The other day I was speaking with the director of marketing for large technology company about SEO. We were having a great conversion about how WebMetro has implemented SEO campaigns for small and large clients, in many different markets. I shared with him the multiple types of problems we've overcome and the subsequent successes our clients have enjoyed. He was very impressed and I thought we had a new agency client until he explained his SEO goals and business situation. At that point, this director of marketing was flabbergasted when I stated an SEO campaign was not a good idea for his company.
In this situation there were several compelling reasons why an SEO campaign was not best for this large technology company. After another 20 minute explanation, the director of marketing understood that an SEO campaign was not best for his company at this stage. At the conclusion of my call, he personally thanked me for not trying to sell him into a service solution that was not appropriate for his company's business. He further stated that he appreciated my candor and professionalism to help his company understand and appreciate that an SEO campaign was not suitable in certain search engine marketing situations.
It turns out that there many reasons why a business should implement an SEO campaign. However, there are an equal number of practical reasons why an SEO campaign is not suitable for every business. With over 10 years of online marketing agency experience, here are the top 5 most common reasons why a business should not implement an SEO campaign:
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No search engine marketing experience
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ROI expectations Need results yesterday
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The website is not SEO ready
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Insufficient resources and support
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Competitive advantages and intensity
No Search Engine Marketing Experience
If your business has never implemented a search engine marketing campaign, it is usually best to start with a pay per click advertising campaign instead of SEO. Why? With PPC, many campaigns will generate revenue almost immediately. In 90 to 120 days, many PPC campaigns are starting to see their targeted CPA or CPL in view. With PPC, clients don't often have to revise their website, but typically a few landing pages. With PPC, you can quickly isolate which keywords not only produce traffic but also revenue. For these types of reasons, it is usually best to start your search engine marketing efforts with a pay per click campaign.
ROI Expectations
Many companies have read case studies documenting that SEO campaigns often provide a very high ROI. It is not uncommon that a $2,500 monthly investment in an SEO campaign yields $1M to $10M in corresponding revenue for a small business. However, what the case study fails to mention is that ROI evaluated over a long period of time such as 12-24 months. For most companies, an SEO campaign is a long term investment. SEO often involves re-programming of the site, content and link development. All of these tasks take time to implement but even more time before the site is rewarded by the search engines for your efforts. If your site is not ranked today and your business needs results yesterday, SEO is not likely a suitable campaign.
The Website is not SEO-ready
An SEO-ready website refers to a website that is ready to start an SEO campaign without significant or burdensome redevelopment. For example, the website will not require implementing a URL rewrite, adding support for Titles, Descriptions or Headings. The site will not require replacing the content management system, implementing analytics, etc. Unfortunately for some clients we often spend 3, 4 or 5 months frankly fixing problems and getting the site SEO-ready. Then half-way through the year the client looks back and does not see significant improvements in the rankings. This is because we had not really implemented SEO, but instead fixed a broken website. This is why an SEO Audit should be implemented before investing in a long term SEO campaign.
Insufficient Resources and Support
Although a business really should implement an SEO campaign, perhaps they have insufficient resources to succeed. What are resources? Resources include but are not limited to content, staffing, senior level support, and of course budget. For example, content. Search engines primarily rank sites based on relevancy. Relevancy is largely determined based on content. If your site does not have enough content, in particular text content compared to your peers, it will be much more difficult to become well ranked. Likewise, budget is an important consideration. If your business has revenues of $5M, but cannot afford to invest about $30,000 (which is less than 1 percent) in promoting the website, then chances are the campaign will not likely be successful.
Competitive Advantages and Intensity
Finally, your business should look at the intensity of the online competition. If on a scale of 1-10, where 10 is the maximum intensity, the evaluation yields that your market is a 12, then perhaps an SEO campaign is not suitable, at least focusing on those keywords. For example, if want to become well ranked for the keyword "merchant accounts" and your business has a 12-page website with 5 inbound links, SEO on this keyword is not practical - at least in the short term. A key to success with SEO is identifying opportunities and choosing battles.
An important role of an Internet marketing agency is providing professional advice and counsel. Businesses should seek out firms that are not trying to sell a certain product or service, but instead develop a long term strategic relationship that is considers suitability at every stage.