If online marketing were a professional sport, SEO would be the playbook. You just can't send your team out there without a clear strategy. When a digital marketing specialist hears the words search engine optimization, his response is usually something along the lines of "when, where and how much?" SEO is something that's taken for granted in online advertising. When it comes to business, however, the major concern is the bottom line, and your boss may have some questions that need to be answered before implementing SEO.
1. Is It Necessary?
In case it wasn’t clear, yes. If you’re looking to break into the online marketplace, SEO is a must-have. Building a great website with star content is a starting point, but the best efforts go unseen when you fail to take search engine algorithms into account. If you want visibility on the web, you need SEO.
2. Is It Cost-Effective?
Quantifying expenses for a good SEO strategy is difficult because pricing is variable. It depends on who you go to and how extensive their efforts run. The good news is that, compared to other forms of online marketing like PPC advertising, social media marketing, and lead purchases, SEO provides some of the best ROI.
3. What’s the ROI?
There are several measures to quantify ROI for SEO. Organic website traffic, search engine ranking, and entrances are the big three. These metrics provide a straightforward analysis of the effectiveness of your SEO strategy. Good SEO means higher traffic, better rankings and more referrals.
4. Is it a Long or Short-Term Strategy?
If you’re getting into SEO, you’re in it for the long game. It’s important that a business owner understands that it’s not a one-shot trick. Results from good SEO can take anywhere from weeks to months to materialize, but when done right, you're looking at steady returns over a long span of time.
5. What Are the Different Types of SEO?
Businesses can employ both on-page and off-page SEO. Examples of on-page SEO include meta tags, keywords, and descriptions, while off-page SEO includes practices like back linking. On page or off, all good SEO takes mobile into account.
In addition to the basics, SEO can also be broken down into nearby SEO, national SEO, and worldwide SEO. As you might expect, these three categories describe the geographic reach of your online campaign from local to international. The type of SEO best suited for your company depends on the scope of your business.
6. Will It Affect Offline Sales?
A 2008 Webvisible/Nielsen study found that 86 percent of consumers use the internet to find local businesses. Smart phones and their associated apps have only grown in popularity since, so you can be certain that online marketing makes a real-world impact with offline sales.
7. Where Do We Start?
Once you're on the same page, the major questions you have to tackle are the scope of your business, your current infrastructure, and your marketing budget. SEO can be handled by a skilled in-house team or outsourced to a reliable third party. After you’ve settled all concerns and questions it’s happy hunting on the internet.
