3 Reasons why SEO is one of the Best Investments for your Business

Over the past few years many misconceptions have emerged concerning Search Engine Optimization. But which are some of the most misleading thoughts we have heard about SEO during the last year or so?

“SEO is dead; the social media guru proclaimed.”

“I don’t want SEO. I just want a good looking website similar to my competitor’s one.”

“Just built it and they will come.”

Such misconceptions still reside inside the heads of online marketing experts, business owners and business executives as a part of an overall digital mindset.

While I don’t feel sorry for the online marketing gurus that are just parroting the latest buzz words, tactics and magnify the above plus 100 more misconceptions, I do feel strong about my mission; My duty to inform the well-intended businesses that SEO still stands in 2015 at the forefront of investments for businesses that wish to increase their online presence.

SEO is an Investment

We can define SEO as an investment as it takes time and money to attract quality organic traffic through search engines. If money and time are properly invested then SEO will increase ROI due to the following three critical factors:

Accumulation

If you are building a new website from scratch the initial organic traffic will be zero.

Even with websites that have been in existence for years, the organic traffic can remain quite low if no or improper SEO strategy has been implemented. 

And even though this may sound very discouraging, in reality it is a very positive thing for small businesses that are willing to implement a long term SEO strategy.

The reason for this is the compound rate effect and how it relates to SEO. For the websites of small businesses it is not uncommon to experience a 30%, 50% or even 100% growth in organic traffic per year.

So, imagine that even if the website that you are working on has only 100 unique visitors from organic (SEO) traffic per month, it is quite realistic to expect that in 3-5 years this same website can have 500, 700 or even over 1.000 visitors per month. This can be achieved with the implementation of continuous “white-hat” SEO actions due to the compound rate effect that helps websites accumulate increasingly higher levels of organic traffic over time with the same amount of SEO efforts.

Multiplication

As users we tend to perform our research through search engines by using many different keyword combinations so as to fulfill our needs.

While there is no sure-fire way to know beforehand the exact queries (search terms) that each user will enter into a search engine; what you can do is take advantage of the multiplier effect and essentially rank your website for thousands of search terms while targeting only a much smaller subset of these phrases.

In order to achieve that you have to exploit search engine algorithms to your advantage. While this sounds quite illegal and black-hat all it actually means is to invest in a long term “white-hat” SEO plan.

A well SEO optimized website for a certain subset of keyword terms that are relevant to the website’s niche is going to automatically reproduce 100s of different keyword terms that your website will rank for.

Longevity

Anyone that has active paid campaigns, like a Google Adwords campaign, knows that in the moment that the campaigns are off, the paid traffic that flows to the website dries up as well.

In contrast, an investment on SEO produces long term traffic that can be retained, after it has been built, even with minimal efforts in certain niches.

Even in competitive niches the most difficult part is to grow the SEO traffic for early stage websites or for websites that haven’t performed any SEO actions for years.

On the other hand well optimized websites with active SEO management can dominate the SERPs rankings much easier for the long haul with a certain level of SEO actions.

In conclusion, the accumulation factor through the compound rate effect will allow organic (SEO) traffic to pile up as the time progresses. The multiplication factor will allow the keyword terms to multiple automatically and as a result your website’s “keyword terms army” will grow and dominate the SERPs as time unfolds. Finally, the longevity factor will enable SEO traffic to produce (pay) dividends in the form of future – long term – organic traffic.

This trifecta of factors proves that SEO is rightfully considered as one of best investments for your business…and is still very much alive!

For More Info about Why SEO is Best for your Business

The World’s Quickest (Authentic) SEO & Marketing Audit In 12+1 Steps

I am, according to those who know me, a very structured person. In order to function, I have to live by spreadsheets, task lists and processes. Without them, I’m lost. It’s just life. Isn’t everyone like that?

But despite my obsession with structure and process, I don’t like giving clients a one-size-fits-all web marketing campaign. It just doesn’t make sense. Every website is different and has different needs; therefore, the online marketing plan will have to be different as well.

The problem is, you really can’t know what any particular site’s needs are until after you’ve gone through and performed a thorough site audit — and that can take upwards of 5-20 hours depending on the site.

We can’t really give away several hundreds of dollars worth of work each time we get a request for a proposal — but we won’t do cookie-cutter, either. Quite the conundrum!

I’m sure we are not all that different from many other SEOs that will perform a quick assessment of a site in order to provide some specific feedback to the prospect. But we always want to make sure our assessments are meaningful. We don’t want to just say, “Hey, look at us, we know something!” We want to put together a proposal that addresses many of their marketing needs, so they understand that we truly have a grasp of what needs to be done.

