Is SEO worth the money?

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If you own a business and have a website, you’re probably thinking about ranking higher on Google because we all know that free traffic to your website is a fantastic revenue source. Whether you are a business owner or marketing manager, you must have heard about the latest and greatest marketing trends online, including search engine optimisation (SEO). 

However, with such a saturated Internet environment these days, one wonders, “Is SEO worth the money?”.

Well, yes, it is! No one can deny the benefit of earning a top position in Google’s listings. 

However, the issue stands, whether or not SEO is worth investing the money. 

There are a few things that we’d like to tell you about SEO that you may not know so you get a better understanding of the benefits SEO brings.

What is SEO?

SEO is an acronym for search engine optimisation. In layman’s terms, it is the method of driving quality traffic to your website that eventually improves and increases your site’s visibility for relevant searches. The whole purpose of SEO is to get organic traffic from search engines to your website. 

SEO involves steps like site structure, content creation and user experience. So if you want to rank your website on top of Google Search Engine for all the keywords, you need to apply SEO to improve your ranking.

Sometimes your website doesn’t rank high in the organic search results despite your genuine efforts. There can be multiple reasons behind that when search engines don’t place you on top. That may be because your competitors’ websites have better content, or you might have used weak keywords or 

maybe: 

  • You are writing low-quality content as compared to your competitors
  • You’re using outdated strategies
  • You are using weak keywords
  • You are building wrong or low-quality links
  • Your website load time is slow
  • You are using the same keywords too many times on one page.

SEO vs SEO Alternative (PPC): which is better?

Often people would ask “What’s SEO?”, “Why do I need SEO?”, “Is SEO the same as Google Ads/PPC?”, “I need instant results from SEO.” …

PPC is a type of advertising where advertisers pay every time someone clicks on their ads. It is one of the advertising methods that Google Ads offer. With Google Ads, your ads are placed on the top of the search results for specific keyword phrases that you chose. 

For example, if you bid on the keyword “plumber Auckland”, your ad might show up in the very top position on the search results. The paid listings have a bolded “Ad” before their URL. 

With Google Ads or PPC, you will get instant results, meaning your ads will be put into Google’s auction as soon as they are created. A successful bid will allow your ad to be displayed when someone searches for your chosen keyword.

SEO, on the other hand, works differently. SEO is more challenging and it takes a bit of time to get to the top of the search results because you’ve got to build trust with Google. However, the effect of SEO is longer-lasting than Google Ads. 

Below is an example of an organic listing:

Both PPC and SEO are great marketing strategies – PPC gives you instant results, but SEO provides long-term effects and a better return on investment in the future.

If you want to drive more traffic from Google, and not sure where to start, you can choose both paid advertising and SEO. Once your website is optimised for search engines and is showing on the top spots in search results, you can stop running the pay-per-click advertising.

Essentials of Search Engine Optimisation

Search engines generally give relevant answers to users’ questions, so relevancy is the key here. This means not only you should use relevant keywords, your content and images should also be relevant to your target audience. 

Now, we’ll discuss the essentials of search engine optimisation; what are search engines looking for?  

Keyword research

Keyword research is the method of uncovering words or phrases that people type in search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. 

Keywords influence the SEO tasks that you carry out, including creating content topics, content promotion, on-page SEO and email outreach. Hence, keyword research is a crucial part of your overall SEO campaign.

Keywords act as a compass for SEO and determine your direction on whether you are making progress or not. Doing keyword research enables you to understand your target audience and gives insight into what particular words they type in search engines. 

High-quality content that meets your marketing goals are essential for effective SEO

High-quality content is a gateway for doing perfect SEO. How? It helps you rank on search engines and improves click-through rates. It is also considered a key factor in generating leads and increasing brand awareness. In short, a piece of content that meets your marketing goals is known as high-quality content. 

Remember, you need to create content for the human eyes, not just for search engines to understand, but your target audience needs to be attracted by the content you write. Hence, the content needs to be readable, compelling and useful to your target audience.

