SEO is a type of investment that can, at least initially, be hard to measure in terms of ROI. You may have moved a new site up 87 spots to position 13, but there may not be an increase in traffic at that point since you are still off the first page. With fluctuation in rankings, you may have seen a slight bump, but reports may not reflect the ultimate goals we have attempted in the buildout of the campaign. In this phase, it can be hard to relate the results attained to a return on investment. In this blog, we will dive into the cost-effectiveness of your investment in SEO and support our stance that SEO is the most cost-effective marketing strategy in the long-term.
A TARGETED MARKETING TACTIC
SEO is, at its core, the targeting of folks who are looking for your services but may not know it is you they are looking for. While word of mouth, cold calling, and paid advertisements all have their place in lead generation, but placing yourself in the mix of the first page of a Google search engine results page heightens your chance for new customers who are unfamiliar with your brand or services in general. Our team of SEO experts takes the time to understand the keywords that will not only drive traffic to your website but turn into dollars in your pocket. Taking the time to find these types of keywords is imperative to a successful SEO campaign.
ACCELERATED CONTENT PRODUCTION
One of the side effects of running an SEO campaign is an increase in the content available to your website’s visitors. Whether this is in the form of blog posts or new pages, new content gets gobbled up by Google’s crawlers and helps with your overall ranking ability. We first use your target keywords to create a comprehensive content plan that will build upon itself in the long run. Then we use that content to build links across the web. In many cases, the content produced starts to build its own links naturally as well. This is where the “Is SEO Cost Effective?” question gets answered with clarity. Your website becomes a marketing tool in and of itself. What could be more cost-effective?
MARKET LONGEVITY
One of our favorite aspects of an SEO campaign is the long-term aspect of success. A successful SEO campaign positions you ahead of your competition on Google and those results will remain if Firestarter, or any other SEO providers, were to ever close their doors. In contrast, the other forms of lead gen don’t have the same kind of longevity. Cold calling only gets you as far as you want it to and as soon as you stop calling folks, that source is removed. It is the same thing with Pay-Per-Click advertising, while this is a much more forecastable marketing tactic. As soon as you stop running ads, that source of traffic dries up. While we do see some positive or negative keyword movement even once a campaign has hit its stride, there won’t be huge drops in rankings upon retracting SEO efforts. Over time you will leave a hole in the market and companies will be sure to scarf it up, but a month or two between providers won’t spell doom for your domain.
CONTINUED IMPROVEMENT
While we typically do not change up our keyword targeting very often, there is always new data to audit and analyze. This process ensures that you are not only ranking on page 1, but doing it well. Updating old content that may have performed well in the past, broken link building, and interlinking are all continuing tactics your SEO provider should be executing consistently. Tools like Google Search Console and tracking software can provide valuable insight into actions to take as you continue to build out your online presence.
We hope this has been informational for you and has established some relation to long-term ROI in an SEO strategy. If you would like to learn more about the ways we can improve your rankings and web visibility, contact us today!
