Search engine optimization (SEO) is an essential part of any comprehensive marketing strategy. Most businesses typically invest at least 10% of their annual marketing budget into this strategy due to its potential to drive long-term growth. However, most businesses have at best a superficial understanding of how SEO works. Additionally, there are several costly and frustrating myths about SEO that need to be dispelled if business owners are to see a solid ROI on their efforts.
Myth: SEO is just about putting the right keywords on your website.
Fact: SEO is 29% It's one of the top trends marketers are leveraging, yet many companies don't understand how it works. To understand SEO, you first need to understand Google's mission. Not Google's algorithm, but its mission. It's very simple. Google wants to connect users with the most relevant, authoritative, and right answers to their queries. If Google can do that, users will keep clicking ads and Google will make money.
With the mission in mind, your business website needs content that answers the questions relevant users are asking. If a Google user is looking for a lawyer after a car accident, your law firm's website needs to have enough content to answer the questions the user is asking. And that content needs to be accurate.
Additionally, your website needs to be reliable and technically sound. SEO requires a lot of technical expertise, which is why most businesses choose to work with an SEO agency.
Myth: Every business needs to use SEO to be successful.
Fact: SEO isn’t for everyone. Depending on a company’s budget, size, geographic market competition, and other considerations, SEO may not be right for every business.
Any business considering SEO needs to have realistic expectations from the start. If you're a startup in a large market with dozens of existing competitors, you'll need an aggressive marketing budget to run a successful SEO campaign.
Lindsay BusfieldOne leading SEO expert in the legal marketing industry states, “If you think of SEO as real estate, the closer you are to a major city, the more it will cost to rank. This is because you need more content and domain authority to rank in Google. So, to succeed in your industry using SEO, you'll need to either adjust your budget to fit your market or relocate your business to a location with less competition.”
While SEO can provide a great ROI for some businesses, others are better off investing in other types of marketing campaigns.
Myth: SEO is an add-on service
Fact: There are many marketing agencies that offer SEO as an add-on service for a few hundred dollars. However, many of these agencies fail to deliver meaningful results. They may add your business to directories and add a few keywords to your metadata, but they won't actually make a difference in search results, especially in a saturated market.
For most businesses to have a successful SEO campaign, they will need to work with an SEO agency that specializes in this form of marketing. This is especially true in niche industries such as law and medicine, which have special regulations regarding how Google ranks these websites on their search results pages. In these highly regulated industries, working with an SEO agency that specializes in that specific niche will give you better results than a general marketing company.
Myth: SEO works instantly
Fact: SEO takes time. In some cases, SEO takes a long time. Depending on your industry, market, and company budget, SEO can take anywhere from six months to a year or even longer to see results. This makes it a hurdle for small businesses to invest, as around 80% of agencies only work on a monthly contract basis.
But businesses that can invest in SEO over the long term can see an exceptional return on their investment.
“For a lot of law firms that we work with, a typical case is worth around $2,000. Obviously, some cases are worth a lot more than that. If they're investing $10,000 a month in SEO and they're getting 10 new cases a month, they're making an incredible profit,” Busfield said.
https://ahrefs.com/blog/seo-pricing/