Yeah, we could run the site through a couple tools that spit out some basic SEO information, but they can — and likely do – get that from anyone else. Instead, why not put a bit more effort into your initial audits, without breaking the bank on time?

12+1 Website Audit Steps

Below are 12 key SEO/marketing areas to assess — plus a quick PPC review — when drafting a proposal for prospective clients (or for any reason, really). When reviewing each of these areas, you should be able to uncover some definite actionable tasks and get a broader understanding of the site’s overall marketing needs.

1. Keyword Focus

One of the first things to look at is the overall keyword optimization of the site. Some sites have done a decent job writing good title tags and meta descriptions — others, not so much. Look through several pages of the site, glancing at tags, headings and content to see if keywords are a factor on those pages or if the site is pretty much a blank slate requiring some hardcore keyword optimization.

2. Architectural Issues

Next, look at global architectural issues. Things you can look at quickly are broken links (run a tool while you’re doing other assessments), proper heading tag usage, site and page spiderability, duplicate content issues, etc. None of these take too much time and can be assessed pretty quickly. Some of the solutions for these are quick and some aren’t; and undoubtedly, once you start digging deeper you’ll find a lot more issues later.

3. Navigation Issues

Does the navigation make sense for the site? Look to see if it’s too convoluted or maybe even too simplistic. You want visitors to easily find what they are looking for without being overloaded with choices and options. Determine if the navigation needs some tweaking or all-out revamping.

4. Category Page Optimization

Product category pages can have all kinds of problems, from poorly implemented product pagination to a lack of unique content. Look at each of these pages from the perspective of value and determine if a visitor or search engine will find any unique value on the page. You might need to add some content, product filtering options, or better product organization to make the page better for both visitors and search engines alike.

5. Product Page Optimization

Product pages can be tricky. Some searchers might look for a product name, a product number or a specific description of what the product can do. Make sure your product page content addresses each of these types of information searchers. You want to make sure the content of the product pages is largely unique, not just on your site, but across the web, as well. If not, there may be a lot of work ahead of you.

6. Local Optimization: Off-Site

Sites that are local, rather than national, have an entirely different set of criteria to analyze. For local sites, you need to see if they are doing a good job with their citations, maps, listings and other off-page signals. You don’t have to do an exhaustive check; a quick look at some of the main sites that assist with local signals should do.

7. Local Optimization: On-Site

Aside from off-page local signals, you should also look at the on-page optimization of local keywords. This often goes one of two ways: either there is very little local optimization on the page or far too much, with tons of local references crammed into titles, footers and other areas of the site. Assess the changes you’ll need to make, either way, to get the site where it needs to be.

8. Inbound Links

No assessment would be complete without at least looking at the status of the site’s inbound links, though you’ll have to dig a bit to get some information on the quality of the links coming in. It helps to do the same for a competitor or two so you have some basis of comparison. With that, you’re better able to see what needs to be done to compete sufficiently.

9. Internal Linking

Internal linking can be an issue, outside of navigation. Is the site taking advantage of opportunities to link to their own pages within the content of other pages? Rarely does each page of a site stand alone, but instead should be a springboard of driving traffic to the next page or pages based on the mutual relevance of the content.

10. Content Issues

This is a bit more of an in-depth look at the site’s content overall. It’s not about the amount of content, but the quality of the content throughout the site. Assessing the content’s value will help you identify problem pages and determine whether there is a need to establish an overall content strategy.

11. Social Presence

Social presence matters, so jump in and see where the brand stands in the social sphere. Do they have social profiles established? Is there active engagement on those profiles? Is social media being used as an educational tool or as a promotional tool? These things matter a great deal, especially when determining the course of action that needs to be taken.

12. Conversion Optimization Issues

Web marketing is not all about traffic. If you’re getting traffic but not conversions, then it doesn’t matter how good the “SEO” is. Look through the site for obvious conversion and usability issues that need to be fixed or improved. Just about every site can use conversion optimization, it’s more obvious (and urgent) for some sites than others. This assessment helps you determine if your time is better spent here or somewhere else.

Bonus: PPC Issues

The items above primarily deal with website and optimization issues. But if a PPC campaign is running, take a look at that and make sure it was set up and is being executed optimally. Many people don’t believe PPC can be profitable. Most of the time it’s not, but only because of poor management. If there is room for improvement with PPC, you’ll want to know.

It’s Just A Starting Point

Of course, you can spend hours assessing each of these areas, but that’s not the point. A quick 5-10 minute look into each of these areas can give you a wealth of information that you can use to improve the site.

This is the starting point, but as you dive into each of these areas, more opportunities will arise. The point is, you have to start somewhere. This is the most authentic quick SEO and marketing review you can give, without getting lost in the details or in an endless pit of time.

For More Information about  worlds-quickest-authentic-seo-marketing-audit