SEO and Your Business – The Business of SEO
The Business of SEO
Today, everyone has heard of SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, and has likely formed an opinion on it. Most companies have either embraced it, rejected it, or have “tried” SEO in some form at some point.
Most businesses today (including us!) get multiple SEO emails per week promising “guaranteed rankings”, or at least the promise of possibly being “number one” in the search engines for only a couple of hundred dollars.
However, these companies just promise “rankings” and hits to your site. Typically they completely fall short of their promises, but by then they have your money and enough excuses that you just want them to go away.
What they don’t ask are questions about your actual business and how much actual ROI you will get back and even when it will happen.
Also, they don’t look at your business goals and see how you actually want to reach them and what kind of strategies are actually best.
Don’t get me wrong. I love SEO. Oh yea, we’re an SEO company. However, sometimes SEO might not be the only thing you will need to do to reach your goals. What about paid advertising, what about display advertising, what about social media and contests? These activities may all come into play to make your goals happen.
Cheap SEO is typically just that, cheap. That $399 a month you might be spending might be better spent hiring a sign spinner outside your office. You just don’t know without real data. You need good educated guesses about how much you will realistically have to spend to reach your goals, and even if those goals are actually something you can achieve. Let’s say you want 100 new customers a month that bring you $2000 profit per month. After you do some homework, you may find that you will be spending five figures a month to get them. From there you can look at your profits and see the value of what you will be doing.
The more aggressive your goals, the more effort (and money) you are going to have to invest to move the needle and see returns. However, unless you go with a real SEO agency, you really won’t be able to get that information and set milestones for your growth goals and online lead generation.
Timing is important as well. If you have a warehouse full of things or you just launched a new service and hired two new sales reps, your timing is going to be more immediate, and a hybrid approach of ppc, display and SEO will be a fit. If you want to sell your business or pass it on in three years, a straight, lower-cost, growth SEO plan, that puts you in the black after 18 months would be a great option.
Unless SEO companies ask too many questions about “your business”, you are likely going to be disappointed with their results. If a company offers just one way to “get leads”, they are likely going to give you a short-sighted plan that won’t fit your actual goals.
If you would like a free strategy session that can figure out your goals, give you some great ideas for your business and even determine if a complete marketing roadmap might be for you, we should talk.
Click here to set up an appointment in your office.