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Trying to explain why SEO is worth it can be hard, and those of us who need to do this on a regular basis come across the same doubts and hesitations time and again: it’s too erratic, it takes a long time, PPC is better – all common hesitations.
These all feed into a widespread notion that SEO doesn’t have clear, tangible benefits when compared with other strategies like PPC or social media, but if you’re familiar with SEO, you know that it can be quantifiable, and potentially more cost effective.
Today we’re taking a look at five reasons trying to replace SEO can be harmful for your company.
PPC vs. SEO is a debate that has been going on ever since the terms existed. Despite this, there is a solid case to be made that they are simply too different to be complete analogues for each other.
Imagine a site that is SEO friendly, targeting keywords that span multiple people, at multiple checkpoints along their Path-to-Purchase. Diversely, PPC really only directly leads to a sales page.
Converting through PPC mostly occurs via organic content. PPC tends to have higher conversion, but it does so through a narrower lens. PPC isn’t adept at finding potential customers – only converting those who are already looking for you or your product.
SEO lets you broaden that horizon significantly, and does have the potential to bring in totally new customers. Trying to replace it with PPC is essentially deciding not to pursue potential customers, and instead double-down on those already firmly in your market.
Why is this bad? Simple. Appealing to new customers isn’t just about making profits – it’s also about brand visibility and brand authority, both of which will help you in the long run.
It may seem like finding a handful of high-traffic keywords to optimize will do the trick, but this is under-utilizing SEO as an information gathering tool.
Keyword research helps you understand the perspective of your customers – imagine discovering that rather than searching for your business type by district, it happens far more commonly by city. Being able to shift your focus to drawing in customers who are willing to travel longer distance to get the best quality is what SEO is all about. Without it, you wouldn’t know for sure that expanding your scope was even an option.
Medic, the core algorithm update Google made back in August, was disastrous for some. Traffic tanked suddenly, especially in the health market. Some unlucky business owners took huge losses because of it.
It’s impossible to predict the future, especially when it comes to how Google algorithms are going to change, but investing in SEO helps to mitigate the storm.
After Medic had been properly established, it became apparent that most of those who had suffered from it hadn’t been putting time into ‘EAT’: Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness – the content benchmark Google had set and indicated would become a major traffic factor. You’re much less likely to be caught off guard by this sort of thing, when you. Those with SEO strategies in place are much less likely to be caught off guard by this sort of change.
Even today, there are web developers with no knowledge at all around SEO. This can be a problem when major things fall through the cracks.
For example, Google’s indexing has issues with sites built completely in JavaScript, but those outside of SEO might not know how big a misstep this is. This can be especially annoying for webmasters who want to optimize their sites after the fact!
Having an SEO consultant involved from the beginning ensures that best practices for ranking are hard-wired into your build from the beginning, saving you costly reworking later on. Simply put, Google needs specific things from the foundations of a website, and it’s not worth being uninformed on the subject.
Organic traffic and sales have a pretty clear connection, but leaving SEO by the wayside doesn’t just mean you’re missing out on more traffic.
If your company appears in first position across the board in your market, it’s helping you even if users don’t click your name. Repeated visibility at the top of Google is fantastic PR. Inversely, never being seen in Google results can harm your brand, and affect your standing in other arenas. Theoretically, this could even change how your PPC ads perform – if consumers see you in ads, but never anywhere else, they’re liable to become suspicious of you, and assume that you need promotion to be seen, rather than having the merit to rank on your own steam.
The concerns people have around Search Engine Optimization are valid, and it’s absolutely possible to run your business without it, but is it worth it?
Only you can really know for sure how much leaving SEO opportunities on the table can change the trajectory of your company, but we’ve seen firsthand the power an search campaign has to boost a business.
The PureSEO team are experts on all things SEO Auckland-wide. Contact us to find out how we can help you!
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