There’s no doubt that it can be challenging to master search engine optimization (SEO), especially when you’re busy running your own business.
SEO’s main purpose is to help increase a website’s visibility and ranking on search engines like Google. However, some businesses believe SEO is too complex for them.
Although it may seem like SEO only works for large businesses, this is not the case. SEO can work for anyone, no matter how big or small their enterprise is.
SEO is the best source of high-quality sales leads for 60% of marketers, with search engines driving 300% more traffic to websites than social media.
Still not convinced? There are some objections people might have to SEO. Here’s how to overcome them:
1. “It Takes Too Long To See Any Results”
Any marketing guru will tell you that SEO is not a scheme that will guarantee you overnight success. Typically, it takes around 8 to 12 months to start seeing results.
So why bother with it at all? Much like running a marathon, SEO is a process that takes time, planning, and patience. You will not be effective unless you prepare yourself.
It’s critical to have a detailed, long-term strategy in place for your success with any project. If you want your business to be ranked highly by search engines such as Google, you need to put in the required effort and continue to meet their standards.
2. “It’s Too Complicated”
There are many factors that must be considered when making a plan. This doesn’t mean that you should stop caring about SEO. It’s not easy, or else everyone would be doing it.
While certain aspects of SEO can be quite technical, the fundamental elements consist of the following:
- Writing compelling, original content on a frequent basis
- Compiling specific keywords for your business
- Maintaining an active social media presence
- Having incoming links (or ‘backlinks’) to your website
There are many free guides on the internet that can help you better understand SEO. These guides are usually kept up-to-date to ensure accuracy.
3. “I’ll Have To Change My Entire Website”
If you have never done an SEO campaign or it has been a while since you have done one, then you will most likely need to modify your current website content to match current trends.
Although this activity may take up a lot of time, it will ultimately be beneficial for your company in the long run- which is the goal of SEO.
Your website’s position will improve in the future, and you’ll be able to make changes to your online presence as needed.
4. “It Keeps Changing”
This is true, search engines are always changing their algorithms to stay ahead of the technology. This does not mean that all your hard work was for nothing.
Core changes to Google’s algorithm are made so that those who use transparent and honest methods of SEO will be more successful than those who use misleading and unfair techniques. If the best SEO practices never changed, it would be easy to take advantage of them, which would make the whole practice useless.
To stay ahead of the competition, it is important to stay up-to-date with the latest trends. If you don’t know where to begin, there are great websites that can show you the latest SEO news and resources. These include Search Engine Land, Ahrefs, and the Moz Blog.
5. “We’re Already Rank Top Of Google When You Search For Our Name”
Though this may be accurate, it only pertains to customers that are already knowledgeable about your company. If you provide a niche service, it is beneficial to invest in SEO to make your business more visible to potential customers.
This is especially useful for ranking for specific terms and phrases that your customers are searching for online.
If you are selling homemade jam, you could rank for keywords related to what kind of jam it is, such as if it is natural, organic, or low sugar. For more information on how 123 Reg can help you find the most suitable keywords for your website, see below.
If you don’t take advantage of the opportunities available with SEO, your competitors could get ahead of you.
6. “It’s Too Expensive”
To achieve optimal results, you should set aside money for your SEO campaigns.
SEO can be less expensive than other ways to advertise online, such as pay-per-click campaigns.
If you cancel your budget for a PPC campaign, your ranking will immediately be affected, but if you cancel your budget for search engine crawling, your ranking won’t be affected.
The 123 Reg Digital Marketing Suite is an affordable tool that can help improve your Google ranking. The Search Engine Optimiser tool, which is included in the suite, costs £15 per month.
When you turn it on, our product will make a list of words that are connected to your business, using the ideas you gave us to start with. You can track and monitor the performance of your keywords in real-time, and adapt your strategy accordingly.
You’ll get regular assignments on how to improve your brand’s online presence, with clear, step-by-step videos and instructions explaining each process. This makes it an extremely valuable resource for anyone who wants to start their own digital business.
7. “[Other channel] Drives More Traffic/Conversions, So It’s Better.”
Let’s dive in. The most common objection I hear is that another channel, like PPC or social media, drives more traffic or conversions, so it’s better than SEO. I want to respond a few different ways depending.
