[fusion_builder_container background_color=”” background_image=”” background_parallax=”none” enable_mobile=”no” parallax_speed=”0.3″ background_repeat=”no-repeat” background_position=”left top” video_url=”” video_aspect_ratio=”16:9″ video_webm=”” video_mp4=”” video_ogv=”” video_preview_image=”” overlay_color=”” overlay_opacity=”0.5″ video_mute=”yes” video_loop=”yes” fade=”no” border_size=”0px” border_color=”” border_style=”” padding_top=”0px” padding_bottom=”0px” padding_left=”0px” padding_right=”0px” hundred_percent=”no” equal_height_columns=”no” hide_on_mobile=”no” menu_anchor=”” class=”” id=””][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][fusion_text]Recently, soon after explaining what I do for a living, a friend responded with “Yes, but does SEO really help, though?” A question which, I’ll admit, I was a little surprised to have to answer. And it got me thinking. I guess that those new to the concept and new to building up a business online often ask the same question upon learning of SEO; will my site truly benefit from either spending hundreds of pounds, or whole days of my working week implementing SEO to my site?
It’s a good question, as usually, during the start-up phase of a new company, you are heavily concentrating on achieving high ROI on every investment you make. You need to know that you are making the best use of resources to give your business the best chance it has to survive (you can work on success later:)).
To answer this question, I think maybe the best place to start would be by considering your specific business, your marketing efforts, your primary customer base and your strategy for business development, and look at how search optimisation fits in with all of this.[/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][fusion_title size=”2″ content_align=”left” style_type=”single solid” sep_color=”” margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” class=”” id=””]Search Engine Optimisation Isn’t a One-Size-Fits-All[/fusion_title][fusion_text]SEO might not be for everyone, it’s true. If you have a business which conducts transactions solely offline, in an industry which relies on only word of mouth and signage for exposure, selling goods which are very highly specialised and limited in supply or highly generalised, plus, you’re happy with the current growth rate and don’t feel the need to market to customers outside your local operating area then you can probably get by without some basic level of search optimisation. Your site will be nothing but a statement of who you are and what you do, and you don’t need potential customers from search engines to find you to stay afloat. An example of this would be a local grocery store or small newsagents, or a highly specialised supplier of products with very limited supply and high demand. Yes, you can certainly help to improve your bottom line by implementing SEO and online marketing, but it isn’t necessary for your business to survive.
In my opinion, however, I believe that if you have a site, no matter how little faith you have in gaining exposure through it, not to mention direct sales, you should spend some time on search optimisation.
If one person finds your site though a SE, buys something and then goes on to recommend your business to friends, family and work colleagues, surely the effort would have paid for itself. Consider the vast benefits of such an event and how this situation would snowball with the right optimisation techniques, combined with other online marketing techniques such as remarketing, using social media and targeted paid ads. This is how you build a brand online, and without SEO, you can’t hope to succeed or grow.[/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][fusion_title size=”2″ content_align=”left” style_type=”single solid” sep_color=”” margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” class=”” id=””]How Are You Currently Marketing Your Business?[/fusion_title][fusion_text]What about marketing? Is SEO a type of marketing? I already spend x amount on Adwords, Facebook ads and Twitter ads, why would I need to bother about SEO?
A good search engine optimisation consultant will be able to explain to you that SEO is the foundation which you should build your marketing campaign on.
There’s no point paying a shed-load of cash on Facebook ads if a visitor arrives at your site to find very poor user experience; poor loading times, irrelevant information, thin content and confusing navigation. They’re going to leave pretty quickly! I know I would.
You need to create an environment that supplies a visitor with all the information they need, in a concise and understandable manner to actually generate a ROI from your marketing scheme (a.k.a meeting user intent). Without SEO, online marketing is akin to throwing money away, and no start-up can afford to do that.[/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][fusion_title size=”2″ content_align=”left” style_type=”single solid” sep_color=”” margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” class=”” id=””]Who Do You Currently Sell To?[/fusion_title][fusion_text]What if I am looking to sell B2B? Surely I don’t need SEO if I rely on cold calls, a good sales team, offline connections and leads and so on?
Indeed that could be true. If your primary customer base doesn’t use a search engine to find information, look at reviews for a company, seek contact information for local businesses, find required products or services, catch up on industry news… you get the picture. There are many situations where internet marketing might not be a great use of resources, especially with regards to start-ups, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t spend some time optimising your site.
