Most Gold Coast business owners have difficulty in relating the real benefits of using search engine optimisation services for their website because they find it difficult to sift through all the hype and identify specific hard facts that pertain directly to them. The purpose of this article is to separate the wheat from the chaff and illustrate some real guidelines that can be used to ascertain reality from fiction.
It is readily apparent that much of the rhetoric in regard to SEO is presented to a business owner in a very general way and it is very difficult to take the generalities and translate them into a bottom line format that the business owner can get his mind around. Everything is presented in terms of what should happen rather than specifically what will happen.
SEO from the viewpoint of a Manager
It is important to approach the topic from the point of a manager as opposed to that of a technical point of view. The manager or business owner does not have enough information presented to him or her to base any decision on. Everything seems to be a moving target and there are no hard guarantees and thus the owner does not know what to pay for or how much is a reasonable amount to pay. They are not really given enough information to really know if higher search rankings and an internet presence will help them or hurt them.
Why SEO Can Be An Advantage
The very first concept that should be presented to a business owner is what a good SEO program will help the business. Search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo are utilised by millions of people all of the time in order to quickly find things that they are searching for to know about, to purchase or simply for curiosity. We have all heard and used the term, “Google it” as a verb to find something on the internet.
This fabric of searches creates a huge platform for business who wish to promote their product or service and if you can drive traffic to your website via the search engines, you can market to customers who would be prone to look at your business if they knew about you. That is basically what SEO is all about, which is the practice of optimising the searches of people towards your website and thus, your business.
It is a simple condition then, but a difficult task to accomplish, and that mission is to get your website listed in one of the top 5 positions on a search engine in the category to which you belong. This is done with the key words or phrases that would apply to your business that most people would use to search for you. If you fall below the first 5 spots, your chances for being found diminish, and if you fall off the first page you can forget it.
The process is always changing too, so the work that an SEO company does today may be obsolete next year, so if you do business with anyone who wants to charge you for their services, you should be sure that they will back up any changes in the future. For example if a company gets you ranked within the first 5 positions on Google, and then for some reason you fall out of that positions, the company should be able to get you back in position.
One strategy that a business owner should take is to have the SEO company get him ranked first before he pays them any money. After all, if they are as good as they say they are, they should be able to accomplish that with ease, and then you can pay them.
Which Strategy Is Best For My Business- PPC Or SEO?
When it comes to internet marketing, one of the most commonly asked questions is, “Should I use PPC or SEO to drive traffic to my site?” This question is a great one to ask because it take two of the more common traffic strategies and pits them against each other- natural clicks vs paid clicks. Is one of these tactics better for your business than the other one? That is a really broad question, and before we can give a good answer to it, there are a couple of important issues that we need to address first.
PPC vs SEO Breakdown
The first thing we need to do is look at what the major differences are between PPC and SEO. You’re not really going to be able to choose the best strategy for your business until you clearly understand what the differences are between the two strategies.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) involves getting high rankings for your website in the organic/natural search results for specific keywords on the three major search engines: Bing, Yahoo and Google.
Pay Per Click (PPC) involves paying for ads for specific keyword phrases on search engines like Google and Bing that appear on the search results pages.
Is Paid PPC Better Than Natural SEO?
At first glance, SEO may appear to be the obvious winner. In addition, there are many reasons, which we don’t have time to cover in this article, SEO is still important when you are running PPC campaigns. The main advantage that SEO has is that it has a tendency to statistically bring more trusting leads and better traffic. Many searchers have, in fact, learned to completely ignore the paid ads when they are conducting searches on Google or browsing the web.
There is an abundance of data that shows that organic search visitors coming to your site are much more likely to trust your services and products, your business and you. When you rank high for keyword phrases on Google, it is a sign that your business is credible and that you are one of your industry’s most important players. This is one of the main advantages that SEO can provide to your business.
However, don’t be fooled into believing that search engine optimization is free. SEO costs, no matter how you go about it- whether it’s spending your own time to do the job or investing some of your money into hire SEO experts to do it for you.
What About Using PPC Instead?
Just because PPC has direct cost-per-click expenses, doesn’t mean every business out there should avoid using this strategy. There are some advantages to PPC, and it can also play a major role in informing your specific SEO processes and strategies.
When trying to decide whether to use SEO or not, it mostly depends on what your monthly marketing budget is. For most types of businesses, you will need to be able to spend a minimum of $50-$100 a day on PPC clicks in order to yield any significant results. If you spend less than this, you run the risk of your return on investment being inadequate. Keep in mind, not every single individual who clicks on one of your paid ads will convert into a buyer or lead.
When it comes to the question of whether PPC or SEO is better for your business, my best answer for you is that you should do both!
The fastest way to get traffic to your business these days is to use pay per click. Just keep in mind that something like Google Adwords isn’t something you can just easily plug into. The learning curve is fairly steep. You will need to read one good book on the topic thoroughly before you start to experiment with it. PPC is not only the quickest way to generate traffic for your site, it also provides solid data and information that you can use in your SEO efforts.
Search Engine Optimisation is very important as well. However, it definitely takes much longer to start generating traffic and results. If you have a brand new website, it will be trapped inside Google’s Sandbox for a couple of months at least before it starts to rank. When you have a new website, you need to expect that there will be a lot of growing pains, inconsistencies and fluctuations in ranking.
However, over the long term, SEO will provide you with the most qualified leads and best types of traffic. In addition, your SEO efforts (improving page content, optimizing code, etc) will also be helped by your PPC results. Google loves rewarding “good PPC buyers by giving them them Higher Quality Scores and lower Cost Per Click costs in Google Adwords.