Success Follows Investment
I would advise anyone not to forget that their investment will pay off in success.
If you’re investing a lot in PPC or social media and not doing much with organic methods, you’re likely not going to be successful.
So just keep that in mind. It’s not inherently successful or not. This statement means that the outcome of your work reflects how much effort you have put into it.
Every Channel Serves a Different Purpose
I would say that every channel has a different purpose. While social media can be a great way to increase engagement, it is not usually the most effective means of driving conversions.
It’s for more top of the funnel. It’s for more audience development. SEO is often used to improve the visibility of a website at the top and middle of the sales funnel. It can convert, but not always.
So just keep that in mind. Every channel serves a different purpose.
Assists vs last click only
One issue that often comes up in discussions about attribution is whether to give more weight to the last click before a conversion or to also consider other clicks that assisted in the conversion.
Remember that even if SEO and organic search don’t directly lead to a conversion, they often help with the overall process. View your assisted conversions to see how SEO is helping.
8. “SEO Is Dead Because The SERPs Are Full Of Ads.”
People research before buying
This means that people are taking their time to research and compare products before making their final purchase decision.
Many times people want to learn more. They’re looking to compare. Think about your buyer’s complete journey, from start to finish, and focus on that.
Don’t just focus on the bottom of the funnel when it comes to SEO.
Better together
Also, they’re just better together. PPC and SEO are most effective when they are both shown on the same search results page for a single company.
The CTR (click-through rate) is higher for both Seer and the current page when they are together on the page. So just keep that in mind.
9. “Organic Drives Traffic, Just Not The Right Kind.”
Branded vs non-branded
Organic traffic could mean that a website is being driven by branded traffic, but it is usually just from one source.
The people who are finding us are the ones who already know about us. They are searching for our business name online. That could be true. The reason you’re not seeing the value in SEO is because you’re not investing in it, not because it’s not valuable.
I believe that this claim is false and can be easily disproven. Sometimes people end up ranking for terms that they didn’t realize they would rank for.
Go to Google Search Console and look at the queries that are not related to a specific brand. See what is causing these queries to generate impressions and clicks on the website.
10. “You Can’t Measure The ROI.”
Predicting ROI
1. They want to be able to predict the return on investment (ROI) before investing any time or resources.
They are asking for guarantees that if they invest in this, they will get a specific return. There are a lot of problems with this, but there are some ways to get an idea of what they can expect.
If you want to improve your click-through rate, use data from your own website to build a curve that shows the click-through rate for different rank positions. This will help you understand what clicking through your different ranks looks like and where you might need to make some changes.
If you know the traffic volume of a keyword or phrase, and you improve your ranking position, you can estimate the traffic you will get. So there are ways to estimate and get close.
You’re likely to get more traffic than you expect when you improve your website because you’ll start ranking for more long-tail keywords, which are searched for more often.
This means that you will likely underestimate the results of your actions. But that’s one way you can predict ROI.
Measuring ROI
Measuring ROI is what many people want to do.
They want to show that what they’re doing will lead to more money. One way to calculate how much each customer is worth to your business is to multiply their lifetime value by your close rate. This will give you a goal value to strive for.
If you are an e-commerce site, there’s a little bit different set up process, but you still need to put in place If you turn on your conversions and set up your goals in Google Analytics, you can track your e-commerce site’s progress.
The methodology is similar, but the tracking is different. If you establish goals and remain motivated, you can achieve success.
This means that when people convert on your site, the channel that brought them there also gets credit for the estimated dollar value of the conversion.
So you can go to your source/medium report and see Google organic and see how many conversions it’s producing and how much value.
If you go to your assisted conversions report, the same thing applies. There is a lot of value in that. It’s not just a hobby.” I think it’s really beneficial to show people that a hobby can generate revenue.
The objections I hear most commonly are about how my SEO practices are bringing organic search traffic and generating real value in terms of dollars and cents.
What other sayings do you commonly hear? So pop those in the comments. What objections do you hear a lot? How do you respond to them?
Share that with us. We’d all love to know. We can make SEO more effective and understandable. So that’s it for this week’s Whiteboard Friday.
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