It’s now standard behaviour for us to use the internet as a go-to to learn, entertain, and buy. Many businesses transitioned their focus to an online approach due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and lots are continuing with this approach due to successes they’ve seen and because of the way that consumers buy from businesses.
However, with lots of businesses focusing on their digital approach, it’s getting harder to stand out from competitors.
That’s why many businesses are now investing in SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) as a way of being found online. When done correctly, SEO helps businesses to sit higher in the results of the search engines, such as Google, for targeted searches/keywords, often resulting in higher traffic from their target audience.
SEO can be a fantastic investment for your business, but there are a lot of misconceptions about it. In this article, we’re going to cover:
- What is the purpose of SEO?
- Expectations Vs. Results
- How to use SEO to help your business
What is the purpose of SEO?
Put simply, SEO helps businesses rank higher in the search results for specific search terms/keywords. This allows businesses to focus on an audience that is searching for the products/services they offer, increasing the chances of converting them into a sale.
Let’s look at a quick example.
If you run a marketing agency that specialises in graphic design (a bit like us!), you may find lots of traffic from people searching for a ‘marketing agency’. These are people who could be looking for copywriting, video production, billboards, and anything else that falls under the term ‘marketing agency’, therefore may not be relevant for you.
However, if you were to utilise SEO and focus on more tailored keywords, such as ‘graphic design marketing agency’, you’re more likely to appear higher in the search results for people who are looking for those particular keywords as opposed to any other forms of marketing.
As a result, you may find an increase in traffic to your website from people who are searching for what you do, improving your chances of getting your business in front of the right people.
Expectations vs. Results
There are a lot of misconceptions surrounding SEO. We’ve captured some of the common expectations that we’ve come across, and the real results that you should expect when you invest in SEO.
SEO gets you on the front page of Google.
Whilst that’s always the goal, it’s never guaranteed. There are lots of different factors at play that affect the results of SEO, including:
- Search engines are constantly changing their algorithms
- Your competitors may invest in SEO and could rank higher than you
- People can behave differently, and sometimes unexpectedly.
Therefore, no matter how hard SEO agencies work to get you to the very top of the results, there are no shortcuts or guaranteed routes there.
SEO brings in new customers.
SEO isn’t a marketing strategy to directly bring in new customers; it’s designed to help you bring quality traffic to your website. By ‘quality’, we mean people who are interested in the topics that you share. If you’re a lawn mowing company in Nottingham, traffic from America isn’t going to be useful for your business. People who are looking for information about lawn mowing in Nottingham, however, are a lot more beneficial.
Once the visitors reach your website, it’s your website’s job to educate them about how you can help them and entice them into clicking a call-to-action, leading them to the next step in the customer journey.
Why not read about 7 Great Tips to Improve Your Website?
SEO works quickly.
If you’re investing in SEO because you want to see a fast spike in traffic to your website, you’re investing in SEO for the wrong reasons.
On average, you should expect SEO strategies to take between 6 months and 1 year before you even start to see an increase in traffic to your website. This is because there are lots of different factors to SEO, so it takes time to build an effective approach for your business.
Once you start seeing results the focus shifts to maintaining and growing traffic to your website, which can happen relatively quickly, but it’s crucial to get the foundation blocks in place first.
SEO is essential for all businesses.
It depends on what the goals of your business are. If you’re looking to be found on search engines and get quality traffic to your website, then yes, SEO is essential for achieving this.
However, if your goals are different, then perhaps a different marketing strategy is more appropriate. Not all businesses use a website as a primary lead generation tool, so it’s important to understand what the purpose of SEO is and whether the end results are the results that you’re looking for.
For some more ideas that may suit your business better, take a look at How to Be Visible Online.
How to use SEO to help your business
If you’re looking to be found online and you want people visiting your website, then SEO is a no-brainer. When done correctly, it gets your business in front of people who are looking for the information you’re sharing and the products/services that you offer.
Here at Weave Studios, we have extensive experience in helping our clients get found in search results. We offer two approaches to managing SEO for our clients; a DIY package where we’ll give you everything you need to succeed, and a managed package where we’ll handle all the monitoring and actions to climb your business up the search ranks.
Our DIY Package
In our DIY packages, we equip you with the tools and the knowledge to improve your search engine rankings. As part of this package, you’ll receive:
- A list of easy-to-follow, tailored actions to help boost your SEO rankings
- Access to an SEO Strategy Builder, allowing you to focus on the results that matter most for your business
- Full SEO reporting to help you see what’s working well and what needs improving
- Help with your content when needed
- Tracking your competitors so you can see what they’re doing and react accordingly.
Our Managed Package
SEO is an investment of time as much as it is a financial one. If you’d prefer to leave your SEO in the hands of experts, we offer a managed-for-you package. We’ll handle all the SEO tasks for you to give you peace of mind in knowing that your website is in good hands.
For more information about our SEO services, take a look at our packages or contact our team to have a friendly chat about your website and what you’re looking to achieve.