If you are trying understand why investing in search engine optimization is important or if it’s a bad idea, this article will explain. If your business has never done SEO before, it could be a rock-solid investment that delivers sales and ROI. It can also be a bad idea if the keywords or search terms you choose are wrong and don’t lead to additional revenue.
Here are 5 Reasons why investing in search engine optimization is important (and how it could be bad) and how to prepare your business for SEO success.
1 – Timing is everything
The good: You’re showing up in Google Search results for search terms that people are actually looking for. Imagine if you ranked for “best toothbrush 2022” and your website showed up at the top. What would that do for your business?
It’s like showing up in the right place at the right time. Sounds good right?
Here’s the bad: How many other companies are trying to show up for that same search term and outrank you? How long does it take to rank for that term? Does the search term “best toothbrush 2022” actually lead to measurable sales revenue? In other words, what is the actual mindset or purchase intention of a consumer who is conducting the search? These are all questions that need to be answered before launching an SEO campaign.
2 – Cost Effectiveness
The good: When you rank for keywords that drive sales and revenue, SEO can be very cost-effective. People that click a website from the search results are usually higher quality than those that click a paid advertisement. The costs become less expensive and more predictable over time.
The Bad: Sometimes it can require a significant investment of both time and money to rank for a keyword or search term. If you don’t select the right keywords this can be detrimental to your business that leads to a negative ROI.
3 – Increasing ad costs
The good: SEO doesn’t increase the same way paid ads do. It’s a relatively flat cost. Unlike paid ads, the traffic and results tend to stick around well after you stop paying your SEO firm. This is a solid reason why investing in search engine optimization is important.
The bad: You simply cannot rely on a single channel to grow your business. Google updates its technology regularly. Sometimes it can falsely penalize your website which alters where you appear in the search results. Your competitors are always trying to outrank you and could be successful.
I’m not saying “don’t do SEO”. By all means, you have to. Be smart and diversify so if something bad happens you don’t cut your business at the knees.
4 – Focus on customer experience
The Good: Deliver a good customer experience and Google will reward you. Google cares about 1 thing, the user experience. They want to make sure people are engaged with your website. Google measures: length of time on your website, number of pages visited, and page load speed. It’s important your company has a website that has a solid design according to current standards. Make sure your content is engaging. Focus on the experience and you’ll win.
The Bad: Standards and expectations from Google are always changing. It’s hard to keep up sometimes. A good SEO firm will keep you up to speed so you don’t have to worry about it and can focus on growing your business. It’s easy to overlook the customer experience but should be the core of any successful SEO campaign.
5 – Helps you identify your ideal target customer
The Good: SEO can help you understand the needs and wants of your ideal customers. More importantly you’ll be able to identify seasonal trends or which products/services you should be offering and different times of the year.
The Bad: SEO data takes both time and money to get enough good quality data to make smart business decisions. In the meantime you’re stuck waiting and forced into investing while trying to understand where your best customers are coming from.
How to prepare your business for SEO success. And why investing in search engine optimization is important.
Here at Bad Rhino we approach SEO a little differently. We believe you should structure a paid ad campaign first. This gives you instant results that you can measure. Since you are paying for people to click on your ad, you know what your ROI is much sooner. You don’t have to wait around for your site to show up in the search results.
Then once you know which keywords or search terms are profitable for you, launch an SEO campaign.
SEO isn’t an option, you have to do it in order to grow your business. This approach will give you the best opportunity to get an ROI with keywords or search terms you know will produce results.
Done properly, you can see why investing in search engine optimization is important and when paired with paid ads they work together. Imagine if someone went to Google and searched for “best toothbrush 2022”. Your website showed up in the search results and as a paid ad. Do you think that gives you more credibility than your competitors? Absolutely.
As you can see, there is good and bad to SEO. If done properly there is far more good than bad. Here at Bad Rhino we’re happy to help – contact us today and will ensure we set you up for success.
