Introduction:
Search Engine optimisation (SEO) should be seen as an investment into your company and should form part of a modern marketing campaign for any modern business.
SEO is not just for sales, of course, good search engine rankings will provide you with more sales, but it also promotes the visibility of your company, drives more traffic to your website, and increases your brand awareness.
Additionally, well-written articles about your subject or niche will increase your authority which can also lead to unexpected benefits like invitations to speak on podcasts or provide opinions for other people’s articles which in turn will generate backlinks and further improve your SEO.
In short, SEO should be regarded as a long-term investment into your business, and unlike PPC marketing SEO work you do on your website will increase and compound in value over time.
Why should I invest in SEO?
Social media marketing is not enough
Social media marketing is important but alone it is not sufficient for a modern business’s marketing strategy. You should of course have a presence on social media and you should be accessible to your customers through social channels.
Think about your own behavior when you’re actually looking to research or buy something. For example, what do you do when you see something you like on Social media? I’d imagine, like me – you change apps and open a browser like chrome to search for the product or service you’re interested in.
Search engines have been driving 10x more traffic to eCommerce sites than social media since 2016 according to Search Engine Land. Buyers are more knowledgeable in 2022, they know that what they are seeing advertised on social media might not be the best version of a product or service so they’ll search for it online to find alternatives or reviews of the product before they consider making a purchase.
If you’re not showing up in that search result and are not present in product reviews – you are missing out on business, guaranteed. Even if you paid for the advert on Facebook that created the interest or desire in the consumer in the first place, without a good search engine placement you might just be creating interest but driving sales to a competitor who has better SEO.
Mobile friendly = SEO
It is just not an option to have a website that isn’t optimised for mobile in 2022. The large majority (61%) of search traffic is now coming from mobile devices, and Google knows this too. How well your website performs on mobile is a major ranking factor that determines how often Google recommends your website to searchers, so a site that performs poorly on mobile will hurt your business.
Do you know how fast your site loads on mobile? And does your site look as good on mobile as it does on a desktop browser? If you don’t know the answer, or you’re not happy with the results then 2022 is the year where you need to get your website mobile-friendly.
But don’t just do this for Google, your users also expect a better mobile experience and will quickly leave sites that are frustrating to use on their phones.
Quality inbound leads from SEO
By definition, SEO leads are warm searchers who were looking for something specific. If you show up in the search results and can provide what the browser is looking for, a sale or lead is highly likely.
Inbound leads from search engine traffic are almost 10x more likely to close than more traditional outbound leads from direct mail according to statistics from 99 firms.
Warm leads that are generated automatically should be something that every business wants to generate, This alone makes a well-executed SEO campaign valuable.
SEO investments are cost effective
Most online business is a numbers game, more customers going into the top of a sales funnel will result in more sales and revenue at the bottom of the funnel. Almost all online activity is measurable, which makes it easy to track your ROI on an SEO campaign over time.
The initial costs of an SEO campaign may seem high. Most SEO Projects will also have an ongoing retainer element to the contract too. However, a well-executed campaign will work wonders for your business’s revenue in the longer term, making the cost seem like a wise investment in the long term.
If you have a high ticket product one or two new sales can easily cover the cost of an SEO campaign. SEO done well is the gift that keeps on giving!
SEO is like a pension for your business
Good SEO work can take up to 6 months to start to show significant results, especially in competitive marketplaces. All the small pieces of work that are performed each day or week build upon each other and start to snowball in a compound effect.
When you get to the top of Google search results for a term that your ideal client is searching for, that also has a buying intent for your product or service, the resulting spike in leads and sales is amazing. SEO work is not ‘pay per click’, so once the work is done it is the gift that keeps on giving!
With SEO you’re planting a seed and nurturing it so that over time it grows your site into something that keeps producing fruit for you for many years to come.
SEO work is yours forever
Unlike a successful Facebook or YouTube advert, it is a lot harder for a competitor to copy or outspend you when it comes to search rankings. There is no magic bullet that will take someone straight to the number one organic search result in Google by just spending more money.
SEO work is an investment in long-term security and more importantly, you own all the work and it resides on your servers, unlike anything you do in social media.
Each piece of content created, and each backlink earnt is another brick in the wall around your business’s success.
Some worrying statistics to consider
According to Moz almost 20% of searchers, change their search terms without clicking a result in their initial search. That means the searcher is judging the value of all the results they were initially presented with using their title tags and meta descriptions that the search engine was displaying.
Also according to Hubspot, 75% of searchers don’t scroll past the first page of results provided by a search engine. The first organic result gets 18% of the clicks, the second 10%, and 3rd 7%. When you consider that 50% of searches result in no click and the first few results are paid adverts, If you’re not in those top 3 organic results then you are fighting for an extremely small amount of traffic!
SEO is expensive, What can I do myself?
SEO work can be too expensive for new companies or businesses with restricted budgets and I get it, so here are a few things that you can do on your own that will help you improve your search ranks:
Keyword Research – know what your important keywords are and how your buyers find you online. there are a lot of free keyword research tools online to help you.
Increase internal linking on your site – linking from one page to another so users can easily find relevant information is great for boosting your rankings and improving user experiences. How can you add more internal links to your site?
Produce content regularly – With SEO content really is king. create a plan to produce content regularly and stick to it. This will work even better if you know what keywords are important to your company!
Improve your title tags & Meta description – Every page on your website has a title tag and meta description. Google displays this in the search results. Make sure they are relevant and enticing to your customer.
Next Steps
If you want to start your SEO journey, drop me an email at ian@digitalmagicsolutions.com or send me a DM and I’ll be happy to set up a call to discuss your business so we can make a custom-built campaign for your business.
If you’d like more information or want to discuss your current SEO strategy feel free to drop me a message and I’ll be happy to set up a free call with you.