This might come out as a surprise for you, but actually, Search Engine Optimization or SEO isn’t at all a good deal of investment to promote your business. As a digital marketing company it is not easy for us to admit that because we offer SEO services.
For few businesses, SEO is not quite a good choice when compared to other marketing strategies. Nonetheless, SEO could prove to be highly beneficial for most of the businesses by generating greater sales and leads. So the next question would be how you will know if the SEO is actually good investment for your business.
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The demand factor
For SEO to work, you must have enough potential customers who look online for the services or products you offer. If there are less or no audience at all, who would be searching for it, there is no point even if you rank high in the list. There would be no one to look at your site. And thus, there is no need for SEO. Don’t forget SEO is all about engaging online customers – if your customers don’t exist online, what’s the use?
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The competition
When we talk about competition here, we are not pointing at the businesses that are similar to yours and competing with you. When we say competitors, we are particularly talking about the “SEO competition.”
Your competition in the SEO is with all those businesses who are already trying to rank higher in the keywords that match yours. If you have to rank higher in the Google’s search list, you have to outrun all of those businesses to make it to the top. Hence, the second step is to decide the strengths of your competition. If they are potentially unbeatable when it comes to ranking high, it is better you don’t choose SEO. However, if the competition is not too strong, you can always go for it!
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The number factor
You must know that the target of SEO is not to obtain high ranks in Google. The mission is to effectively create sales and leads, so that it turns out to be a prospective investment. This implies numbers play a prominent role. The numbers may differ for various businesses. However, the procedure is quite similar. You must ensure that you can efficiently make more money than you are planning to invest in the SEO.
So, what exactly are the numbers we are talking of?
- The number of searches your target keywords
- Estimated click-through rate
- Estimated conversion rate from visitor to customer
- Total revenue per customer
Here is an example my Mainstreet ROI:
- 2,000 searches per month
- 30% click-through rate (assuming you’re ranked #1 according to this research.)
- 2% conversion rate from visitor to customer
- $500 revenue per customer
“To calculate your estimated revenue from SEO simply multiply all 4 of the numbers above to get $6,000. Next, compare your estimated revenue to how much you need to invest in your SEO to determine if the numbers make sense.”
The three factors to consider will help you determine if you really have to pick up SEO for promoting the business you are running. Think over carefully about all the tiny aspects that matter, and then only come to the conclusion.