What it’s Not!

Before we can answer what SEO is, we should first establish what SEO is not.  SEO is not a quick fix to improving sales.  Businesses looking for “more sales” or “more phone calls” through organic optimization generally don’t understand that SEO is a long-term investment that does not usually offer the same short term financial wins you get with pay per click (specifically Google AdWords). Organic optimization is a long-term investment that requires a thorough strategy, and a realistic set of goals and expectations.  It also requires a lot of patience.  Yes, there are times when SEO can yield unusually fast results, however such is not the norm. If your goal is to generate more sales or phone calls immediately, then consider a PPC campaign instead.   However if your goal is to increase your visibility in the search engine results page and compete in the digital space over time, then SEO is a great investment.

What it Is!

As I just mentioned, SEO is in fact an investment.  Like all investments there is risk in doing SEO.  However I would venture to say that as long as you stick to Google’s best practices, the risk is significantly lowered. According to Comscore, Google holds about 67.5% of the search market share, while Bing and Yahoo combine to hold 18.7% with other search engines coming in at 3.8%. These numbers naturally support why most of us optimize primarily to Google’s algorithm.  In doing so, we essentially are at the mercy of the algorithm and try our best to nail down as many of the over 200 rank factors that Google looks at to determine ranks. Most of the time if you have quality content to contribute to seeking consumers, Google likes you already, but simply wants you to organize that content in the best possible way to create a very positive user experience.  This of course can take time especially if you have not done any optimization in the past. This is where a company like Insider-Search can help analyze your site, and guide you through the next steps no matter what level of SEO your site has had.

What it Can Do

If you’re a business that is looking to gain more visibility online but you aren’t sure about the value good SEO can bring, consider this.  93% of online experiences begin with a search engine [Search Engine Journal]. That number is insanely high and if you are able to utilize Google Analytics, you will be able to look at things like the multi-channel funnel and see where part of organic search is contributing currently, and strategize to find new ways to boost those conversions. The ultimate goal here is to compete and rank well for what your target base is searching for.  SEO can bring you more traffic and very qualified leads if you’re willing to see the bigger picture, give the strategy time to materialize, and establish achievable goals for the future to capture some of that 93%, then SEO can do a whole lot of good for your business.