprehensive but unethical SEO that may do you more harm than good.
Aside from traffic, how will SEO benefit my business?
When our clients set campaign goals they frequently focus on traffic and rankings, which of course are a fundamental of SEO. One of the main benefits of SEO is this measurability; it’s far easier to show the full journey of a customer compared to something like a magazine advert. You can even find out which bits of content your customers are engaging with onsite or what they’re shopping for when and there are a whole lot of other benefits too. Keyword research can help inform buying trends, content creation helps establish trust with your audience and content marketing can build brand awareness as well as valuable links.
In many ways, particularly post Hummingbird, SEO is as much about enhancing user experience and understanding search intent as it is rankings. Onsite SEO has become an essential, like cleaning your bricks and mortar store and putting goods where they’ll get noticed most.
Google wants sites to produce content that helps the user and just like an adviser in store, content becomes important for your customer’s journey. These are all aspects that you might already be considering as part of your online marketing and by incorporating good SEO, you can ensure your site is giving you and your customers maximum benefit.
This works in reverse too. We can help you make use of things you are doing offline for search benefit and work with your marketing calendar to support sales in the future, planning for peaks and troughs. SEO is not a standalone service; rather it can support and be supported by your full marketing mix, helping you achieve success online and off.
Think you’re SEO worth it? Why don’t you take advantage of our Indepth SEO Service and discover the opportunities for growing your online presence.
