Ranking at the top of organic search results has its value. Not only does it help you get massive SEO traffic, but it also puts you in a position to succeed. It showcases your brand as the industry leader and someone who sets the pace for the entire industry.
Unfortunately, given all these benefits, everyone wants to get a piece of the cake. Some brands are extremely aggressive with their SEO work, often teetering at the edges of a Google penalty. For many digital businesses, the exponential growth that optimization provides is worth just about any risk.
If you still don’t have an SEO team and think this approach is a waste of money, you should read this article to the end. We’ll explain what makes search engine optimization so fantastic for just about any brand. Check it out!
Why SEO matters for your brand?
If you ask a random person what makes SEO so great, most people will tell you that it’s all about organic traffic. When you rank on the first page of Google for lucrative keywords, you’ll start getting much more qualified leads. However, there’s much more to SEO than it meets the eye.
Main advantages of SEO
Here are a few main benefits of search engine optimization for your business:
- When you invest in SEO, you can significantly increase the number of visitors to your site.
- Unlike other digital marketing approaches, SEO investment provides steady, long-term results.
- In the long run, you can position yourself as the leading brand in a specific market.
- With the right SEO strategy, you can increase significantly increase brand awareness.
- Search engine optimization can easily be combined with other marketing efforts.
- Once your pages reach the top of organic search results, it’s really hard to take them down.
- When SEO kicks in, it can significantly reduce your customer acquisition costs.
If we were to sum it up, optimization is the best method for long-term brand building. It generates highly-convertible leads and has a major impact on everything else you do.
Main disadvantages of SEO
Unfortunately, search engine optimization isn’t perfect.
Let’s be honest; this approach takes time. If you think you’ll get more traffic overnight, you’re dead wrong. Getting high SEO rankings is an arduous process, and it’s crucial for a business owner to be patient throughout.
Many people start panicking when they see their marketing budget being depleted without anything to show for it. This is when they usually turn the plug on the whole process. However, this is a wrong mentality. Not only will you lose the money you invested, but you’ll also stop something that can propel your company to the stars.
How much does SEO cost?
The SEO prices vary significantly based on what you’re looking for. If we’re talking about complete packages, you can outsource companies for $1,000 a month. Expensive services can cost $10,000 and even more.
The process starts with an SEO audit. It’s usually a one-time service that determines the state of your website. After that, a marketing expert will perform keyword research followed by content creation and link building.
Basically, you can pay for each one of these services separately. For example, if you already have lots of quality posts on your site, you can just hire an agency to help you out with link acquisition. Similarly, if you think your content needs a push, you can hire a freelance content writer.
Of course, companies can also create an in-house SEO team. If you’re a US-based company, you’ll probably have to pay a full-time optimization expert from $100,000 to $150,000. Content writers and editors are usually cheaper, ranging from $40,000 to $60,000.
To make the most out of this approach, you should also hire data scientists, UX and CRO experts, and engineering resources.
How does SEO compare to other marketing methods?
If you’re thinking about investing in SEO, you should first compare this process with other digital marketing options. Here’s a breakdown of the most popular marketing approaches, including their pros and cons.
PPC
PPC ads, or simply paid ads, represent sponsored advertising forms in Google but also other search engines. PPC can also refer to social media advertising, although this approach isn’t as popular. With paid search, your link is placed on top of Google, above organic results. This ensures the highest possible click rate and, thus, website conversion.
Pros
- You can start selling immediately. This makes the method great for companies that can’t wait for SEO to kick in.
- It doesn’t require that much client-agency communication. With SEO, a business owner should stay in the loop during the process so they understand what’s happening with their site.
- With PPC, you don’t give as much control to a third-party provider.
Cons
- Unlike SEO, it isn’t the best approach for brand awareness. Although increased visibility is always nice, it doesn’t provide the same benefits as optimization.
- It forces you to pay money constantly. As soon as you pull out, all the benefits and exposure vanish.
- PPC for certain keywords can be extremely expensive. Alternatively, you could make the mistake of paying for phrases that won’t bring sales to your site.
- You still need to have a well-optimized site as you’ll have to eventually convert all these visitors. In other words, you’ll still have to pay an SEO expert for some basic work.
SMM
Most websites use a combination of social media marketing and search engine optimization. Both of these are considered a solid long-term investments, although with SMM, you’re relinquishing a part of the control. That is, you’re putting your company in the hands of a third-party platform.
Pros
- Younger audience gravitates more to social media posts than traditional written articles. This type of content is easy to digest and can be captivating for an audience of all ages.
- SMM allows small businesses with limited budgets to make a name for themselves. All you need to do is invest some time and be consistent to build a followership.
