There is a lot of misunderstanding out there about SEO. All businesses naturally want their websites to rank #1 for the keywords that are important to them, but it’s not as simple as that. You can’t expect to rank #1 overnight. In today’s Top Tip Tuesday video, Dion explains how SEO is a long-term strategy that can take a while to build.
Why SEO is a Valuable Investment
The competition amongst businesses to rank highly in the search results is what makes SEO a difficult and specialist area of expertise. Investing in SEO can have huge returns, but it is important to have realistic expectations about when you will begin to see results, given how competitive the landscape is.
It is true that SEO is a long-term investment, but here are four reasons why it is an investment worth making.
- The ongoing costs are lower than advertising: When it comes to visibility on search, you basically have two options: paid search advertising (PPC) or SEO. Paid search is great for businesses that are just starting out online since you get achieve immediate results with it. But the great thing about SEO is that you don’t have to pay the same ongoing costs that you have to pay with AdWords. There’s no such thing as cost-per-click with SEO!
- People tend to trust organic listings more: Many people click on Google Search ads – otherwise Google wouldn’t be in business. But there are many people out there who prefer to ignore the ads and scroll straight down to the organic search results. People, in general, tend to be distrustful of advertisements and respond better to organic search listings, since these businesses “earned” their spot there. For this reason, it isn’t uncommon for conversion rates through organic search to be higher than through paid search.
- It can dramatically increase your share of the “search shelf space.” With SEO, it is possible to rank more than one page from the same domain for the same search term. If you are also running an AdWords campaign, that means you could have three or more listings on the first page – a significant amount of “search shelf space.” Doing both SEO and PPC is a great way to maximise your visibility and push down your competitors.
Want to learn more? Read our SEO blogs.