Link-building

Link-building is one of the most essential ranking factors for SEO. It is the practice of getting hyperlinks from other webpages to your website. A hyperlink is a link where users navigate between webpages. Trustworthy sites tend to link to other reliable sites that adds credibility to their sites. If you connect or link your website to authoritative pages, it will pass more value and authority to your website. 

How to do SEO to rank #1 in Google

There are multiple factors involved in obtaining the first position in Google rankings. 

First, you need to begin on-page SEO

  • Insert the target keyword at the beginning of your title because it will make your website relevant to what people search for.
  • Embed your target keyword naturally throughout your content.
  • Use relevant outbound links from high authority websites that will bring more attention to your website.
  • Write regular articles or blogs to boost your site’s exposure.
  • Also, pay more attention to your SEO’s technical aspects, i.e. ensuring your website is user friendly and loads fast. 

Then off-page SEO aspects:

  • Build links: Link building or backlinks give signals to Google that your website has credibility. Websites that have more backlinks tend to perform better in ranking on Google’s search results.
  • Guest Blogging: it helps you strengthen your relationships with other high authority websites and introduces your brand to a new audience.
  • Social Networking: the purpose of off-page SEO is to engage your social network to boost your content’s reach.
  • Content marketing also comes under off-page SEO as it helps convert customers into real buyers. 

What can SEO do for your business?

SEO lets you reach your target audience via search engines. If you have been producing valuable and engaging content, the search engines will irrefutably rank you higher in their listings.

The rule of thumb is to write content that people are looking for; it will build trust between you and the site visitors. The algorithm of search engines changes incessantly, so do the strategies and tactics of SEO. Thus, you need to keep SEO practices updated. 

Is SEO worth the money?

Some people think the quality of traffic matters; others consider quicker traffic is better, and some weigh up the cheapest traffic as the better option.

As far as the traffic speed is concerned, SEO doesn’t bring instant traffic to your blog or website; instead, it takes time. So, is SEO worth the money in this respect? 

If the speed of traffic is concerned, then you should go for PPC. 

However, if you want to improve your conversions, then choose SEO. SEO brings higher-quality site visitors to your websites compared to PPC. These high-quality site visitors are more likely to convert into sales because they tend to use specific, long-tail keywords when they’re closer to making a purchase decision or when they are using voice search. Hence, if you target the right keywords on the page, your conversions will be more likely higher with an organic listing than a paid advertising. 

Additionally, people usually don’t trust ads; hence they don’t click links containing ads. Over 70% of Internet users see organic listings because organic listings convey more trust than paid ads. 

Now, is SEO worth the money? If quality visitors are important, then yes, SEO is worth the money.

Get started with SEO today

To get started with SEO today, you need to find relevant keywords that have significant search traffic probability.

Then start optimising your webpages for search engines that Google recognises and eventually ranks you in its SERPs.

While doing SEO, you need to keep in mind that your ultimate target audience is real human, not Google. Thus, your content needs to be compelling for your target audience to read. 

Should you do SEO yourself or hire an agency? Which one is best?

You can get a lot of information online about how you can perform SEO. Doing SEO on your own may be a daunting task for you, especially if you are running a relatively large website that requires lots of time and effort. But if you have a small website and substantial time, you can perform SEO on an individual level.

Another option is getting the SEO company’s services because it has lots of experience in hands. They can give you instant and quick results. By hiring the right SEO company allows you to create a strategy tailored to your requirements.

Furthermore, you should select an experienced SEO agency clear about their pricing and past works. Also, it would help if you searched for their reviews, testimonials, and a portfolio. SEO companies like KWD will give you detailed reporting and a dedicated digital manager, so you’d have consistent interaction with him.

Conclusion:

If you are looking cost-effective strategy to show up on Google, then yes, SEO is worth it. SEO plays a significant role in attracting traffic and conversions to your website.

People looking to reach more customers must write content tailored to their audience and optimise their website for quality keywords. So with SEO, you can expand your online customer base and boost your brand authority online.

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