SEO and your business
Compared to other online advertising, SEO takes considerable time and focus to achieve results. Although this may sound like a negative quality, this method can offer consistent long-term results and be considerably more cost-efficient with the proper guidance.
But where, if at all, will this method not work?
It’s not working out…
As search marketing experts, we know that there are rarely situations where a business can go without the benefits of search engine optimisation. In the current digital age, there are little to no businesses, no matter how niched their industry, that survive without an online presence or online audience engagement.
The main reasons SEO doesn’t work out:
Have you turned to SEO as a last resort to saving your business? It’s probably not going to give you the results you’re expecting. Although we feel like SEO is magic, it is not a magical solution that will save your business. SEO strategies need to be planned and projected to help you reach conversion and engagement goals, but it is not the overnight business fix many hope for.
Good things take time! Like most organic efforts, SEO takes time to grow and, as a result, can’t offer an end date for results. Assessing your business, its unique goals and online competitors makes each SEO journey different. Unfortunately, the lack of an ‘end date’ for SEO results often leads business owners to give up before they’ve even touched the benefits.
There are various SEO tactics to adopt, but the skill to determine which will best suit your website is what is needed for a successful strategy. Setting out tactics without direction will lead to failure is the blind leading the blind. As a result, successful strategies require researching which tactics are best suited to set refined SEO goals.
Although implementing tactics without a strategy can be detrimental to your SEO’ing, one arguably worse thing is using outdated practices! These practices often have little to no opportunity for success, which will hinder performance.
There are very few cases where SEO will not be beneficial, though there are always exceptions. If a business is offering a solution that isn’t being searched for online, it’s likely that SEO will not be the most beneficial form of marketing. Without an online audience, the ranking will not matter for lead generation efforts.
SERP, also known as a search engine results page, can serve multiple forms of results to searchers. Organically ranked content, achieved with the help of SEO, can appear below other results due to the range of features included in a search. This makes harnessing local SEO techniques and other practices crucial to appear in more than one SERP feature.
Nowadays, UX (user experience) is what it’s all about. A hassle-free experience on your website can decide whether or not a conversion takes place, which indirectly impacts your SEO. Without conversions, the bounce rate can increase, and traffic may begin to dwindle, hurting your rankings.
Considering the dynamics of your SEO team may seem like an odd factor to consider when determining the efficiency of SEO, but it is vital! A combination of skill sets and experience is essential to manage SEO tasks successfully.
While procuring organic traffic is free, the agency cost for managing effective SEO is not. This marketing tactic can be highly lucrative for your business, though it requires proper investment. Unfortunately, business owners often lack the financial commitment to get SEO up and running.
Getting your SEO on track
All businesses, regardless of their size or industry, want their marketing efforts to succeed. SEO should not be the exception in this! Despite the challenges that may stand in the way, SEO is an investment that should be nurtured to bring your business the opportunities it deserves.
At Cape Business Online, we help our clients overcome the pitfalls that often lead to SEO failure. If you are interested in establishing a search engine optimisation strategy for your business, feel free to reach out to our team.
