SEO is one of the most complex, but effective ways to improve your visibility, sales and marketing online. An optimised site with perfect UX (User Experience) can really transform your fortunes, but overall a ranking site will get you more organic traffic, something which many simply don’t consider when starting a business or trying to supercharge their growth online. Richard Hill, Director of eComOne, an ecommerce growth agency, asks is SEO right for you?
Ask these questions to yourself and consider your resources, drive and time:
Do you have the time to commit to improving SEO overall?
SEO is an infamously long process. There are quick fixes you can make, but generally, it is an ongoing process that means several strands of your business will intertwine in order to improve it. After all it is a long-term strategy designed to increase your traffic for highly relevant terms.
Finding those terms, whether you can compete and then actioning the ways in which you then make this happen take time.
Patience here is a virtue and taking your time to rewrite the technical aspects as well as detailed content that is relevant is not something you can simply make happen overnight.
Do you have the knowledge or expertise in your business?
SEO is something that many learn over years, not months. The innate knowledge that is required to perform great SEO work is vast and we’ve seen so many attempt to make an impact and fail simply because they don't have the technical or strategic base that the profession has in spades.
It’s not just technical knowhow that’s a resource worth considering, budgets and finance to fuel this strategy is also required. For example, do you have the monthly budget needed to work with an SEO strategy? Fees typically start around £1K a month and not all initial work will have an immediate impact, so a long-term investment is needed.
Putting together a budget can prove to be one of the most challenging aspects of all. Don’t think about it in terms of cash invested, rather time spent dedicated to working on the overall SEO strategy. Planning here is best thought of in terms of value to your audience, which will translate into sales in the long term.
Is it worth ploughing time into blogs every month if your audience prefers long-form content that gives them more added value and advice? Is your time best spent on optimising category pages? Could starting a podcast or aiming to land higher quality backlinks be more advantageous?
You are likely an expert in your field, but are your staff?
Are you the one who is going to enact the SEO work or are your staff? Remember if you started the business and know the most, you will need to oversee a lot of what is needed to make the strategy work. Do you have a wide enough skill set to make a difference?
Can you produce blogs, long-form content and the required collateral? SEO isn’t simply shovelling keywords, it's strategically delivering them through a huge variety of means. Know which you can enact and don’t try and do it all yourself.
Are your business objectives based on growth?
It’s all very well optimising your site, writing amazing content and getting everything gelling if your actual business is not geared for proper growth. While SEO is by no means like switching on a tap, some businesses struggle with demand once the formula that drives SEO to be such a reliable area starts working.
Seriously review your capabilities and capacity to deliver a next level of customer service or fulfilment. Are you able to recruit fast if demand really kicks in?
There’s nothing more frustrating than turning down good business simply because you cannot cope with volume or scale. Be ready, there is no other option. Miss these opportunities and you will fail to connect with customers when they are at high intent, the point at which they are most likely to buy.
