identical businesses. Same financials. Same competition. Same ads. Same offerings. A few posts later, one is on page 4 of Google, and the other is on page 1. The first is wondering what is wrong, the other is getting customers. The one on page 1 is growing each month.
What differentiates them?
Not luck. Not bigger teams. Not more resources. It's something less apparent, and something that ultimately determines the outcome of a game, a competition, and a business. It's something that can either make or break a company, and that is something that companies spend millions of dollars for, something that determines who ranks where, and who is seen and who is not. It's SEO.
"Same marketing, different results" is something that numerous companies face. Numerous companies work hard to do everything that is required, and everything that is recommended, and still do not achieve any results. Many companies work hard to develop and maintain their websites and still do not have customers. Many companies think they are doing the right things, and still do not get any results.
What doesn't work? What is recommended? Why is thousands of dollars spent on what many consider to be "voodoo"? Many businesses want these answers. SEO is something that many businesses struggle to understand, however it is essential to understand and implement for a business to survive.
Many businesses and organizations operate the way a tortoise moves through the desert. They are slow and cautious. They do not fully understand and implement marketing and advertising strategies. Many struggle to keep up with and surpass their competitors.
Here’s what it actually means to the business on a day-to-day basis
- Near invisibility: The business’s website is barely visible to prospective customers and thus, the business is unable to reach a large section of its target audience.
- Limiting leads: Absence of a consistent flow of leads results in the business being compelled to prospect for new business or to purchase new business through leads.
- Skyrocketing costs: Given the absence of organic traffic to the business’s website, the business is required to expend resources to purchase traffic, and costs associated to such purchases increase over time.
- Stagnation: Businesses that early on employed strategies to improve their positions in search results maintain their positions, and benefit from new customers while the business in question starts from scratch each month in terms of customer base.
Being invisible does not mean the business is not in operation. The reasons outlined above are more than enough to explain the state of the business. While having a business website, or employing a pay-per-click advertising campaign or producing/posting online content will not, on their own, improve the business’s position in search results, implementing the right strategies to improve the business will allow the business owner to focus on other activities.
The Hard Truth About Many ‘SEO Strategies’
The reality is that many businesses think they have an SEO strategy, and it still doesn’t help them. It’s usually not the case that SEO doesn’t work; the strategy is completely lacking. A true strategy encompasses many actionable items, and gives direction. Here’s what typically goes wrong:
- No keyword research
Content is often written without any regard to what the target audience is searching. As a result, the best, most well-written content gets buried at the back of the search engine results page.
- Done once and for all
There’s usually a month-long push to “do SEO”, and when there’s no noticeable improvement, it gets abandoned. The beauty of SEO is that it’s a long game. Improvements are usually seen a few months or more down the line.
- Neglected altogether
structural issues, broken links, slow page load times, and poor mobile optimization can completely sabotage the best content. Further, if there are issues with a site’s structure and organization, Google can’t index everything, and content is useless.
- Strategic opportunities are easily missed.
Without accurate data on customer views, where the visits and sales come from, and what strategies are producing the best results, marketing teams are left guessing as to which of their efforts are producing the best results. This often leads companies to double down on ineffective campaigns.
- Limited analysis leads to stale strategies.
Without ongoing data and research to adapt to market conditions and consumer behavior, businesses are destined to play defense with their competitors for market share.
- Short-term strategies often lead to long-term losses.
Without a comprehensive strategy for the marketing mix, businesses often become reliant on one core strategy to gain competitive edge, rapidly increasing the risk for failure should that one core strategy become unprofitable.
- For many, the race starts and ends with Adwords.
Many businesses hire third-party optimization services and place all of their marketing efforts into Pay-per-click advertising.
- There is no tracking, so nobody knows what's actually working.
The reliance on competition for strategies leads to market saturation and stagnation for many businesses.
Notice the outcomes of an effective SEO strategy
- Your website is listing for search terms that are relevant and valuable to your business.
- Increased volume of website visitors, and therefore potential customers.
- Your SEO efforts yield results for your business for months and years to come.
- The command and understanding of SEO strategies give businesses and individuals a competitive edge.
