The number of online businesses investing in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has been increasing gradually over the past decade. This is despite there being alternative traffic generation channels like social media and paid search.
It’s obvious that your online competitors are also investing in search optimization. So why should you invest time and money in SEO when you’d otherwise use SEM and SMM as your primary traffic generation channels? A study conducted by Search Engine Journal found that search traffic to websites beats social media traffic by 300%.
This makes search your best bet at driving highly targeted traffic to your website. Another study conducted by the same firm reported that 93% of internet users will use their favorite search engine as the primary search tool. Once search results for a given keyword are displayed, 70% of users will click on organic search results.
The study also found that up to 75% of users will never click beyond the first page of search results. What this means that Search Optimization still has a huge role to play on how websites attract new visitors. Also, it shows how important it is to get on the first page of search results. Given that less than 30% of search engine users click on paid ads, SEO gives you the best chance to get a huge share of targeted buying traffic. So, if you haven’t incorporated Search Engine Optimization in your digital marketing efforts, is it too late to get started?
SEO beyond 2018 A highly influential study conducted by Borrell Associates in 2016 paints a bright future for the SEO industry. According to the research, online businesses are expected to spend about $72 billion on Search optimization in 2018 alone. This figure is expected to rise to over $79 billion in 2020. Given that Borrell Associates has been collecting data on annual SEO spend since 2008, these stats are enough to make even hardcore anti-SEO evangelists rethink their stand. A similar study was conducted by MarketDive in 2016. The study sought to see if marketers find Search Engine Optimization effective. The results showed that 82% of those interviewed agree that SEO effectiveness is on the rise. But how much businesses are willing to spend on Search Engine Optimization by itself isn’t enough to justify your need to spend more on SEO. Here are two additional statistics that make Search Optimization a worthwhile investment in 2018 and beyond. – Google Search Quality Senior Strategist Andrey Lipattsev reported in 2016 that the two most important Google ranking signals are high-quality content and backlinks. – A study conduced by Backlinko’s Brian Dean showed that updating old posts with fresh content and images can increase organic traffic by as much as 111%.
These statistics show that SEO will play a significant role in future online marketing. However, it doesn’t necessarily mean that anyone doing “SEO” will get the desired results. The Search industry is constantly evolving. Today’s best practices might be deemed obsolete by a Google update. A high ranking website can significantly drop position soon after an algorithm update as was evident when Google launched the Panda, Penguin, Hummingbird and other updates. But what can you do to ensure your website isn’t negatively affected by algorithm updates that have recently become increasingly common?
Understand SEO is constantly evolving – continuous learning and testing are necessary In the early SEO years, webmasters and website owners usually had to follow a handful of ‘rules’ to get their sites to rank high in organic search results. Today, the role of the Search Engine Optimization expert is more complex than this. This complexity is due to some factors:
1. Increased competition for ranking in first page Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS) The previous section emphasized the importance of Search Optimization. With new businesses investing more into SEO campaigns, competition for the top spot is tight. The great thing, however, is that only businesses that know what they’re doing manage to rank high in SERPs.
2. The constant release of search engine algorithm updates Over recent years; Google has released several updates that have had significant effects on organic search ranking. One of the SEO’s tasks is keeping track of new updates and ensuring their website adheres to the update requirements.
3. The emergence of new marketing practices like Social Media and content marketing which make SEO even more effective Leveraging search and social media can increase CTR on brand-driven links according to a report published by GroupM and comScore in 2011.
The ever-changing nature of the SEO industry, therefore, demands that you remain up to date with developments in several industries. This is no simple task even for a small team. Many businesses, therefore, opt to hire external SEO agencies or specialists to handle their campaigns. But what options do you have when hiring an external Search Optimization specialist?
Three SEO hiring options – in-house SEO department, freelancers or, agencies Hiring the right SEO expert can be overwhelming and possibly risky. Due to the increase in demand for Search Optimization professionals, the industry has experienced an influx of so-called SEOs who know nothing about the industry. A job ad seeking a search engine optimization specialist can receive hundreds of applications. In many cases, only a handful of the applicants understand what SEO is all about. Hiring an inexperienced team or individual could mean months of wasted effort and money. Bu before hiring a team or individual to drive your search optimization campaigns, you’ll need to understand the three options available plus their pros and cons.
In-house SEO department The main advantage of creating an in-house search engine optimization department is that they’ll solely focus on your online business. More time dedicated to your website means it will be regularly updated and therefore stand a chance of retaining high ranking. However, in-house teams will require a huge financial investment on your part. In many cases, you’ll need to hire more than three professionals to build your team. So if you don’t have the capital outlay to hire a team, this option might not be best.
