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What Can SEO Really Do For Your Business?
If you’re trying to decide whether your business will benefit from an injection of SEO (Search Engine Optimization), the easiest way to answer that question is by looking at how (and where and by whom) people shop these days. Nowhere is the trend toward digital more apparent than in eCommerce —
The popularity of online business has given many companies a chance to reach new clients in new markets. In today’s world, Google is the lifeline for many companies, social media the hub that keeps us connected and SEO an essential piece to the business puzzle. If you’ve been paying attention, you know keeping those three “moving parts” running smoothly takes a lot of work.
So, How does SEO work?
SEO, represents an umbrella of techniques used to increase the ranking potential on search engines. This includes effective link building, on-page optimization and content marketing. However, manual link building has a very low retention rate; so people have turned to other techniques of improving their website’s ranking such as creating valuable user experiences.
These methods are utilized by SEO practitioners to achieve top position rankings for their clients within their specific target market. The ultimate goal of Calgary SEO services is to provide value and generate more traffic from search engines and improve a businesses leads and sales.
SEO is Not a One-Time Investment but On-Going Digital Marketing Effort
The question on the table is how much does SEO cost? The answer is not a fixed amount but a range. If you are a business that is interested in developing an online presence and want to cover all the bases — then you’ll need to take into account more than just SEO costs. You have to balance the rest of the equation as well.
The factors such as location, industry, and budget play a huge role in the amount your company should spend. But SEO is an investment just like any other marketing strategy, and analyzing the return on your investment should be your biggest concern. Your website has the potential to generate thousands of leads and clicks year after year.
How you execute the marketing strategy for your business will have a huge impact on it’s long-term standing. Before you make any decisions ensure you are versed in the facts.
Organic Web Traffic or PPC – Which is Better?
One of the main reasons for a company to put an online presence is to drive traffic. There are two major ways to achieve this goal, organic search, as is created by SEO efforts or Pay Per Click (PPC) and both have their own pros and cons.
SEO and PPC are often confused with one another. These two strategies do require different actions. However, both can be used together to form a powerful and effective solution to increasing website traffic. PPC does not work the same way as SEO, but it is usually much faster than free organic results.
However, organic rankings deliver more organic traffic (and higher quality traffic) than a PPC ad. This traffic is free, and doesn’t have the same bounce rate that a PPC user does. Where a paid conversion is hit-and-miss, an organic one can be repeated as often as you make new content, which can be pretty much every day (as long as it meets the needs of your customers).
Organic traffic is safer from a reputation standpoint, too. These organic links encourage visitors to stay on your website for longer periods of time. The visitor will be exposed to SEO tips or tricks that enhance the user experience or otherwise contribute to the search term relevancy of your website. Furthermore, when you do an SEO follow up, you’ll notice that most of the links tend to be quality directories and reputable websites. Quality links generally come from true experts who have taken time to vet your site and add it to their own website as a resource.
If you want to earn the popularity your website deserves, then by all means, go for SEO. You will need patience and it might take several months to see results. You could speed things up with white hat techniques like social media and blogging. With enough traffic coming in through these two methods, you could see results in as little as a few weeks.
The Bottom Line – Will SEO Help Your Business?
SEO is the keyword cornerstone to high ranking you want for your business. Time is a valuable asset in SEO, and the longer you delay investing in a thriving campaign, the longer it will take to garner targeted traffic. If you’re a small, one-person shop and don’t have an SEO team to lend a hand, then it might be necessary for you to outsource this work in order to meet your website traffic goals.
SEO is a long-term strategy and it should be thought of as an investment, not an expense. The overall purpose of your business should be to build an asset over a period of time, and anything that you do that does not increase the value of that asset is an expense. There are many assets you can build for your business (e.g. software, product, market share, profit/revenue) and SEO is one of those assets if done properly.
There’s no question SEO is a great investment. With the ever-changing algorithms of Google and other search engines, it can be difficult to keep up with the latest (and best) techniques for getting organic traffic. When approached properly it will give you a large return on that investment with solid leads and customers that you otherwise would never have reached on your own.
About The Author
Noelle Payne is the Senior Copywriter and Project Lead at Marvel Marketing Ltd. Marvel Marketing is a Calgary, AB based industry thought leader specializing in SEO campaigns, content creation and web design that involve “thinking outside of the box” and focusing on the latest and most innovative strategies in the digital marketing realm. Marvel Marketing provides engaging online experiences with consumers, ultimately helping businesses succeed in
today’s competitive online world.