The Pros and Cons of SEO
Every marketing strategy comes with benefits and drawbacks. Knowing the limitations of a given strategy helps differentiate between along-term sustainable strategy, and one that is unlikely to yield results.
Benefits of SEO Challenges of SEO
Continuous flow of traffic that's more consistent and long-lasting
Earning and establishing trust and authority over time
Benefitting from a sustained decrease in customer acquisition cost over time
Leading to a better overall user experience of the site
Requires investing time, effort and resources over a prolonged duration
Leading to long-lasting effects that can be realized repeatedly
Requiring a strategic combination of various skills over a prolonged duration
win the game of SEO
Requiring a combination of an effective strategy, patience and understanding of the challenges and trade-offs associated with it over a prolonged period of time
The Fix: Building an Effective SEO Strategy
The following is a framework for turning a disconnected set of SEO tactics into a cohesive and effective strategy. Each element builds on the last and no element is squeezed in before its proper place in the strategy.
Element 1: Research
Prior to creating any content, determine the specific keywords and phrases that your ideal customers are using in their searches. In addition to the main keyword, identify 3 to 5 related keywords and phrases. Each piece of content should be created to help potential customers who are searching for information related to your product or service.
Element 2: The Foundation
If the foundation of your content is not set correctly, the finishing touches will not help. The foundation of a website includes page load speed and flexibility to be viewed on different types of devices (i.e. mobile), a logical and descriptive file structure, page and website meta descriptions, and other behind the scene elements of a website.
Element 3: First Out, Last Out
Publishing a single piece of content (i.e. a blog post) each week is more helpful than posting 10 pieces of content and then taking no further action.
Element 4: Reevaluate and Reposition
Continuously evaluating your content and making changes based on your findings helps improve your content and strengthens your position for related searches.
Element 5: Be Patient
Compound interest is of great help to the financial planning of an individual. Likewise, in the world of SEO, significant results are seen many months after the initial work is performed. Treat the first two months of work as a setup and the remaining months as the peak.
Power Of Practical Learning
The AI Digital Marketing Institute closes the theory/practice gap with its unique and modern take on the digital marketing training institute. Its practical, industry-aligned approach will help you become competent in the fields of SEO, Content, Paid Ads, and Marketing Analytics.
It's not just about learning how to optimize a website for search engines. It's about building strategies, being persistent and relentless in implementing and fine-tuning the strategies. The results will speak for themselves.
The essence of SEO strategy is Learn, Build, and Grow.
The Institute is packed with seasoned industry professionals and entrepreneurs who will mentor you and guide you on your journey to building a successful career.
Frequently Asked Questions
What's with my SEO strategy that isn't working?
It could be any or a combination of the following: inadequate or no keyword research, on-page optimization oversights, irregular or infrequent blog/webpage publication. The reality is that for a website to rank on the first page of Google, a lot of things need to be aligned and worked on. These include, but are not limited to: quality and quantity of content, links, images, videos, other multimedia files, among several other off-page SEO considerations.
Is it better to invest in SEO or pay for advertisements?
It depends on what you want to achieve and your goals. Ads are an immediate, but limited, way of driving traffic to a website. On the other hand, a good SEO strategy takes a while to show results, but the compounding effect is benefits that are realized in the long-term.
How long before I start reaping the benefits of my SEO strategy?
While there are several cases studies and resources that suggest that SEO takes up to a year to show meaningful results, our experience and that of a large body of the local industry is that good strategies, consistently and persistently implemented, start producing measurable results within the 6-month mark.
Can a novice learn SEO strategies?
Yes. A good training program, complemented by supervised practical sessions, can help an individual learn the necessary SEO strategies in a short period of time. The 'live project' model helps individuals learn rapidly and has the added advantage of being taken online.
What is the largest factor in the failure of implementation of SEO strategies?
Giving up. Most unsuccessful attempts at implementing an SEO strategy failed because the process was stopped before it could be proved right or wrong.
Want to Learn the SEO Strategies that Lead to Success?
We provide our students, through our 'Digital Marketing Institute' in Jayanagar, Bangalore, opportunity to work on live projects, thus, enabling them to learn the latest strategies in the field of online marketing and helping them to implement them to climb the search engine results page.