What’s your brand’s approach to SEO? Search engine optimisation (SEO) may seem like one of those things everyone is doing just because everyone is talking about it.
But the real reason businesses strive to perfect their SEO practices is that it does deliver great return on investment (ROI). Ultimately, MWI CEO Joshua Steimle explains in an article for Forbes, SEO practices are best for securing long term ROI.
While listing his reasons why SEO is not suitable for every single company, he actually describes why it is the better option for those who plan ahead.
An investment not an expenseWhile paid search and retargeting might be great for start-ups who are after immediate results from their marketing campaigns, they are actually pricier investments that deliver only those immediate results with no lasting effect. SEO, on the other hand, is the best way to attract traffic. On the upside, it pushes your content higher in organic search, meaning that people are more likely to see and therefore click on it.
The downside is that you need to wait a few months for your content to build that kind of momentum. But as Steimle notes, the good news is that SEO is like a freight train – once it gets going, it’s hard to stop it. Another reason SEO is the better long-term option is because it is the way for businesses in seasonal industries to get ahead of competition.
Steimle likens the effect on SEO to off-season sports training: it is the athletes that spend all year training that get the gold medals in summer. In the same way people think athletes do nothing while they are not competing, you might be inclined to take time off from SEO during your business “off-season.”
Taking a break
However, if you stop SEO-ing for a certain period of the year, you would be falling behind other companies who kept at it. On the other hand, if you persist in your efforts during the off-season, you’d be entering the actual season with a massive headstart on those competitors who took a break. Getting the freight train that is SEO to move, however, is not cheap.Unless you’re running a really small campaign in an area that is almost devoid of competition, the serious, big, nation-wide ones cost in the tens of thousands every month, Steimle explains.
According to him, there’s almost no point in paying for the cheapest SEO services on the market because they won’t give much back. And if you decide not to use SEO, sooner or later you will have to consider it, especially if you want to stand out among your competitors.It will actually cost more to catch up with competitors who have SEO practices already in place than it would to regularly invest in SEO. Nowadays, SEO has become vital for brand exposure.
Further Reading
4 Ways Video Can Work Wonders For SEO
What does SEO actually mean?