SEO is a great marketing tool for an entrepreneur. It is scalable when you don’t have a big budget — you don’t have to pay for every click as you have to in paid marketing programs. It also has a great brand impact. Users often ascribe leadership status to companies that are top ranked. SEO therefore is a great program that enables entrepreneurs to compete with large companies on equal footing. Imagine being able to do that with television advertising!
Given that it is such an attractive marketing channel, one would assume that all the business owners would jump on it. That is not the case. In fact SEO remains one of the most under-invested marketing channel among small businesses.
The reason for this neglect is manifold. SEO is unknown, uncertain and takes time. It can be somewhat technical and it takes consistent ongoing investment over a period of time to do a SEO program well. The results have not been predictable, which causes companies to invest in SEO in fits and starts that hurts the program even more.
Not enough knowledge
Companies describe SEO like a ‘black box’ — full of uncertainty. Although businesses have a general sense of important things that factor into improved SEO that matter — e.g. link building, content, social media channels/platforms, user experience, and so on — what they are missing is a clear strategy showing how much each matters so they can prioritize for faster results. Since we are not holding our breaths for Google to disclose their secret algorithm, we need a Plan B to bring sanity and clarity to the process to ultimately deliver the ROI you were hoping for.
Entrepreneurs want to achieve results quickly and the SEO as a channel requires a steady build up over time to be successful. Businesses would be more willing to invest the time if there was a degree of certainty about results which unfortunately…