In terms of business development, for many businesses online is going to be a large part of that. Seeking out alternative channels to sell or advertise your products or services is part of business development, and online is always going to be a huge channel there to exploit if you haven’t done so already. The problem is, without any search optimisation, your business will be completely invisible. Nobody will be able to find your products, see your advertisements, purchase your services, etc.[/fusion_text][fusion_text]TL;DR
If you believe that online sales, lead generation, advertising and so on, are important parts of your business, SEO is vital in building up a foundation to establish these online marketing efforts on. Without comprehensive site optimisation, the effectiveness of online marketing diminishes.[/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container][fusion_builder_container background_color=”” background_image=”” background_parallax=”none” enable_mobile=”no” parallax_speed=”0.3″ background_repeat=”no-repeat” background_position=”left top” video_url=”” video_aspect_ratio=”16:9″ video_webm=”” video_mp4=”” video_ogv=”” video_preview_image=”” overlay_color=”” overlay_opacity=”0.5″ video_mute=”yes” video_loop=”yes” fade=”no” border_size=”0px” border_color=”” border_style=”” padding_top=”0px” padding_bottom=”0px” padding_left=”0px” padding_right=”0px” hundred_percent=”no” equal_height_columns=”no” hide_on_mobile=”no” menu_anchor=”” class=”” id=””][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][fusion_title size=”2″ content_align=”left” style_type=”single solid” sep_color=”” margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” class=”” id=””]SEO Statistics[/fusion_title][fusion_text]Still not sure about the benefits?
Let’s break this down. Here’s a look at some statistics regarding online search as a whole by Search Engine Journal a few years ago.[/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][fusion_checklist icon=”fa-circle” iconcolor=”#1391db” circle=”no” circlecolor=”” size=”small” class=”” id=””][fusion_li_item icon=””]82.6% of internet users use search.[/fusion_li_item][fusion_li_item icon=””]There are over 100 billion global searches being conducted each month.[/fusion_li_item][fusion_li_item icon=””]Google owns 65-70% of the search engine market share.[/fusion_li_item][fusion_li_item icon=””]70% of the links search users click on are organic[/fusion_li_item][fusion_li_item icon=””]75% of users never scroll past the first page of search results.[/fusion_li_item][/fusion_checklist][fusion_separator style_type=”none” top_margin=”25″ bottom_margin=”25″ sep_color=”” border_size=”” icon=”” icon_circle=”” icon_circle_color=”” width=”” alignment=”” class=”” id=””/][fusion_text]So from 100 billion searches each month, 70% of them happen through Google. And of those 70 billion searches, approximately 49 billion times the user clicks on the organic results, not the paid ads (this figure is very much industry dependant, however). Additionally, the vast majority of users don’t even go to page 2![/fusion_text][fusion_separator style_type=”none” top_margin=”25″ bottom_margin=”25″ sep_color=”” border_size=”” icon=”” icon_circle=”” icon_circle_color=”” width=”” alignment=”” class=”” id=””/][fusion_text]In terms of search results, the figures speak for themselves. Simply put, if you’re not in the top 3, you are missing out on a lot of traffic.[/fusion_text][fusion_separator style_type=”none” top_margin=”25″ bottom_margin=”25″ sep_color=”” border_size=”” icon=”” icon_circle=”” icon_circle_color=”” width=”” alignment=”” class=”” id=””/][fusion_imageframe lightbox=”no” lightbox_image=”” style_type=”none” hover_type=”none” bordercolor=”” bordersize=”0px” borderradius=”0″ stylecolor=”” align=”center” link=”” linktarget=”_self” animation_type=”0″ animation_direction=”up” animation_speed=”0.1″ animation_offset=”” hide_on_mobile=”no” class=”” id=””] 
[/fusion_imageframe][fusion_separator style_type=”none” top_margin=”25″ bottom_margin=”25″ sep_color=”” border_size=”” icon=”” icon_circle=”” icon_circle_color=”” width=”” alignment=”” class=”” id=””/][fusion_text]Taking that figure of 49 billion we just mentioned, this means nearly 24 billion people click on the first result, compared to just under 4 billion for the 3rd position. The difference is eye-watering and compared to the stats for page 2 of search results, it makes for painful reading if your site is languishing further down the rankings with a very small portion of clicks from users.[/fusion_text][fusion_separator style_type=”none” top_margin=”25″ bottom_margin=”25″ sep_color=”” border_size=”” icon=”” icon_circle=”” icon_circle_color=”” width=”” alignment=”” class=”” id=””/][fusion_text]In summary, it isn’t a question of if SEO can help, as it’s pretty clear that without it, your business is floundering online. This simple process allows you to compete against much more powerful companies online. It gives you a massive new platform to sell your products or services for much lower overheads.
According to a recent survey, SMBs consider SEO to be the most effective channel to reach new customers after word-of-mouth. This isn’t surprising considering in the US 44% of users, when looking to purchase online, begin with using a search engine. Consider that again for a moment, nearly 85% of the population of North America is online. That’s nearly 450 million people. So nearly 200 million people are using a search to find a product online. Combine that with the figures we just looked at and it brings things all into perspective.
To miss out on that kind of exposure can very quickly break a small business. To refuse to consider SEO as part of your marketing strategy is to disregard the present and future of business. Ignore it at your peril.[/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