- Social media marketing doesn’t require as much technical knowledge.
Cons
- Ranking highly in Google and other search engines is still better for your sales. People don’t necessarily use social media for shopping.
- Basic Google SEO works well for all search engines. On the other hand, content that you post on Instagram might not be suitable for Facebook or YouTube, and vice versa.
- Given that most social media only accept short-form content, you need to be creative with few characters or a single image. You need to take risks so that the post goes viral. Unfortunately, this can also lead to some cardinal mistakes.
- Social media simply doesn’t work for certain industries.
Traditional marketing
Even if you’re focusing on your website, you might still benefit from traditional marketing channels. Some brands make a lot of money by efficiently utilizing billboards, radios, brochures, and TV ads. In some situations, you might even want to consider combining the traditional approach with SEO to reach different segments of the population.
Pros
- Given that traditional marketing involves so many different channels, you have more leeway to experiment with different strategies.
- Similar to PPC, traditional marketing provides immediate results.
- Although you’re still affected by the competition for ad prices, traditional marketing isn’t as competitive as the SEO field.
Cons
- All the data indicates that traditional channels are decreasing in value with each passing year. Investing heavily in traditional marketing might come back to bite you after a few years, and you’ll still be forced to develop your own digital platform.
- In particular, traditional marketing is especially inefficient for the younger generation. So, depending on the product, you might get minimal value from this approach.
- Like all digital marketing approaches, SEO allows you to outsource. This can significantly reduce its costs. On the other hand, traditional marketing forces you to pay for ads according to the US or European standards.
- The same things that are plaguing PPC are plaguing traditional marketing. In other words, it’s not the best approach for brand building, and it provides less value than SEO in the long run.
Other digital marketing methods
Besides the previous tactics, we have to mention a few other ways of reaching potential customers.
A website can invest in things such as emailing, influencer/affiliate marketing, online banners, pop-ups, and a few other methods. The reason why we didn’t want to put all these in a separate group is that they generally provide subpar results. Most of them should be combined with SMM or SEO to provide any effect.
Still, each one of these can work as an ancillary channel. For example, emailing is crucial during SEO campaigns, particularly link building. Influencer marketing campaigns and other projects can easily be tied down to your social media. As for banners and pop-ups, you can simply recycle promotional material you used for other campaigns.
4 Main SEO services and how they help your site
Most people perceive optimization as a singular method that helps increase your rankings within search engines. However, it’s actually an amalgamation of different marketing processes, which you can implement individually or in cohesion with other another.
Here are the main things that an SEO agency can do for you:
1. Technical SEO
Before you start any type of optimization, you need to perform an SEO audit. A marketing veteran should “look under the hood” and determine if your website is plagued by some underlying issues.
Among others, an SEO professional should check your sitemaps, website speed, mobile friendliness, link profile, and a few other things. They also check the state of your content, looking for issues such as cannibalization and duplicate pages.
Technical SEO can be a stand-alone service but is otherwise a part of the standard package. You can always hire an expert to perform an audit if you suspect there’s something wrong with your site.
2. Keyword research
Keyword research is a process that precedes content creation. It rarely goes as a stand-alone service. Instead, it is often coupled with content creation or as a part of a standard SEO package.
When performing this service, a provider uses tools such as AhRefs to generate topic ideas. They try to find phrases with low difficulty and high traffic volume. Besides the fact these keywords are rankable, they also need to be relevant for the businesses. In the end, there’s no point in attracting users who aren’t your target audience.
3. Content creation
All SEO efforts start with content marketing. Having fantastic articles, videos, and images is what separates successful brands and influencers from the rest.
In terms of websites and SEO, you should always focus on written words. That’s not to say that creating YouTube videos is bad for your business. It’s just that you’re more likely to get better results in Google and Bing with articles.
However, hiring a marketing agency to simply spam pages doesn’t do anything. Instead, you need to find someone who will generate actionable ideas and can help manage creative campaigns. You need to write viral posts that will be shared on social media and will be linked to other sites.
4. Link building
Link building is the backbone of the SEO industry and one of the more expensive services. The ability to acquire high-quality links separates mediocre brands from industry leaders.
This is usually the last step of the optimization process and, you might say, the cherry on the cake. Once you create sufficient articles, you can start a link-building campaign. Although you can use this method whenever you want, it’s much better to do it right after finishing your soon-to-be viral pieces.
Keep in mind that none of these services works in a vacuum. They’re integral not only for your SEO but for other campaigns as well. For example, if your site and landing pages aren’t properly optimized, there’s no point in spending money on PPC. Similarly, you can use the same content for your site and social media.
If you wish to learn more about global and local SEO, contact MiroMind today!