If you’ve ever wondered why companies use SEO here are a few things you should know:
- Fixed Costs - The cost of implementing an SEO program is relatively fixed and is totally unrelated to the volume of unique visits to a website. Effectively, the cost per click or per visit resulting directly from the SEO campaign reduces over time. Following the initial website optimisation costs it is comparitively less to continue an SEO program and further cement your first page positions. How successful an SEO campaign is will depend on two factors, firstly the ability and application of your SEO consultant & whether you have made the effort and followed the instructions they have provided. Conversely, pay per click (PPC) is essentially a variable cost and has to be used effectively whilst keeping track of your Return on Investment (ROI).
- Brand Visibility - When you consider how tough it is to rank highly for competitive terms, for example ‘car insurance’, then it is no surprise to learn how expensive pay per click marketing is in regard to generating site visits. It is therefore extremely difficult to gain brand awareness online without utilising SEO techniques. Staying with this example you can imagine how desperate the big insurance players are to have a first page presence on Google thus driving up the cost of using Adwords. The bottom line is smaller companies miss out, by being outpriced in the stakes to generate leads online. SEO redresses the balance however, and a competent SEO Company can get you competing in this market place within your budget restraints.
- Target Marketing – Online search is demand driven, so anybody referred to your site via a search engine is expecting your web page to match their search query. If it does, and your content influences them, they may well become your next customer. Marketing to people who are physically typing in a request for your products or services, and providing a landing page that solves these needs is the most effective marketing weapon your business can posess and one you should be taking full advantage of.
- Credibility - Consumers expect big brand businesses to be prominently positioned in Google. Websites with high ranking natural positions will always hold more credibility than those using pay per click advertising purely because people correctly assume that Google will always show quality content naturally.
- Consistency - Well positioned websites that are fully optimised consistently generate fresh traffic from relevant search terms, driving continual interest and further enquiries.
- Increased Sales & Enquiries - Along with increased traffic, a fully optimised website will also enjoy an increase in sales revenue because more people will be visiting the site and more people will be buying products.
- Affordability - There are many ways in which you can promote your website online. SEO aside, the next most popular website promotion method is PPC which in basic terms translates as paid advertisements. As the term suggests a business would pay the search engine an agreed fee whenever this advertising link is clicked on. Pay Per Click can work alongside search engine optimisation to boost results further and can still be a very powerful marketing tool if used correctly. The difference between the two is that SEO gains you natural rankings within the search engines (over time) whereas PPC gives you instant results by advertising your products or services at the top and right hand side of the search results page.
Meanwhile, if you’ve ever wondered what the downside of SEO is I would have to say “there isn’t one, unless you hire the wrong SEO company or SEO consultant that is!”