Freelance SEOs Freelancers offer a less expensive alternative to creating your own team. Since many work as solo consultants, the probability that they’ll handle a few projects at any given time is high. This means that a freelancer can dedicate a lot of their time towards improving your site rankings. However, getting tangible results might take some time. A freelancer is only able to handle a single optimization task at a time. For example, they might schedule a week for content development only, then dedicate another week to link building. As such, achieving your ROI can take longer than anticipated. Another problem with hiring freelance SEOs is that many will function as coaches. That is, their main task will be performing and audit and creating a campaign plan for you. The task of implementing this plan is left to you.
SEO agencies Agencies address the problems encountered when creating an in-house team or hiring a freelancer. Agencies comprise teams of skilled experts. Each team member has their area of expertise such as content creation, link building, project management and marketing among others. Having such a team of experts working on your SEO campaign comes with several advantages: – No having to worry about employee benefits as is the case with in-house teams – All team members work as a cohesive unit meaning your campaign runs faster and therefore delivering ROI faster – Team members are usually up to date with recent industry trends, you don’t have to worry about your site being penalized for bad SEO practices – You’re assured that the whole SEO campaign will be run from the beginning to completion stage.
There are thousands of agencies to choose from. The return on investment you get from your campaign will largely depend on the agency you choose. Here’s a short four-step process to follow when choosing an agency (or freelancer): 1. Start with the interview. The purpose is to get to know more about the agency and whether they’ve conducted a similar campaign before. At this point, it’s important to check whether they’re genuinely interested in helping your business rank better (or after a quick buck). 2. Check and confirm their references. This is a good way to find out whether the agency can run a successful campaign as they claim. 3. Request for a site audit. This lays the foundation for the SEO campaign plan. The audit report will detail problems with your site and the different SEO practices to rectify them. The findings will also determine the costs you’ll incur to run the campaign. 4. Hire the agency and start the campaign
After hiring an SEO agency, what should you expect? The main job of an agency is to work both as a consultant and implementer. The consulting part involves going through your website and preparing an audit report detailing where your site presently is and where the Search Optimization campaign will take it. The implementer part involves the use of tools, manpower and best practices to help your site achieve its SEO goals.
The four steps involved 1. Site audit The site audit involves going through the entire website as well as looking at external online assets that are linking to the site. There are three metrics analyzed at this stage: Site structure A properly structured site is easy to index and crawl by search engines. Some of the site structure elements that we look at include the sitemap, content, tags, robots.txt files and links among others. Content analysis Google places high quality and relevant content as one of its top ranking factors. When analyzing content, we will consider factors such as length, relevance to keywords and missing content among others. Off-page analysis At this stage, we will look at the different online assets that are linking to your website. Links are great, but they have to be high quality and relevant. Our goal at this point is to come up with ideas how to leverage existing links to get more traffic. We’ll also come up with ways to get high quality and relevant links from other sources.
All data collected at the site audit stage is used to come up with a plan how to execute an effective SEO campaign. This takes us to the next step.
2. Technical SEO This deals with the code and other technologies that make your website run smoothly. The goal is to create a website that’s both user and search engine friendly. Some of the tasks carried out at this stage include: – Cleaning up the site’s UX (User Experience) and UI (User Interface) making the site easier to access and navigate – Creation of an SEO friendly sitemap – Cleanup of underlying code and removing bugs – Optimizing the site for faster page load time
3. On-page optimization At this stage, we will focus on what users see when they visit your website. This includes the page content, links, images, and video. Our goal is to ensure that content is relevant for search terms users type in search engines. We will, therefore, conduct extensive research making the existing content fresh and highly targeted to your site’s audience. From research, we know that longer content gets more links and is likely to rank higher in search results. Our aim is therefore to create content that not only beats competition for higher ranks, but will also attract quality shares and links. This stage also involves creating high converting landing pages. Depending on your goals (e.g., build an email list), our SEO team will create and test several landing pages to get the one that converts best.
4. Off-page optimization This is the stage where our team concentrates on generating high quality and relevant backlinks to your website. Quality backlinks are one of the most important Google ranking factors. That’s why many businesses engage in link building campaigns. To create a high-quality link profile our team will carry out several link building techniques. These include: – Actively asking for links from relevant websites – Using guest blogging as a means to generate quality backlinks – Listing your site to relevant industry directories – Submitting press releases about products or services your business offers among others
Once this is done, we’ll embark on the most crucial process of any SEO campaign – Testing. We understand that there’s no absolute way to define a campaigns success. However, through testing, we can easily find out what’s working and what’s not. This way, we can adopt the best SEO practices that make the best use of your investment and deliver the best ROI.
Conclusion SEO has become one of the most effective ways to drive highly targeted traffic to your website. The industry is constantly changing. However, the demand for professional SEO services has continued to rise over the past decade. If you’ve not implemented Search Optimization as one of your key digital marketing strategies, the chances are that you’re losing out on quality traffic. This, in turn, means lost revenue.