Of course you’ve heard about SEO – you’ll even know what it stands for right… (search engine optimisation). But do you know why your business needs it or why every business, ecommerce or not, needs to consider search engine marketing services – probably not.
Here we look at the basics of SEO, and how it can work for you and your business. After reading, if you’ve not done already, you’ll want to put SEO into action. If you’re still not convinced, read on, and prepare to have your business eyes truly opened!
Need
Every business needs SEO (read more here). If you had a shop that nobody could find, it wouldn’t get passing trade. Likewise, an online presence is simply that, a presence, if nobody can find it! You need to get visits to your store, and in terms of online presence that means site traffic – SEO delivers traffic.
Returns
We live in a time of immediacy – we want everything now, if not sooner. So if as a business you are looking to invest in SEO, say through search engine marketing services, you too will want to see an immediate return on the capital you’ve invested (ROI). But SEO isn’t immediate, it takes patience and grows traffic organically. You need to realise this before you demand reasons why nothing has changed the day after SEO was implemented. This lack of immediacy however is replaced with a deliverance of sustained and continuous traffic in the longer term. Sure PPC (pay per click) can get traffic through adverts more immediately, but once the advertising budget is spent and the ad pulled, the traffic stops. SEO doesn’t get “pulled” it remains and evolves to constantly deliver – just give it time.
Engines
The giant search engines are developing new algorithms, and thus you need to adapt too. SEO can adapt in a changing market if properly monitored and maintained. It isn’t something that you can do once and forget, SEO, like most houseplants, needs constant attention otherwise they don’t flourish.
Interest
Once interest is created, you will need to convert it, but once converted it becomes yours. You’ll develop new long-term clients who will return to the same company rather than instigate a new search. If handled correctly, these long-term clients will increase exponentially. That is however in your hands, not the SEO!
Competitors
As PPC grows, so some think SEO is worth less of their resources. You however, by focusing more on SEO, will gain the benefits that they are losing by looking for a quick fix. See what your competitors are doing, learn from it, then do it better, differently.
Try
A bad PPC campaign can cost money and offer little reward (well handled, though, and it can revolutionise a business). However, even the smallest amount of SEO can prove beneficial. Great results will only come with work, but it is something that all businesses can try, at a cost of only their time.