SEO Marketing: Does it Make Sense for Your Small Business?
If you run a small business and have a website, you’ve heard of SEO marketing.
Done right, inbound marketing through online Search Engine Optimization brings you loads of targeted visitors for months and years to come… for FREE.
Who wouldn’t want that?
Yet somehow SEO marketing has become another nagging stress point for your small business.
Your friends think you need it. Your colleagues think you need it. Strangers emailing you from Southeast Asia think you need it.
But you must ask yourself…
Does SEO marketing make sense for your small business?
For some businesses SEO is pure gold. For others it’s a very different story. You need to consider the downsides of SEO.
SEO Downside #1) You might NOT reach your target customers through search engines
If you sell specialized widgets to a handful of large manufacturers, it’s unlikely that their purchasing departments will be trolling online for new suppliers. Other businesses fall into the same category.
SEO Downside #2) It can take a LOOOOONG time to see much search traffic
SEO is a long-term investment. It can take 6-12 months for a new website to see significant results. It requires patience and continuous commitment.
This is a good thing. If you succeed in your SEO initiative, it will be just as hard for someone else to come along and displace you.
SEO Downside #3) You might NEVER get on the first page of Google
In highly competitive niches you might never be able to rank on the first page of Google for high-value keywords.
High-value keywords are those that:
- Are highly relevant to your business, your offering, and your ideal customers
- Indicate “buying signals” rather than “browsing signals”
- Have search traffic volumes that are worthwhile for your business
- Have competition that you can displace on page 1 of Google search results
You may have well-established direct competitors who have been in the SEO game for years. Without a herculean SEO initiative you will never displace them.
If you can’t get to page 1 of Google for at least some of your high-value search terms, then you’re just wasting time and resources.
SEO Downside #4) SEO is NOT free
Sure, once SEO is working for you, all the traffic you receive is free. But pursuing an SEO campaign requires time, effort and money.
Successful SEO in 2013 requires:
- Performing in-depth keyword research
- Optimizing your website platform and individual pages
- Garnering high-value backlinks from relevant 3rd-party websites
- Running a high-value content marketing campaign
- Generating social media Likes, Shares and Tweets
- And more…
Well, geez. Thanks for all the bad news, Debbie Downer. Now what?
If SEO marketing doesn’t make sense for your small business right now, there are other effective alternatives for driving visitors to your website:
- Paid Ads (Google Adwords, Facebook ads, etc.): With paid ads you can begin bringing highly-targeted traffic to your website today.
- Social media campaigns: Social media virality depends upon creativity, uniqueness and value, not upon keyword optimization.
- Press releases, articles, blogs, radio/tv, print ads and much more…
But if SEO does make sense for your business, then…
How do you get started with SEO marketing?
The first step is to decide whether you can tackle SEO marketing yourself, or whether you’re better off outsourcing it.
▶ See “When Should You Hire an SEO Consultant?”
If you choose to do SEO yourself, there are many great resources to help you out. Here are the ones I’d recommend for getting started:
- Beginner’s Guide to SEO
- Advanced Guide to SEO
- MOZ: User-friendly SEO tools to help with keyword research, website optimization, link building, and social media engagement tracking
- Google Adwords Keyword Planner: Find out exactly how many people are searching on Google each month for specific keywords
And leave a comment or shoot me an email if I can help!
I’ve received some fascinating offline feedback on this post.
People have asked me why I’m “shooting myself in the foot” by discouraging people from pursuing SEO, which is one of my main services.
I’d hope the answer is obvious!
My ultimate service is to help you grow your business online. If SEO won’t help you achieve that goal in a significant way, then I’m not going to try to sell it to you.
I sincerely hope these posts help you to become a better consumer of internet marketing services, whether you work with me or someone else.
Best Regards,
Andrew
Extremely beneficial, look forward to coming back again.
Andrew you have written it very correctly. You have described how SEO marketing can be advantage for small businesses to get free traffic onver periods and I totally agreed on your points. Keep posting such valuable thoughts as it will give some knowledge to people about SEO.
Seo is important . Seo takes time. SEOs don’t wave a magic wand and get instant results. Instead, they perform extensive operations that will produce results months down the road.
Hi! I know this is kind of off topic but I was wondering which blog platform
are you using for this website? I’m getting sick and tired of WordPress because I’ve had
issues with hackers and I’m looking at options for another platform.
I would be great if you could point me in the
direction of a good platform.
SEO is important! It has a great role in marketing businesses, especially that we have shifted heavily on digital now. Thanks for writing this article. It’s easy to digest while still being informational.