Since Google’s dramatic changes in the last year, many small businesses are shifting their SEO tactics. Many are revising the amount they spend on their SEO efforts and are resisting the need of the hour to increase their SEO budget. Here are four key reasons why all small business owners should carefully reconsider this move.
1. Google won’t stand for SEO Tactics Anymore
Google has laid down its laws regarding SEO tactics like keyword stuffing, article spinning, excessive bookmarks, paid links, reborn domains, thin content, and duplicate content. Things like these just don’t cut it anymore. It is important therefore, that you increase the quality of your efforts for continued success in SEO.
2. It is Expensive to Recover from Google Updates
Google constant updates can be quite a cost-intensive process for many small businesses to recover from. But this depends from issue to issue. Technical issues that are quite easy to fix should be addressed ASAP with Webmaster Tools and duplicated content should be removed immediately. Edit titles that are keyword-stuffed. Thin content must be replaced with real content marketing.
Bad link building and other such off-site issues are hard to fix. Content marketing should be embraced by small businesses rather than bad-link building. They must get creative and experiment with newsjacking. These activities can save money in the long run. Business owners with foresight are seen to be spending more on high quality services and SEO so that they can benefit from it in the long run.
3. SEO and Marketing have Merged into a Single Entity
There are many business owners who hire SEO firms to take care of their strategies for them and then dump the onus entirely on those agencies., forgetting to intervene with their own ideas and suggestions. Remember, one of the first laws of business process outsourcing, is to outsource process and execution, but maintain performance monitoring and accountability yourself.
You must understand that SEO is not really a technical exercise, but is starting to become a single entity where marketing and public relations are concerned. Smart business owners are slowly understanding the role that SEO plays in our digital world.
Therefore, SEO is being amplified in all marketing activities. Actively being involved in the SEO process is great. It is important for every employee to maintain a “work” Twitter account so that they can share blog posts, industry news, and company specials. This helps spread content as this type of integrated SEO marketing execution is the future.
4. SEO ROI is High
All data points to the fact that SEO is a sterling investment. Therefore, avoid looking for the cheapest SEO efforts, but keep in mind the return they can make on their money if they spend more:
- SEO is a very high ROI activity.
- The cost-per-lead for SEO is still viable.
- Google has tightened the requirements for high-quality SEO quite significantly.
- There are many have big efficiencies for integrated marketing strategies.