SEO exists to boost brand awareness and customer acquisition. Today, SEO is a wide-scope discipline and a collaboration of marketers, writers, coders, and developers. This incorporation of skills and knowledge is what enables SEO to help increase revenue and be effective for a wide range of audiences.
Depending on the strength and efficiency of your marketing packages, SEO can drive up to 50% of your eCommerce consumers. The question is — how can you persuade your company to understand the importance of SEO and make it a priority?
We’ll discuss it in this article, including some tips on how to convince them that investing in SEO services is worth it.
How can SEO marketing contribute to growth?
New Customers
Let’s face it, having a business website is great, especially if it’s well-structured and informative. However, if your customers don’t find your site, it’s not going to do its job — no matter how good it looks.
Every day, over 3.5 billion searches are made on Google. Hundreds or even thousands of those searches belong to your customers. When people are in two minds about buying a product or service, most of them will do their research online. When done right, SEO marketing will get you to the top positions on Google, giving you exposure over your competitors. You’ll attract the right kind of traffic to your site and bring prospects who will likely buy your product or service.
So why is your company not fully utilising SEO yet? Take a look at some of the things you can do to strengthen your company’s trust in this approach.
Builds Trust and Credibility
There’s a strong belief amongst online users that a credible business can always be found on the first page of Google’s search results. If you’re among the top three positions, prospects instantly see that you can be trusted. This will lead to more targeted visitors that eventually convert.
With SEO marketing, you can get to the first page of Google and establish your brand’s authority in the industry. You’ll build credibility in the eyes of prospects and they’ll trust you over your competitors.
Long-lasting Results
One of the biggest challenges with traditional marketing methods is that they are time-bound and not to mention expensive. Running print ads or getting a 30-second ad spot on a popular radio channel may be effective, but only for a short period of time. Plus, if you don’t generate your desired ROI within the time frame, you lose your precious advertising dollars.
On the other hand, if you invest in SEO services, you leverage the evergreen nature of the Internet and you can stay on the forefront for as long as you optimize your content. SEO marketing may not bring you instant results like offline ads, but it will give you long-lasting results and an edge over your competitors over a long period of time.
How to introduce SEO services to your organisation?
Getting buy-in for SEO services from members of your company’s executive team can be difficult. There’s a lot of skepticism that you’ll need to overcome in order to convince the higher-ups to invest in SEO marketing. In fact, according to a survey conducted on small businesses, over half (54%) don’t have the budget for SEO, and 38% assume that they’ll see major results with only $100 a month.
With that in mind, how do you convince the bosses in your company to invest in SEO if they don’t see the value of the strategy? Here are some ways you can gain the support of your superiors:
Frame SEO marketing as an investment
There’s a good chance your boss thinks SEO is a strategy that just naturally happens, often for free. So something you’ll have to do is convince your bosses that SEO marketing is an investment that will pay dividends in the future. However, it also requires these factors:
- Time – Reaping the rewards of SEO can take weeks, if not months. Only 5.7% of web content gets into the top positions within a year of being published. If your strategy is particularly good, it’ll take an average of 2-4 months.
- Effort – SEO requires a certain amount of sweat equity. Keyword research, content creation, link building, and other optimisation tactics all need a level of skill and expertise.
- Money – Along with time and effort, SEO requires a tangible investment. However, costs aren’t as high as traditional advertising. You can score high-quality SEO services for as low as $500 a month.
Demystify SEO
Making sure that everyone has general knowledge and understanding of SEO marketing is an important baseline to initiate. If everyone’s not on the same page at the start, it will be hard to get everyone on the same page by the end.
First things first, dispel common myths. Some typical negative ideas about SEO you’ll need to address include:
- SEO is unnecessary to gain organic traffic – SEO is all about optimising a page to make sure it appears to your target audience. You can’t expect to create a website, publish a few articles, and watch the traffic come rolling in without a solid SEO strategy.
- SEO is pointless because Google’s algorithm changes constantly – If you use legitimate SEO methods to optimise your site, changes to Google’s ranking algorithms won’t have a huge negative impact on your site.
- SEO is complicated – Don’t throw around industry jargon and technical terms right off the bat. Your boss might shut down and disengage from the discussion. Instead, talk about the benefits of SEO and how it can help your business achieve its goals.
Bring Up Your Competitors
Once you’ve established the value of SEO marketing, make sure to highlight that even if your boss doesn’t want to invest in the marketing strategy, your competitors certainly do. So all the benefits that you just discussed are going to be reaped by the competition.
Numerous studies on search behaviour have estimated that over 75% of searchers don’t make it past Google’s first page. By refusing to invest in SEO services, all those potential customers (people who are already looking for your products and services) will just head straight to your competition.
By stating that you’ll lose out on potential business to competitors, your boss might just be sold on the dollar venue of SEO marketing.
Conclusion: SEO Marketing is a worthy investment
To pitch SEO to your company’s marketing team, objective data is your most effective approach. Being the only concrete aspect of marketing, it can grab their attention and lead you directly to the bottom line.
If your company has not put SEO at the frontline of their marketing strategy by now, it is likely that they haven’t been willing to take this approach for quite some time. You can’t change this mindset by sales-talking them with opinions or educated guesses.
Illustrate solid and verifiable data that reveal how SEO companies have successfully increased brand awareness and attracted customers throughout the landscape.
If you reinforce this with patience and respect, you will eventually help your company understand, trust, and prioritise SEO. Contact SEO Services today for professional assistance and reach your online goal.