Does SEO Work?
Like everything in business, there are always varying opinions on the effectiveness of a particular product, service, procedure, or methodology. With SEO specifically, the negative opinions on the practice are warranted for reasons we will mention below but have unfortunately led to a bulk of misinformation surrounding the industry.
The first question to address is simple; does SEO still work in 2022?
The short answer is YES. Not only does it work, but it is also one of the central parts of modern technological life.
Google is one of the most popular companies in history because of SEO.
To solidify this point, let’s think about a process as simple as ordering pizza. Pizza companies that offer delivery handle their deliveries according to the distance between the requested delivery address and their pizza shop. If you are in their delivery radius, they will deliver. If not, you are out of luck.
Now imagine if every time you used Google to search a term like “Pizza near me”, Google only served results for pizza companies outside of your delivery radius. Not only would it make ordering pizza a research mission, but it would also render Google useless for that particular task.
Luckily for us, Google’s search engine algorithm is better than that, and we’ve come to expect the correct results from Google in situations like this every time. That is SEO in a nutshell. So not only does SEO still work in 2022, it is one of the most important parts of our everyday lives as internet users.
What does this mean for your business, and why has SEO gotten a bad wrap?
Misinformation In SEO
If SEO truly runs the world, why has it gotten such a bad wrap? The answer to this question is as simple as it is unfortunate; bad SEO just doesn’t work.
Business owners work hard to achieve their dream, and a business owner investing in a product or service to help their business grow is no small decision. So when something doesn’t work, business owners take it hard, and rightfully so.
SEO has gotten a mixed reputation lately because the business owners that get burned by bad SEO agencies and/or freelancers are very vocal about their bad experiences. SEO doesn’t have a barrier to entry. There are no industry-wide certifications, degrees, or laws that require an agency/freelancer to obtain a certain level of skill before reaching out to a client, and this can lead to low-skilled SEO specialists providing a bad product.
Remember, SEO is algorithm-based, so what works today may be damaging to your website tomorrow. We’ve seen this with the old SEO habit of stuffing keywords onto a page and hoping for the best. We know that SEO works because we know that Google is one of the biggest companies in the world. What is left to figure out is how to get SEO to work for YOU.
Here are 5 reasons why every business should utilize SEO in 2022, including yours.
#1.) Positioning & Authority
What we call Positioning here at Commerce Puzzle is also commonly known as Authority, which can be defined as the psychological impact that your business has on a consumer concerning your industry.
For example, the #1 dentist in your city has fantastic authority over his or her industry. They are considered trustworthy without each client feeling the need to verify their credentials because of the position that they maintain from their success (length of time in business, providing a good product/service, good customer reviews, etc).
Effective SEO is one of the fastest ways to build authority and improve your positioning. Google has done such a good job delivering results over the years that your appearance on the first page brings a tremendous amount of authority alone.
Combining that with good reviews and a website that provides up-to-date and helpful information (according to your industry) will give potential clients that feeling that your business is THE go-to business for your particular industry. Not only will this help you bring in more traffic, but it will also drastically impact your prices, the rate at which you close deals, client retention, and so much more.
How it’s done: Authority is achieved by ranking for a variety of keywords in your industry, not just the ones that you think will bring you more business. Remember, the first step to achieving a new customer is usually answering their question.
#2.) SEO Qualifies Customers For You
If you’re a salesman that specializes in selling luxury cars, you do not want to spend a ton of time with customers that don’t have the budget to purchase your product. Using the example of the salesmen, developing a system that brings in high-budget customers while avoiding attracting customers that cannot afford luxury vehicles is an example of the system qualifying a customer/client without the salesmen’s help.
SEO is a system that inherently qualifies customers/clients by targeting the exact demographic that needs your services by using the correct keywords and keyword combinations. This process brings in more customers that are looking for what you offer while bringing in less customers that have no intention of purchasing your product/service.
We can use an example of a 24-hour emergency plumbing business to see this in action. If a plumbing customer is having an emergency, they may Google something like “24-hour plumber” or “emergency plumber near me”. If the 24-hour plumbing business targets those keywords, the customers that land on the business’s website when Googling those keywords are already pre-qualified.
As more people continue to use the internet for their product and service needs, benefiting from the inherent qualifying in SEO is more important than ever.
#3.) SEO Has Long-Term ROI
When looking to invest in some type of marketing to grow your business, your return on investment is one of the most important aspects of your decision. Due to the long-term effects that SEO has when used effectively, it is hard to find another avenue of marketing that compares to SEO when evaluating ROI.
Advertising of all types can work for your business, but most methods of advertising share one fatal flaw. When the ad stops running, the ad stops working. SEO is different in this aspect because once you achieve ranking on the first page, it takes a tremendous amount of time and effort for a competitor to change that, if they ever do.
Along with this, consumers consider organic rankings an important factor when shopping around. Customers are 8 times more likely to click on an organic ranking than a paid advertisement. Considering the length of time businesses stay on the first page, as well as customers’ habit of visiting organically ranked websites over paid ads, it is easy to see why the ROI in SEO is in a league of its own.
#4.) SEO Generates New Customers
The real magic in SEO is that it provides everything mentioned above by constantly bringing in new leads, which will ultimately lead to new clients or customers.
The goal for marketing campaigns is to bring in more money, and SEO does this by allowing your website to be shown to the right customers, at the right time.
A good SEO campaign should result in a steady stream of new (pre-qualified) leads, keeping your phone ringing and your contact/chat system busy and profitable.
#5.) SEO Improves Your Brand
We’ve touched based on the importance of positioning and authority while examining how SEO impacts both, and improving the reputation and reach of your brand is a similar benefit.
Brand recognition is an important factor in the psychology of the customer, and a good SEO campaign improves this recognition by putting your brand in front of customers when they are ready for an impression.
A customer simply seeing your brand isn’t enough, it needs to be shown to them in a certain light. Not all attention is good attention. An easy example of this is bad reviews. The whole world seeing bad reviews about your business isn’t going to do anything for you. Ensuring the quality of your business is highlighted is what builds your brand.
SEO is unique because it works by concentrating on bringing all of the positive aspects of your business to the forefront. This includes things like good reviews, social proof, product pictures, service pictures, answering clients’ questions, and much more.
What Makes A Good SEO Campaign?
The easy answer is; it depends!
While all SEO campaigns have a few foundational technical aspects that need to be taken care of regardless of the business, the majority of the impact is made by taking a unique approach that your industry will dictate.
When hiring an agency to handle your SEO, the goal is to find an agency that is knowledgeable in the ever-changing SEO algorithms, marketing, brand reputation, sales, and much more.
At Commerce Puzzle, we aim to provide SEO services through long-term strategies that focus on positioning and algorithmic friendliness. Simply ranking your website for as many keywords as possible isn’t enough. Finding the right strategy to make sure that your business is gaining profit from your SEO investment is what is important. Reach out to us today to see how we can help!
